The Color Purple (Movie)

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    Louis Gossett Jr. Streaming Guide: ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ to ‘The Color Purple’

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    His range was wide, as evidenced by performances in projects as different as “Roots,” “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “Diggstown.”When most people think of the venerable character actor Louis Gossett Jr., who died Friday at 87, they understandably summon up his Oscar-winning turn in the 1982 drama “An Officer and a Gentleman.” But he accumulated over 200 credits over a screen, stage and television career that spanned more than 60 years, and brought a skill set that included not only drama but also comedy, science fiction, action and horror. Here are a few highlights from his illustrious career and where to stream them.1977‘Roots’Rent or buy it on most major platforms.Gossett had already established himself as an actor of note onstage, and in television guest shots and small but memorable appearances on film (“The Landlord,” “Skin Game”) when he was cast in the ABC mini-series adaptation of Alex Haley’s best seller. He plays the key role of Fiddler, an older enslaved man who becomes a mentor to the central character, Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton). Fiddler allows Gossett to display several of the gifts that would distinguish him throughout his career: an inherent dignity, a no-nonsense toughness and a (seemingly contradictory) warmth and humanity. The mini-series was a cultural sensation, breaking records for television viewership, and Gossett would win an Emmy for his unforgettable work.1982‘An Officer and a Gentleman’Stream it on Max; rent or buy it on major platforms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Danielle Brooks Has an Oscar Nomination. So Why Is She in Mourning?

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      Was it an interview or an unburdening? As she wiped away tears, Danielle Brooks confessed she couldn’t tell the difference.“New York Times therapy session, you got me going!” she said, chuckling as she cried.It was Valentine’s Day, and we had met on a video call to discuss the 34-year-old actress’s first Oscar nomination, for playing the indomitable Sofia in Blitz Bazawule’s big-screen musical, “The Color Purple.” Though she had been too busy filming the “Minecraft” movie in New Zealand to fly to that week’s Oscar nominees luncheon in Beverly Hills, Brooks said she had spent the last few days wrapping her head around the kind of company she now kept.“It’s been really emotional,” the supporting actress contender said. “There are five African Americans nominated in actor categories this year and only two Black women, and to be one of them means a lot to me.”This is also the culmination of a long arc that Brooks has experienced alongside “The Color Purple”: As a teenager, she was so blown away by the Broadway musical that it inspired her to pursue acting; later, after shooting to fame as Taystee on the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” she won the role of Sofia in the 2015 stage revival of “The Color Purple.”Tony-nominated for that turn, Brooks nevertheless auditioned for six months to play the same part in Bazawule’s film. She’s proud of everything she was able to bring to her robust performance, which finds Sofia singing the anthemic “Hell No!” before going through the emotional wringer, imprisoned for refusing to be a white woman’s maid.“It really did deplete me — physically, mentally, spiritually,” Brooks said. “I was drained at the end of doing this part.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Danielle Brooks on Her Oscar Nomination: ‘Look What God Has Done’

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      It was 3:30 a.m. in New Zealand, where the actress Danielle Brooks was filming a Minecraft movie. But she was wide awake.“I’m alive and I am an Oscar nominee today,” she said on a video call minutes after the nominations were announced. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to sleep.”Brooks, a past Emmy nominee, Tony nominee and Grammy winner who broke out in “Orange Is the New Black,” is nominated for her supporting actress work in the movie musical “The Color Purple.” Hers is the film’s sole nomination. She plays Sofia, an outspoken woman who knows her own worth and insists on her own autonomy, qualities that make her a target of racialized violence. She first played the part on Broadway in 2015, in a defiant, exuberant turn that The New York Times likened to a “homemade steamroller.” Her film work is perhaps even more irresistible.Swathed in zebra-print sleepwear, Brooks, 34, discussed, with occasional tears, the joy of the nomination, the differences between theater and film and how she learned to say “Hell, No,” in her own life. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How does it feel to be an Oscar nominee?It’s like getting the M.V.P. at the Super Bowl. Crazy. It’s what I always just hoped and dreamed would happen, but for it to actually happen, I’m in shock! It’s like what it says in “The Color Purple”: “Look what God has done.”What did you learn from playing Sofia on Broadway?There was such an electricity in the theater, people just had to come see the show. I felt so much pressure. It was playing Sofia, this strong woman who was so sure of herself, that gave me the confidence, every night when I sang “Hell, No,” to say hell, no to my fears. She taught me how to live in my power. Getting to do it on the screen, that’s when I learned how to own my power. People assume that actors have all this confidence and are just brave people, which we are, but we get to hide behind characters. Now I can stand 10 toes down and believe in my heart that I’m worthy of moments like this.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Oppenheimer’ Leads BAFTA Nominees

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      Christopher Nolan’s movie received 13 nods, and will compete for best picture against the likes of “Killers of The Flower Moon” and “Poor Things,” but not “Barbie.”“Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s movie about the development of the atomic bomb, on Thursday received the highest number of nominations for this year’s EE British Academy Film Awards, known as the BAFTAs.The film secured 13 nods for Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, including for best film, where it is up against four other titles including “Killers of The Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese’s epic about the Osage murders of the 1920s, and “Poor Things,” Yorgos Lanthimos’s sexually-charged take on a Frankenstein story starring Emma Stone. “Poor Things” followed “Oppenheimer” with 11 nominations overall.The other titles nominated for best film are “Anatomy of a Fall,” Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner about a woman accused of murdering her husband, and “The Holdovers,” Alexander Payne’s tale of a boarding school teacher who has to look after students during the holidays.The nominations for “Oppenheimer” come just days after the movie won three of the major awards at this year’s Golden Globes, and will be seen by many as further boosting its chances at this year’s Oscars; the BAFTA and Oscar voting bodies overlap. This year’s Oscar nominations are scheduled to be announced on Tuesday.Although “Oppenheimer” secured the most nominations, the highest profile categories featured a variety of movies. In the best director category, Nolan, Triet and Payne were nominated alongside Bradley Cooper for “Maestro,” his biopic of Leonard Bernstein; Jonathan Glazer for “The Zone of Interest,” a movie about day-to-day life at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust; and Andrew Haigh for “All of Us Strangers,” an acclaimed British film about a lonely gay writer.Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal in “All of Us Strangers,” directed by Andrew Haigh.Parisa Taghizadeh/Searchlight Pictures, via Associated Press“Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster about the doll going on a journey of self-discovery, was not nominated in the best movie or best director categories, but Margot Robbie, its star, secured a nomination for best lead actress. Robbie will compete for that prize alongside the stars of other high-profile movies including Emma Stone (“Poor Things”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) and Fantasia Barrino (“The Color Purple”). Sandra Hüller was also nominated for “Anatomy of a Fall,” as was Vivian Oparah for her role in the British rom-com “Rye Lane,” set in a diverse part of south London.Lily Gladstone, who earlier this month became the first Indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for best actress for her performance in “Killers of The Flower Moon,” was not nominated for a BAFTA.Leonardo DiCaprio, Gladstone’s co-star, was also snubbed in the best actor category. That category’s nominees instead included Cillian Murphy for “Oppenheimer,” Cooper for “Maestro” and Barry Keoghan for “Saltburn.” They will compete against Paul Giamatti for his lead role in “The Holdovers,” Colman Domingo for “Rustin” and Teo Yoo for “Past Lives,” Celine Song’s wistful movie about two childhood friends who keep reuniting in later life.In 2020, the BAFTAs’ organizers overhauled the awards’ nomination processes in an attempt to improve the diversity of nominees. The changes included assigning voters 15 movies to watch each before making their selections. Sara Putt, the chair of BAFTA, said in an interview that the inclusion of Oparah among the leading actress nominees showed that the changes were helping to highlight smaller films, but she added that there was “still more to do” to increase diversity in the industry.The winners of this year’s BAFTAs are scheduled to be announced on Feb. 18 in a ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London, hosted by David Tennant. The ceremony will be broadcast on BritBox in the United States. More

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      New (and Old) Moves for a Choreographer to Hip Hop’s Stars

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      For Fatima Robinson, choreographing “The Color Purple” was far more than a job. It was a callback to her youth, before becoming known for her pop work.The choreographer Fatima Robinson made her name, at 21, with an epic Michael Jackson video. Two decades later, she orchestrated the moves for 1,000 performers at a Super Bowl halftime show. Then she rose to become Beyoncé’s director of choreography.But among the most meaningful work of her career has boiled down to a series of handclaps.When Robinson was growing up in Los Angeles, her mother took her and her two younger sisters to see “The Color Purple” — a family milestone. After that, “I saw the movie probably every year of my life,” she said. The girls were inspired by the onscreen sisters’ patty-cake-style routine; they made the claps their own and share it to this day, often in emoji form. If “we’re getting on each other’s nerves,” Robinson said, it’s a symbol of peace. “We know that’s, like, that special love that we have for each other.”Now, as the choreographer for the latest version of “The Color Purple,” a movie musical directed by Blitz Bazawule, she helped devise the onscreen clapping pattern for the young siblings Celie and Nettie. “It was sooo special,” Robinson said. “That sister love in this movie is so what I have with my sisters.”“The Color Purple,” based on the Broadway musical of Alice Walker’s seminal Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, arrives with a mantle of heavyweight backers and performers, including the producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg and the stars Fantasia Barrino-Taylor, Taraji P. Henson and Colman Domingo. In Robinson, 52, they added perhaps the most elevated hip-hop and R&B choreographer working today, who has worked in music, TV, film and live events, including Super Bowl halftime shows in 2022 and 2011. (She was also recently named a creative director for the Knicks City Dancers.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      With ‘Mean Girls,’ When Trailers Hit Mute on the Musical

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      With “Mean Girls,” “Wonka” and “The Color Purple,” why have studios spent much of their marketing budget downplaying and disguising their movie musicals?Regina George has a secret. She sings.Despite what its marketing might suggest, “Mean Girls” (in theaters), the latest in a set of pink-accented nesting dolls, is irrefutably a movie musical. Adapted from the 2018 Broadway musical, which was itself based on the 2004 film, which was in turn inspired by the 2002 nonfiction book “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” this new version has singing. It has dancing. It has one delectable moment in which the members of the school marching band raise their saxophones and tubas high.Barring a split-second shot of the band, you wouldn’t know that from the film’s trailers. The first trailer, from November — set to Olivia Rodrigo’s “get him back!” — included no original music. It was made to look instead like a vaguely edgier remix of the 2004 film.The second trailer, which arrived on Jan. 3, offers a line or two of “Meet the Plastics,” then cedes the soundtrack to a new song, a collaboration between Megan Thee Stallion and Renée Rapp, who plays Regina, the suburban high school’s apex predator. That song, “Not My Fault,” is admittedly in the actual movie. It plays over the credits.These “Mean Girls” trailers join “Wonka,” which opened Dec. 15 and “The Color Purple,” which opened on Christmas Day, as films that have spent much of their marketing budget downplaying and disguising their vexed status as movie musicals. At the close of the “Wonka” trailer, Hugh Grant’s Oompa-Loompa threatens to break into song, only for Timothée Chalamet’s Wonka to say, “I don’t think I want to hear that.” This from a character who invents a chocolate that makes people burst into song!We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Taraji P. Henson on Almost Walking Away from ‘Color Purple’

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      Before things started to click for Taraji P. Henson, she sought career counseling from the man upstairs.“I had a talk with God a long time ago when things didn’t pop,” she said. Invoking the women she had watched as a child, like Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, and Diahann Carroll, she told him, “I want longevity and work that matters.”This, Henson has had: At 53, she is an Oscar-nominated actress with a long career that includes films like “Hidden Figures,” “Hustle & Flow” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” She also spent six seasons playing the music-industry matriarch Cookie on the Fox series “Empire,” a juicy role that netted her a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award.But she is candid about the frustrations she still faces in an industry that undervalues Black actresses. “The fact that I made it through is a blessing because a lot has happened,” she said, noting that she had to step away from work last year when things got to be too much. A monthlong trip to Bali helped to recenter her, as did attending to her successful beauty brand, TPH.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      For Best Picture, Here are 13 Most Likely Contenders

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      It’s a very competitive year for the top Oscar. With precursor awards like the Golden Globes coming soon, here’s what may make the cut.The good news is that it’s been a great year for movies.The bad news is that, now, the battle for best picture will be bloodier than ever.With such a wide field of acclaimed contenders, plenty of worthy films will be dealt a bad hand when the Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 23. Even today’s self-imposed assignment to narrow the list to the 10 likeliest nominees proved a harrowing task; instead, I have hedged with an unlucky 13.Ahead of the Golden Globes on Sunday, and the bellwether industry nominations next week from the producers’ and actors’ guilds, here are the current contenders with the most viable shot at a best-picture nomination, ranked in descending order according to their certainty.‘Oppenheimer’Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic has the feeling of an old-fashioned sweeper: It’s a highbrow film and a populist hit — exactly the sort of movie Oscar voters and general audiences should be able to agree upon. Still, this race isn’t sewn up. Recent best-picture winners tend to tug more at the heart than at the head, and there are a slew of contenders that can make a more effective case for that organ. And though Nolan has been nominated five times before, he has never been able to convince voters to actually hand him the Oscar: Even when he directed “Dunkirk” (2017), the sort of technically stupendous World War II movie that should have been a slam-dunk for the academy, voters flocked to the warm and cuddly Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”) over the crisp, professorial Nolan.‘The Holdovers’Could Alexander Payne’s Christmas movie be this year’s “CODA,” a scrappy little heartwarmer that defeats the imposing auteurist film it’s up against? Set in the 1970s and shot like a film from that era (even the precredits studio logos are appealingly vintage), this boarding-school dramedy couldn’t be more of a bull’s-eye for older academy members, who’ll be eager to give “The Holdovers” their they-don’t-make-’em-like-this-anymore vote. Paul Giamatti, the film’s lead, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, have could-win heat in the actor and supporting actress categories, and movies that triumph in the acting and screenplay races have a nearly unbeatable portfolio for best picture. If Payne manages a best-director nomination, it’s a good sign that this underdog could slip past all the big-budget spectacles and go the distance.‘Barbie’Greta Gerwig’s plastic-fantastic comedy was indisputably the movie of 2023: This billion-dollar blockbuster went over like a rock concert in theaters, and its creative swerves had Hollywood types marveling at what Gerwig was able to get away with. Though Oscar voters have gotten a bad rap for ignoring mega-budget hits, they’re typically willing to make an exception for movies with a distinctive point of view and a high level of craftsmanship, which the deliciously decorated “Barbie” has in spades. A fun movie that’s full of heart and a standout in this group of contenders, “Barbie” is limited only by the not insignificant number of voters who’ll be thinking, “Can I really give Hollywood’s most prestigious award to a toy?”‘Killers of the Flower Moon’“Killers of the Flower Moon” could get a boost if Lily Gladstone is nominated for best actress.AppleTV+Martin Scorsese’s well-regarded movie would have a better shot at the top Oscar if “Oppenheimer” had been a contender in a different year: Between these two weighty, three-hour historical dramas, voters may deem Nolan’s more significant, simply because it made nearly a billion dollars worldwide. Still, the 81-year-old Scorsese has won only one Oscar and time is ticking for the academy to give him another. If his lead, Lily Gladstone, comes out on top of a fiercely competitive best-actress race, that could help burnish the film’s chances of picking up another significant prize.‘Poor Things’The Venice Film Festival kicks off awards season in earnest every August, and Emma Stone movies that play there often get a sensational launchpad: Just look at Oscar favorites like “La La Land” and “Birdman” and “The Favourite,” the last of which kicked off Stone’s very fruitful partnership with the director Yorgos Lanthimos. Their most recent film, “Poor Things,” won the Golden Lion at Venice this year and quickly established itself as a major contender, able to compete for up to three acting nominations (for Stone and her supporting actors Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe) and a huge haul of below-the-line nods for its stunning costumes, cinematography, production design and visual effects. There’s no doubt it’ll be a best-picture player, but is there a narrative to push the film and Stone over the top in a very crowded year?‘Past Lives’Celine Song’s directorial debut was a breakout indie hit this summer, but this intimate romantic drama was in danger of receding once bigger and noisier rivals arrived in the fall. Fortunately, “Past Lives” begins this awards season in strong shape, earning the best-film trophy at the Gotham Awards, five nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards, and a key nomination for best drama at the Golden Globes. Like “The Holdovers,” it’s a smaller-scale film that some voters simply adore, and that passion will count for a lot in this field.‘American Fiction’There may be no more auspicious festival prize than the People’s Choice Award voted on by attendees of the Toronto International Film Festival: Every movie that won there over the past decade went on to score a best picture nomination, and three of them — “12 Years a Slave,” “Green Book” and “Nomadland” — actually took the top Oscar. This bodes awfully well for the writer-director Cord Jefferson’s contemporary comedy “American Fiction,” which hit big out of Toronto, netted crucial nominations at the Golden Globes and Indie Spirits, and ought to land its leading man, Jeffrey Wright, the first Oscar nomination of his long career. (I should note Jefferson is a friend.)‘Maestro’Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro,” which he also directed.Jason McDonald/NetflixBradley Cooper’s first directorial effort, “A Star Is Born,” deserved better from the Oscars. It won only the original-song trophy when so much else about it, including Cooper’s ace lead performance, was also worth recognizing. Then again, Cooper had only himself to blame for that result: He was so determined to land the directing nomination, which ultimately eluded him, that he didn’t give his acting the push it merited. I wonder if something similar may happen this year: Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein drama, “Maestro,” is an even bigger directorial swing, and though he delivers exactly the sort of makeup-aided, transformative real-person performance that Oscar voters go gaga for, the fate of “Maestro” currently seems tied up in whether the directors’ branch will finally admit Cooper to the club.‘Anatomy of a Fall’The hip studio Neon has a knack for guiding Palme d’Or winners from the Cannes stage into Oscar’s inner circle, and the French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall” could very well follow in the footsteps of Neon’s “Parasite” and “Triangle of Sadness.” It helps that the lead, Sandra Hüller, has enough heat to make it into the best-actress race, though the film was dinged by France’s decision to submit instead “The Taste of Things” as its contender for the international film Oscar: As fans of “RRR” found last year, it’s hard for world cinema to penetrate the best-picture lineup without a corresponding nod in the international-feature category.‘May December’Can Todd Haynes finally score a best-picture nominee? Though the director’s drama “Carol” got awfully close, “May December” is the most viable contender he has ever made, a favorite with critics’ groups and a mainstream conversation-starter since its debut on Netflix. If Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton all pick up acting nominations and the writer Samy Burch snags an original-screenplay nod, a place in the best-picture race ought to follow, but Haynes and his oeuvre have proved too smart for the room before. Let’s hope the academy’s tastes have caught up.‘The Zone of Interest’Jonathan Glazer’s audacious Holocaust drama is one of the most acclaimed movies of the year, the probable winner of the international-feature Oscar, and could even score Glazer an auteurist slot in the best-director category. Still, its chances for best picture are harder to predict. Every other contender on this list is likely to earn at least one acting nomination and any such recognition for “Zone” would come as a big surprise. It would also be the most challenging art-house film to make the best-picture lineup in ages: When older, more traditional voters cue the movie on their academy app and are met with a black screen and several minutes of unsettling score, will they stay seated through this unusual overture or close the app to call tech support?‘The Color Purple’Fantasia Barrino-Taylor in “The Color Purple,” which missed out on a Golden Globe nomination for best musical or comedy.Warner Bros PicturesThis musical take on the classic Alice Walker novel is banking on some late-breaking momentum, aided by a strong box office return on Christmas Day, to push it into the best-picture lineup. Still, it’s missed out on a few key nominations, failing to make the American Film Institute’s populist-leaning 10-best list or even snag a Golden Globe nomination for best comedy or musical, which should have been a given. Earning an ensemble nomination from the Screen Actors Guild on Jan. 10 is all but necessary to move “The Color Purple” up on this list.‘Society of the Snow’Last season, when the academy announced semifinalist shortlists in a wide variety of below-the-line categories, Netflix’s war film “All Quiet on the Western Front” had the sort of surprisingly strong showing that presaged a stellar nine Oscar nominations and four wins. That’s the reason I’m keeping an eye on the streamer’s Spanish-language plane-crash drama, “Society of the Snow,” which made the international-feature shortlist and also popped up as a semifinalist for visual effects, score, makeup and hairstyling (even edging out “Barbie” in the latter category). If all of these branches are already taking notice, don’t be surprised if “Society of the Snow” vaults past a better-known contender by the morning of the Oscar nominations. More

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      ‘The Color Purple’ Tips Its Hat to Classic Black Musicals

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      The new movie has so many references to Hollywood gems like “Stormy Weather” and early jazz shorts, it can be viewed as a Black film syllabus.Even when Hollywood saw little use for Black performers other than as mammies and butlers, the musical genre, a storytelling mode composed of magical realist fantasy and hoofing artistry, provided space for Cab Calloway, Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge to manifest their glamorous glow. Through rapturous songs, sung in resplendent gowns and tailored tuxedos, the promise of Black liberation was heard.The genre’s possibility for emancipation is showcased in the latest film version of “The Color Purple,” whose origin derives from a story of perseverance and sisterhood that first found acclaim in 1983, when its author, Alice Walker, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Within two years of Walker’s success, Steven Spielberg directed an acclaimed big-screen adaptation of her novel. By 2005, a staged musical of “The Color Purple” appeared on Broadway. Now, the Ghanaian filmmaker Blitz Bazawule is shouldering the book’s legacy, directing a cinematic adaptation of the Broadway musical.The director Blitz Bazawule narrates a sequence from the musical, featuring a performance by Taraji P. Henson.Ser Baffo/Warner Bros PicturesBazawule’s “Color Purple” aims to grant Celie (Fantasia Barrino-Taylor) the kind of interiority that makes visible her resiliency against abject trauma. Raped during childhood by the man she thought to be her father, then separated from her children — the results of his assault — Celie is forced into marriage with the abusive Mister (Colman Domingo). Her sister, Nettie (Halle Bailey), bids goodbye, departing to Africa. Mister’s son Harpo (Corey Hawkins) and his wife, Sofia (Danielle Brooks), become Celie’s only friends. But a chance at real love arrives when the sultry singer Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), Mister’s old flame, returns to town. Shug and Celie’s developing physical attraction, along with Nettie’s letters, allow Celie to create grand worlds in her head.Celie’s boundless imagination mirrors the continued influence of what Bazawule called “the universal Black cadence,” how an ordinary shuffle or a game of patty cake can become a song. That practice imbues “The Color Purple” with an inventiveness to empower Celie’s story, positioning the arts as an important language for resistance and a necessary tool for Black people to be more than vessels for trauma.“I think music gives Celie the kind of agency we’ve never seen her have before,” Bazawule said during an interview at the Mandarin Oriental in New York.The director Blitz Bazawule, top, with Henson, left, and Burrino.Eli Ade/Warner Bros.Early Black musicals like “Porgy and Bess” and “Swing!” are examined in Arthur Knight’s book “Disintegrating the Musical: Black Performance and American Musical Film.” His analysis is drawn from W.E.B. DuBois’s belief that music is an essential element of Black identity. The control of that gift, therefore, is crucial, and the musical — as a locus for song, fashion and romance — becomes a strategy against the oppression faced by Black people across America.By visualizing Celie’s inner thoughts and her yearning for independence, Bazawule not only retools the genre’s language of resistance. He also provides audiences with an integral Black film syllabus.Elisabeth Withers-Mendes, center left, as Shug Avery and LaChanze as Celie in the 2005 Broadway musical version of “The Color Purple.”Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Our work is only understood most clearly when it’s part of a continuum that is built. It’s a language,” Bazawule said. “But you have to know the language to understand what we’re doing.”Bazawule’s influences on the film are varied, including more contemporary musicals like “Idlewild” and “Dreamgirls,” the drama “The Last Temptation of Christ,” and studio-era musicals like “Hallelujah” and “Cabin in the Sky.” The 1932 musical short “Pie, Pie Blackbird” is another reference.The larger-than-life sets used in Aubrey Scotto’s jazz short, “A Rhapsody in Black and Blue” (also 1932) come to mind during a moment of romantic whimsy shared by Celie and Shug. When Celie sings “Dear God — Shug,” she imagines her and Shug on a giant, spinning gramophone. Rather than wholly relying on computer-generated effects, the production designer Paul D. Austerberry sought to marry fantasy with reality by constructing an actual 22-foot diameter record and an enormous needle arm.Nina Mae McKinney in the short film “Pie, Pie, Blackbird.”Warner Bros.The tension rises during the film’s lustful juke joint scene. For this sequence, not only does Shug arrive in grand style — on a barge floating across a swamp — but the costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck also fashioned Shug’s red dress to mirror the allure of Dorothy Dandridge in “Carmen Jones.”“I wanted Shug to look sexy,” Jamison-Tanchuck said.In a nod to the diverse rhythms in the Black diaspora, the choreographer Fatima Robinson orchestrated the scene’s varied dancers, bedecked in dazzling suits and luscious dresses, to use Daggering, a sizzling Jamaican dance.“I wanted to create moves where we touch each other and we hold each other,” said Robinson. “It’s something I feel, as Black people, we don’t see enough.”Celie’s imaginative bid for freedom peaks when she and Shug abscond to the Capitol Theater in Macon, Ga., where they watch “The Flying Ace” (1926). As they view the film, Celie’s mind conceives of a lavish Art Deco ballroom recalling the 1943 musical “Stormy Weather,” which starred Horne. There’s an orchestra dressed in white tail tuxedos (a reference to Calloway), but instead of the high-flying Nicholas Brothers splitting down the steps, Celie and Shug descend toward each other. While the scene takes place in Celie’s mind, its fantastical setting doesn’t render her feelings or Shug’s reciprocation any less real. The power of the musical genre is in its ability to make any person, no matter her background, the captain of her world.For Bazawule, who remembers selling CDs on the street to afford tickets to art house theaters in New York, Celie’s cinematic escape from oppression has deep personal resonance.“I figured if Shug could bring Celie into that world, it would open her mind,” he said. More