Beloved (film)
From AwardAnnals
| Film: | Beloved |
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| Director: | Jonathan Demme |
| Genres: | |
| Distributor: | Walt Disney Video |
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Reviews
Amazon.com
This layered film, a labor of love from director Jonathan Demme and star Oprah Winfrey, covers a lot of turf in its nearly three-hour running time. Part slavery fable, part mother-daughter tale, part ghost story, Beloved demands an audience’s full attention from its dramatic, slightly bewildering opening, when a family dog comes down on the wrong side of some angry, unseen force. But Demme and his talented cast provide an unforgettable payoff for those who surrender.
The film traces the life of Sethe (played in her middle years by Winfrey), a former slave who has rebuilt what seems to be a peaceful, productive life in Ohio. Yet through chilling, sparing use of flashback, Demme slowly unveils, as does the Toni Morrison masterpiece on which the film is based, the horrors of Sethe’s former life, and the terrible event that led to the haunting of Sethe’s home.
While the horrors of slavery and the bloody event in Sethe’s family leave undeniable impressions, the film’s brilliance is also evidenced in smaller, equally satisfying ways. Rachel Portman’s spiritual-influenced score is as uplifting as it is haunting, and the glimpses of the post-slavery African American world—as with a simple family outing to a local carnival, or a ladies’ sewing-and-gospel circle—make this a treat for the intellect as well as the heart. The members of the cast, especially Kimberly Elise as Sethe’s struggling daughter and Thandie Newton as the mysterious title character, are supremely affecting. —Anne Hurley
Related works
Beloved: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
It makes perfect sense that Beloved, Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s acclaimed novel, brims with haunting and mysterious melodies. This is, after all, a story about the repercussions of slavery. Native American flutes and African percussion permeate Rachel Portman’s score, as do the haunting vocals of Oumou Sangare. The powerful yet sparse contributions from the Malian vocalist give the disc heavenly atmospherics, while the music—though ponderous at times—brims with intensity. “Cincinnati Streets” and “Vaccine” both feature a frantic patter…
At the center of Toni Morrison’s fifth novel is an almost unspeakable act of horror and heroism: a woman brutally kills her infant daughter rather than allow her to be enslaved. The woman is Sethe, and the novel traces her journey from slavery to freedom during and immediately following the Civil War.
Woven into this circular, mesmerizing narrative are the horrible truths of Sethe’s past: the incredible cruelties she endured as a slave, and the hardships she suffered in her journey north to freedom. Just as Sethe finds the past too painful to remember, and the future just “a matter of keeping the past at bay,” her story is almost too painful to read. Yet Morrison manages to imbue the wreckage of her characters’ lives with compassion, humanity, and humor.
Part ghost story, part history lesson, part folk tale, Beloved finds beauty in the unbearable, and lets us all see the enduring promise of hope that lies in anyone’s future.
