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ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
“Beloved” a masterpiece for the 90’s
Exactly, what do we mean
when we tell our children we
love them?
"Beloved," a drama
starring the multi-talented
Oprah Winfrey, raises this
question and more.
In this thought-provoking
adaptation of Toni Morrison's
1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning
book, Winfrey plays Sethe, a
runaway slave living in rural
Ohio in 1873, who does all
within her power — even an
unspeakable act — to prevent
her children from
experiencing the humiliation
and degradation of slavery.
As years go by, Sethe tries
to tamp down all reminders of
her painful past, and hangs on
to life by a thread with her
surviving daughter, Denver
(Kimberly Elise).
Denver jealously guards
her relationship with her
mother, and is resentful of
Sethe's
relationship
with
Paul D
(Danny
Glover),
an old
friend
from the
past who
iropafafy
appears.
But it is a far greater force
that threatens to unravel the
peace and security of 124
Bluestone Road, a household
brimful of secrets.
Sethe, Denver and D
return from a day at the
carnival to find a mysterious
young girl, lying half-dead
against an old stump in the
front yard. Who is she? Where
did she come from? And is it
possible that she is Sethe's
long dead child, Beloved?
The new arrival threatens
Sethe's relationship with both
Denver and D. And while
Denver takes extreme care and
patience to help her grow, the
unknown guest increasingly
demands the attention of
Sethe.
He
fensicn
builds
to a
darrefc
dimax
when
the
pairfii
truths
are revealed, and old ghosts
are finally set free. No one is
left unaffected by the
aftershocks.
Returning to the silver
screen 13 years after her
captivating Oscar-nominated
performance in "The Color
Purple," Winfrey forces
"Beloved"'s audience to
grapple with issues such as
Continued on page 22
Returning to the silver screen 13 years
after her captivating Oscar-nominatec
performance in "The Color Purple,'
Winfrey forces "Beloved"'s audience tc
grapple with issues such as freedom, love
betrayal and desperation.
“I didn’t act in this
movie. Itra
Trc’tvrrrt
it ”
Continued from page 1
During her decade-long
wait, Winfrey went from being
a talk-show host to a globally
recognized household name
without missing a beat.
She produced and acted in
several TV miniseries, single-
handedly revived America's
interest in books by
introducing her book club, and
educated several Morehouse
students by donating over a
million dollars to the college.
But through it all, she
never lost sight of her dream.
After going through a
stage of interviewing Black,
women and foreign directors
because of the movie's subject
matter, Winfrey settled on
Jonathan Demme, a white
filmmaker whose credits
include the Oscar winners,
"Philadelphia" and "Silence of
the Lambs."
"I am not accepting any
criticism. I just won't accept
it," said Winfrey, when asked
if she is opening herself to the
kind of controversy that
greeted Steven Spielberg's
direction of "The Color
Academy-award winning director Jonathan Demme (left),
on the location of "Beloved," with Academy-award
nominated star Oprah Winfrey, who portrays Sethe, an iron-
willed former slave who must come to terms with her horrific
past and newfound freedom.
Purple."
"I don't believe that you
can live in a country where
you have demanded that
people respect you on the basis
of your own intellect and
commitment and service, and
then turn around and say, 'You
can't direct this because you
are white'," Winfrey
explained.
While "Beloved" was her
first time collaborating with
Demme, whom she described
as "the most exhilarating
person I have encountered,"
Winfrey had worked with co-
star Danny Glover before — in
"The Color Purple."
"Because "The Color
Purple" was my first acting
experience, I was traumatized
by it," said Winfrey. "I didn't
act in this movie. I transcended
it, I allowed [Sethe] to come
through me. That's what you
see on screen."
It wasn't easy for Winfrey.
Before the shoot, she enlisted
the assistance of historian
Anthony Cohen and partook
in a slave re-enactment in
Maryland along the
Underground Railroad route.
Cohen created a scenario
in which Winfrey was a once-
free Black woman, captured
and sold into slavery. Placed
on a plantation, Winfrey was
surrounded by actors playing
everyone from slaves to the
overseer — and left to fend for
herself.
Over the next few hours,
Winfrey worked in the fields,
saw another slave being sold
off the plantation, and
endured the overseer's verbal
humiliation.
"It was during that
process that I touched the root
of it, the root that I was
looking for — the part of me
that knew what it was like to
be a slave," Winfrey recalled.
Transformed by the
experience, Winfrey knew that
playing the character of Sethe
would be far different than
what she had initially
envisioned
Talking about the intense
mental preparation she
underwent, Winfrey said: "I
knew what the physicality of
slavery was, but compare that
to the knowledge that you
didn't have free will, that your
thoughts didn't really belong
to you, that you didn't have
the right to exist — that's the
scarring, that's the true scar. I
touched the place that was
slavery."
Throughout the filming of
the movie, Winfrey said she
would read the names and
prices of slaves off old lists, to
get through some of the
movie's more challenging
scenes.
"I would light a candle
and say their names before
every scene. 'I'm doing this
for Little John — [who was
sold for] $350. For Isabella —
$400,'" she said.
In describing her
transition from Sethe to
Oprah after the end of the
shoot, Winfrey said, "I came
out redeemed with a great
sense of self."
Winfrey believes
audiences will be similarly
touched by "Beloved," which
she insists is much more than
a film about slavery.
"It speaks to the heart of
anybody who has ever come
through tragedy and crises
and was able to see triumph on
the other side," she said. "It
speaks to anybody who has
ever dealt with difficulties,
and didn't know how they
would be able to free
themselves but believed that
'maybe I can.'"
Winfrey believed in her
dream. And it bore fruit.
"Now I'm like, 'Huh, if
you thought I could fly before,
watch me now,"' she joked.
And we will. After all, she
is Oprah and she's "Beloved"
by us all.
