The Feast of All Saints

I read Rice's novel with interest, and became quite enchanted with its characters and heartbreaking tale based on historical truths.

However, I was simply APPALLED at this disastrous adaptation. The casting was based merely on physical appearance, and not acting talent (with the obvious exception of Peter Gallagher, who was neither blond-haired, or able to act his way out of a wet paper bag). The cast's embarrassingly clumsy and inconsistent attempts at affecting a French accent was hilarious, but not in an entertaining way. I found myself wincing through this muddled and melodramatic tripe, and was surprised I made it to the end.

A warning to fans of the novel - stay away from this one.

We tend to forget that the master/slave context of the past centuries lead to more than well-tended estates, powered by large groups of enslaved people, and a lot of money for the white owners. It lead to a group of people caught in the middle - the offspring resulting from slave owners interferring with their female slaves.

Some of these children just became more slaves, and others were free...but free and coloured, which back then meant anything but, relative to the lot of their sires.

A class formed around these offspring - the gens de couleur libre or free people of colour - and that class was able, to a certain extent, to own property, raise themselves from downtrodden to educated, and to attain a comparative dignity. That is to say, they weren't slaves, but they were still exploited to a certain extent.

Often, the women lived as mistresses to the white plantation masters and men of wealth, set up in their own houses, with allowances, schooling paid for for their children, and a kind of gentility, dependent on the respectability they chose to impose on their families. In essence, they were prostituting themselves to ensure their own prosperity, and relative independence from labour - an arrangement called plaçage.

Feast of All Saints is a beautifully written story about the children of one such woman, the result of just such an arrangement with a local gentleman, and the people who touched on their lives, in both a negative and a positive way. The tale was an eye-opener for me, a New Zealander, with no real conception of the black/white lines, let alone that grey area in the middle where the gens de couleur libre trod gingerly.

The characters are very three dimensional, and have been well-rendered in this adaption of the novel, by Anne Rice. The parts are well-cast, the costumes are wonderful, and the brutal way the lines are drawn out, with the blurred areas made all the more distinct by the conflicts the protagonists go through. The gens de couleur libre could not marry the whites, the slaves could not help themselves, and the whites, even the sympathetic ones, couldn't bear to face the economic reality of doing right by the people they depended on.

I recommend this story, both the novel and the miniseries, to everyone, unreservedly. If you can't handle the truth you'll cringe and cower through some parts, as one injustice after another is meted out on those of colour, both by their white oppressors, and by their own people. Bear in mind though that this is nothing more than reality, and this tale is an absorbing way to learn about it.

I know it may sound callous, but this miniseries both entertained me and enthralled me, despite the sour taste I found in my mouth at what went on, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Watch it. If not read up on the period, because there's a lesson to be learned from it all.

This movie was so badly written, directed and acted that it beggars belief. It should be remade with a better script, director and casting service. The worst problem is the acting. You have Jennifer Beals on the one hand who is polished, professional and totally believable, and on the other hand, Ri'chard, who is woefully miscast and just jarring in this particular piece. Peter Gallagher and Jenny Levine are just awful as the slave owning (and keeping) couple, although both normally do fine work. The actors (and director) should not have attempted to do accents at all--they are inconsistent and unbelievable. Much better to have concentrated on doing a good job in actual English. The casting is ludicrous. Why have children of an "African" merchant (thus less socially desirable to the gens de couleur society ) been cast with very pale skinned actors, while the supposedly socially desirable Marcel, has pronounced African features, including an obviously dyed blond "fro"? It's as if the casting directors cannot be bothered to read the script they are casting and to chose appropriate actors from a large pool of extremely talented and physically diverse actors of color. It's just so weird! This could be a great movie and should be re-made, but with people who respect the material and can choose appropriate and skilled actors. There are plenty of good actors out there, and it would be fun to see how Jennifer Beals, Daniel Sunjata and Gloria Reuben would do with an appropriate cast, good script and decent direction.

I am normally skeptical about watching films or mini-series based on novels because the screenplay is always different from the novel. Fortunately, I was wrong! The screenplay was very close to the novel (I guess it helps that the author was an executive producer and writer, huh?)

The cast is outstanding. I can't describe how much I enjoyed seeing such a wide range of actors (from Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee to Robert Ri'chard and Bianca Lawson).

The location setting... I was expecting to see the homes and cottages I imagined in my mind: what I saw on screen was slightly different. However, it wasn't enough to make me dislike the mini-series.

I recommend this for anyone who has read the novel: you will not be disappointed if you have. 8 out of 10 stars!

This movie was a fascinating look at creole culture and society that few African Americans are aware. My own two children are by products of a paternal grandmother whose father was a member of the gens de couleur libre and a black skin woman whose parents were ex-slaves. He married outside of and against his culture and was cut off from all of his family except for one sister who took pity on her brothers plight; raising 8 children during the great depression of 1929; providing the family with food whenever she could. Of course she clandestinely aided this family fearing for her own ex-communication. My daughter was fascinated by the movie. We have made it a part of our library.