The colour purple
By Carlos, Nerea, Aroa and Maite
Table of contents Introduction
2
Poster
3
Trailer
4
Dialogue
5
Film, director and cast
6
Film synopsis
6
Synopsis
6
Structure
7
Point of view
7
Tone
8
Setting
8
Sound
8
Genre
8
Characters description Nerea´s major character
9 9
Aroa´s major character
10
Maite’s major character
11
Carlos’ major character
12
Conclusion
13
Bibliography
13
1. Introduction In this project we are going to analyze films. Firstly, we had to do an individual project analyzing the film that we chose. And secondly, we worked in groups. In this part we talked about the poster, the trailer and a dialogue of the film. We chose “The color purple” because it's very interesting for us. And because we are keen on the films that are about social problems.
2. Poster
The poster transmits the theme of the film, with a sentence “ It's about life. It’s about love. It's about us” because those are the feelings of the major character. The colour of the image is purple according to the title. The backlighting gets the feeling of loneliness because we can see a girl sitting on a chair, reading a letter, and in the background we can see the dusk and in the foreground we see the woman, in the centre of the image because it’s the most important character in the film. The poster is all an image, and there's only a sentence that describes so good the film.
3. Trailer In the official trailer, the director, shows us the characters of the film. It appears different shots of the film, where we can meet the main characters, appear in this trailer. Firstly we can see the poster and a famous phrase of the film. After that, Celie and Nettie are playing in the field. Secondly, it shows us Albert laughing in the cafe. Thirdly, Shug Avery is in a room. And Old Mister appears too. It presents us Nettie when she was a girl. Then it shows us Harpo, a farmer. Sofia is then with their children. And finally Celie, that is the real main character of the film, appears In our opinion the director tries to give more importance to the characters, and not to the theme of the story, in special to Celie because she is the protagonist.
(Trailer:​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzGrDgu08r8​)
4. Dialogue Albert: Carlos Shug: Aroa Celie: Maite Sofia: Nerea Firstly, we can see Celie and Sofia, ten years before the second scene, running through a field. -Celie: (Enters into the room. She places the food on the table). I hope you’ll like it, Mister. -Albert: (He eats). Celie! This is so nauseating! You are bad in everything you do! -Celie: I’m so sorry Mister. -Sofia: Calm down, Albert. You can cook too. Why don’t you do it? -Celie: No, she is right, I will cook again. -Shug Avery: No, you don’t. -Sofia: Look, Celie, I entirely agree with you! -Shug Avery: Don’t touch her!! Over my dead body! -Albert: (beats Celie.) -Celie: All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men. -Albert: What the fuck are you saying Celie? Shut up and sit down. -Shug: Albert, you need to open your mind. Women aren’t objects. -Celie: I understand it now. I was subdued all my life because of fear.
5. Film, director and cast a. The film director is Steven Spielberg, he based the film in the book with the same name that Alice Walker wrote in 1983. She won the Pulitzer award the same year that she wrote it. Steven Spielberg is one of the most famous directors ever. He won two Oscars to the Best Director. He produced more than twenty films in his life. The cast of the film is: ● Celie, by Whoopi Wolberg ● Sofia, by Oprah Winfrey ● Albert Johnson, by Danny Glover ● Shug Avery, by Margaret Avery ● Nettie, by Akosua Busia ● Squeak, by Rae Dawn Chong ● Harpo Johnson, by Willard E. Pugh
6. Film synopsis a. Synopsis The story is about Celie, it is the beginning of the 20th century. Celie is 14 years old and is pregnant of her father. The story elapses about the following 30 years. Celie got married with a man that abuses physical and psychological of her. Celie's sister Nettie, sends her a lot of letters, but her husband hides it. The story is about three women that strive to get their independence from the men. And finally after much fight they get to be free. The principal theme of the film, in our opinion, is black women's rights.
b. Structure The events happen chronologically. It starts when Celie was 14 years old and ends when Celie and Nettie met again. In all the movie there is a narrator. She is Celie. There are two stories. The first one is the story that tells what happened with Celie, Albert and Nettie. In the second one, the protagonists are Sofia and his husband Harpo. The climax happened when all the family are at the table in Christmas. In this moment, Celie says to Albert that she will go with his sister. It means that she will go to Africa. This makes that the tension between them increases, but on the other hand it's the resolution. Whether she goes or not it is the end. For that reason it’s a closed end.
c. Point of view Celie is the only narrator. She discloses that she is a strong person, because she had to go with her sister. This was very complicated because she was black and woman. She fought against her husband. He was very authoritarian. They fight because Celie wanted just to be considered a person and not to live with fear because of his husband. In this movie there isn’t a voice over. You have to see what the characters do or say to understand it. Just when Sofia was arrested Celie is the person who informs us. This movie, for us, was created because they wanted to fight against racism and machismo, especially to protect girls.
d. Tone We didn’t see any kind of humor or ironies in this movie. We didn’t like the men that appear because they think they are the kings of the world and the women don’t do anything important.
e. Setting The action takes place in the past, years pass slowly. With the years Celie is more submissive but at the same time stronger. The conditions that are assumed in this movie are that black people are supposed to be inferior than white people and men are better than women.
f.
Sound In some scenes, the music creates a tension atmosphere and anguish for the spectators. In the film the music and the silences are very important because spectators are in a tension when they are watching the film.
g. Genre The film belongs to drama, because it is a classical tragic comedy.
7. Characters description a. Nerea´s major character
I’m going to talk about Albert. He is a bad person because he treated Celie as if she wasn’t anyone. He is very authoritarian and sexist. For him, it is always women’s fault. He wears a suit. If you compare Celie with Albert, you can see that Albert is superior just physically. This represents why, partly, all those facts happened. We learned about the character for what he says and does, because he says to Celie that he is late because of her, he wants to kill her, he hits her etc. The idea of this movie is that women are considered less important and it has to change. He is represented to let us see how much he complicated Celie’s life. Albert is realistically depicted. It’s a fact that men like him existed. It’s very hard, but true. He is described as a cruel man. It seems that he hasn’t feelings.
This character is very important, because he serves to make us think about the problem that women had in this period and without this character, this movie doesn’t represent those abuses. If you see the film, you can judge him because he is so evil, he thought that he had control over Celie and he did that Celie thought the same. This character is very consistent and believable because the actor is very good and represents his feelings as if he was living them and because those things happened in real life. He changed in the end of the film, because when he saw that he was alone, he discovered that he had a bad behavior all his life. He didn’t want to get married with a young girl in the end.
b. Aroa´s major character I’m going to talk about Harpo Johnson, Celie’s husband’s son and Sofia’s husband. Harpo is one of my favourite characters because he doesn’t like his father, he knows what is right and what is wrong, he doesn’t use violence, he wants that his wife to be free to do what she wants. Harpo is a friendly person and a very good boy. He wears working clothes in the field. But sometimes he wears a suit when he goes to an important place. Physically he isn’t much stronger than others, he was “one of the pile”. With this character we can learn that we shouldn’t do any kind of harm to anyone we love because we can lose him. Before, Celie had to take care of Harpo because he was Albert’s son and it was her work but afterwards he ended up being a kind of friend. Harpo was different from his father because he didn’t want to hit his wife, he loved her and he knew that it wasn’t necessary. I think this character is realistic because there are people that are like him, that respect others and don’t use violence to get anything. I think he is an insecure person because he talks as if he had fear and sometimes doesn’t look at others’ eyes when he is talking. When he hits Sofia because she didn’t obey him. And he did it because his father told him that he had to did it. I think Harpo is a believable character because he reminds me a lot of people that I know. Before, Harpo wants to be like his father but when he falls in love with Sofia he changes his point of view and he becomes a better person.
c. Maite’s major character The person that I am going to talk about is Celie. Celie is the protagonist of the story. She wore very poor clothes as if she were her fathers slave.The director makes her ugly and poor not like her husband’s lover. Who is an independent girl. The protagonist changes throughout the movie. At first it was a girl who was subjected to her father just like her sister, but in the end they (she and her sister) become independent women and they have new lives.
d. Carlos’ major character The character that I´m going to describe is Sofia, interpreted by Oprah Winfrey. Sofia is all that Celie isn’t, if she has something to say to her husband she says it. And if her husband fights her, she fights against to him too. She isn't a woman of her time, because she
thinks she isn't less
intelligent than her husband. She, most of the time, wears a dress and a straw hat. With this character, we can learn that we have to fight for our rights as she did. By how she acts we
learn that if a person humiliates us we musn’t
remain silent. This character, is realistic, because it is the story of a woman that wants the same rights that men. She is described as a hard woman, and this is important because her paper in the film is of a fighter woman. The character's traits and actions allow me to judge her because all that she does is the answer to something that happens to her. Her behavior is credible, because her situation is very typical in that time, but not many women try to change that situation like her. Sofia has the same behavior in all the film, always fighting for her rights.
8. Conclusion In this project we learned a lot about analysing films and we enjoyed so much recording the dialogue because we got into its characters.
9. Bibliography Aroa’s major character <https://bit.ly/2swSuSl> [Accesed June 03/2018] Carlos’ major character <https://bit.ly/2LZdlpA> [Accesed June 03/2018] Lago, Loly, “Working as a Script Writer. Group Work” <https://bit.ly/2LbGUTq> IES de Fene, Aula virtual [Accesed May 30/2018] Lago, Loly, “Working as a Script Writer. Individual Work” <https://bit.ly/2sppqfw> IES de Fene, Aula virtual [Accesed May 30/2018] Maite’s major character <https://bit.ly/2J8u2kB> [Accesed June 03/2018] Nerea´s major character <https://yhoo.it/2LktQLT> [Accesed June 03/2018] Poster <https://yhoo.it/2JnTtOm> [Accesed May 08/2018] The color purple <https://yhoo.it/2JfwEJx> [Accesed May 08/2018] Trailer <https://bit.ly/1C2SGYw> [Accesed May 26/2018]