The Color Purple

In The Color Purple we watch as Celie and Nettie devise a way of overcoming Mister’s attempt to keep them apart. Common in Spielberg’s films, they are seen though an open doorway (initially as shadows in an off screen space but then Nettie breaks into the on screen space behind the doorway). As the scene progresses, the camera pulls back and we realize that we have been eavesdropping on the two young women from the perspective of Mister. Spielberg has taken us from being a co-conspirator with the young women to becoming their oppressor merely by the use of his camera to establish an off-screen presence. It is perhaps normal to assume an omniscient perspective when we peer through a doorway, but Spielberg continually plays on our assumptions and jolts us at times as we realize we are standing in the place of the character we most revile or fear. Spielberg also plays on distorting our environment by not always letting us know where we are. As the older Celie reads her sister’s letters, we become aware that the sun she is looking at is actually in the sky above her sister in Africa and then before we know it, Mister has stepped in front of it, transporting us back to Celie. The technique not only compacts the images and ideas on the screen, but adds a unity to the characters and to the theme of the story. This technique may be seen as too artful for some, taking the viewer out of the story for a moment as they struggle to get their bearings and also marvel at the director’s skill, but it does add to the poetic unity of the whole as the sisters stories intertwine.