Beloved

I found it difficult to understand the movie, and some of the dialogue, but it mattered little. I wish I'd read the book--perhaps I will, but I don't think so. A film must stand by itself, or it is not a film.

"Beloved" has long passages of greatness. First, it contains one of the best and most fascinating performances I've seen in years, given by Thandie Newton. She spent most of "Gridlock'd" in a coma, unfortunately, and that's the most notable role she's had until this one. Her first speaking (if you'll call it that) line is gripping, frightening, and amusing, and she plays a mental defective in a manner which I've never seen before. She has the loudest, rudest character, and many actresses would be put off by some of the things she must do throughout the film. However, our attention is also held by her quiet moments, as well as a few shots where the camera is content to gaze tranquilly into her beautiful eyes.

That camera is conducted with the supreme artistry of one of my favorite photographers, Tak Fujimoto, who was with director Jonathan Demme since the late '70s. Fujimoto is in love with earth and flesh tones here, but he also shoots his actors' eyes as if they were a part of the human body we'd never really noticed before, and wanted to give them the attention they deserved. It's a great approach to cinematography that pays off an infinite number of times, from the first major shot, of Sethe and Paul D reuniting (as Winfrey and Glover look at each other, they look not just into the camera, but directly into OUR eyes), to the last major shot, Jason Robards (God love him) staring in horror at a most unusual scene in front of Sethe's home.

This film is no "The Color Purple", with Welles-influenced camera angles and sacchirine-induced uplift. "Beloved" is a long, difficult, often off-putting film which doesn't really provide the big payoff at the end. This isn't necessarily good, but it isn't necessarily bad, either. Highlighted sequences include two truly remarkable sermons in the woods by Baby Suggs (Beah Richards--Oscar-nominated in '68 for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"), a horrifying opening which features the most gruesome use of animatronics to date, and the notorious flashback which explain what has haunted Sethe all these years, and who Beloved really is.

I compare this film with "The Thin Red Line". Both come from notable directors, are based on famous novels, used huge budgets, and were very long. Both films disappointed many, many people. Most importantly, however, they both had parts which were greater than the whole, occasional strokes of genius, and were made by men who took the art of filmmaking seriously.

Beloved is one of the best movies of the last decade. I have read many, many reviews which seem to have been written by those who have little to no idea of just how complex and difficult Toni Morrison's original novel can be. Of course Beloved (the movie) will be long, and of course it will be emotionally draining and even confusing - the book was! That said, I loved the novel and the film version of it, which follows the original material almost verbatim. (To try and change the story would be to tamper needlessly with a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning book). I am no Oprah nut but she obviously had a deep respect and understanding for the story, which is evident in her surprisingly understated acting. Thandie Newton was simply amazing; I am glad I watched the film if for nothing else than the chance to see her performance (which, to be honest, has helped a key facet of the book make sense for me). The production design is flawless, and, as always, Jonathan Demme proves he's more than above average as a director. If you like pulp trash and want your movies dumb, loud, and shallow, avoid the movie version of Beloved. But if you're looking for a magnificently acted and gorgeously produced film, see this movie the first chance you get. I'm very glad I did.

Famous feminist writer, Toni Morrison, deserved to win a Pulitzer Prize for her historical novel that represents Black American's struggles with slavery and freedom.

How anyone, let alone hundreds of voters here, could rate this marvelously directed & performed film a 1 is beyond me. Oprah Winfrey is the leading lady of the cast who ultimately demonstrates what is an Oscar-entitled performance.

Sethe, the character Winfrey plays is one of the most complex & challenging ones that I can imagine for any actor to take upon themselves. In fact, Winfrey stayed so true to her character, in my mind, she became Sethe: a former slave mother, a million & a half miles away from a Oprah the billionaire guest show host in Chicago! Danny Glover also gave a grand performance that was equally far from any other role I've seen him play. He & Winfrey together are a fine big screen match who I hope are in movies with Pulitzer prize winning plots as thick as is this one.

Beloved is a novel that relies heavily upon it's own language and the brilliant writing style in order to have its effect on the reader. One of its strongest points (and these are countless) is that it is about the period of American history near the end and immediately following slavery, when Negroes were still considered sub-human. It presents the story of the tremendous suffering of a few slaves during that time (and, indeed, during their entire lives), but the important thing is that the book does this with a startlingly small amount of graphic images and direct depictions of violence or cruelty. Because the movie is a visual account of the novel, it is unable to do this.

Sethe is a former slave who has suffered more hardships than most human beings (although, given the allusions to life on Sweet Home, she has not suffered even there the most), and the novel is about her life experiences and those of the slaves close to her. The most glaring problem here, which may have been unavoidable, is that Sethe's flashbacks could not be presented in the film in any other way than as brief, shocking images filled with violence and blood. This is not a problem because of anything to do with gratuitous violence, but because in the novel, Sethe lets out brief snapshots of her memories (which are too painful to directly tell as stories of her earlier life) as though she does not quite realize that she's doing it, then immediately stops herself when the pain hits her. The magnitude of her suffering is reduced to split-second sequences of brutality, which are presented as such but with no explanation or hint that they are that short because they are too painful to be any longer.

Besides the trouble that arises from having huge Hollywood superstars play the slaves here (which is a negligible fact because the performances are so powerful), the performance of Beloved, the title character, is entirely off the mark. Beloved embodies the epitome of Sethe's painful memories. She is Sethe's daughter (although not the only child) that Sethe was forced to kill to prevent them from going into slavery (thus providing the most significant act that allows us, indeed, FORCES us, to judge her as a person). When she is reborn from the river, she stumbles to 124 Bluestone Road, the house in which the majority of the movie and novel take place, and back into the lives of Sethe and Denver, the daughter that barely escaped the violence of her own mother's hands.

The problem with the performance is that, while it's true that Beloved was killed when she was two years old, and has not matured a day since then except physically, she does not act like a two-year-old child. The Beloved in Toni Morrison's novel has the maturity of a two-year-old and the physical, motherly needs of a two-year-old (most evident in her urgent need to be with Sethe), but she does not have the demeanor of one. I am reminded of John Malkovich's performance as Lennie Small in `Of Mice and Men.' Lennie Small is a huge, hulking man in the novel with a miniscule intelligence. He has the intellectual capacity and maybe even some of the same values as a seven or eight-year-old (such as `tenning dem wabbits'), but he doesn't act like one. Thandie Newton remembers in her performance that Beloved was a small child when she died, but she overuses it to the point where she drowns out much of the rest of the effect that she has on the story and those around her. Most importantly, her overdone performance distracts attention from the purpose that she is meant to serve in the story.

Beloved is the supernatural element of Toni Morrison's novel, who is there not because this is a supernatural story but because she represents the magnitude of the suffering that went on during slave times. She is a spiritual manifestation that requires no explanation except for her cause of death, and Newton's outlandish performance in the role reduces that effect because her behavior is not explained.

The film stays true to the magnitude of sorrow presented in the novel, but it transforms it from the slow, relentless, and immensely complicated version presented in the novel and into one of visuals and performance, which challenges successful actors to present the lives of people who have suffered more than most people alive can imagine. The film succeeds grandly in presenting the society in which Negroes were not humans but property. Sethe did not murder her children, she destroyed property that does not belong to her. But the important thing that is lost here is the shock that is delivered by the subtlety of the content. The emotion of the novel is enormously powerful, and yet it is all so subdued that even white people are almost not in it at all. They are little more than a lumbering presence that never shows its face (except for the single scene in the book that is presented from the point of view of white people), but is always looming dangerously just over the horizon. Beloved is a story that is too powerful to be told directly, because if it is, it will be weakened because the danger and the suffering becomes tangible, something that you can see and then forget about. The short descriptions and bits of events in the book force the mind to circle and work them until the full impact of their true meaning is realized.

In some ways it was great to see how true the film was to the source material, often capturing the powerful emotions and the horrific effects slavery can have on African-Americans at the time. However, because it is so faithful it makes the film almost 3 hours long so it does drag at points.

Thandie Newton's portrayal of Beloved is rightly weird and disturbing, whilst Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover were very convincing for me as Sethe and Paul D respectively.

The main issue with the film is that knowledge of the book is almost essential going in, as I can see how it may be difficult to grasp exactly what is going on in the narrative without that prior information. Other than that I feel it truly captures the essence of Morrison's novel and can be very thought-provoking at times.