The Color Purple: Special Edition (1985)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Awards Teaser Trailer-2 Theatrical Trailer Featurette-Conversations With Ancestors: From Book To Screen Featurette-A Collaboration Of Spirits: Casting And Acting Featurette-Making Of-Cultivating A Classic Featurette-The Color Purple: The Musical Gallery-Photo-Behind The Scenes Gallery-Photo-The Cast
Rating
Year Of Production	1985
Running Time	147:28
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (77:49) Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Steven Spielberg
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Danny Glover Whoopi Goldberg Margaret Avery Oprah Winfrey Willard E. Pugh Akosua Busia Desreta Jackson Adolph Caesar Rae Dawn Chong Dana Ivey Leonard Jackson Bennet Guillory John Patton Jr.
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$24.95	Music	Andraé Crouch Quincy Jones Jeremy Lubbock

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian German Spanish Dutch Arabic Romanian English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, the tail end of the final scene.

    Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Alice Walker and adapted for the screen by Menno Meyjes, The Color Purple was Steven Spielberg’s first attempt at serious filmmaking – a storyline about issues of race, poverty and gender equality.

    The Color Purple follows the life of Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), a black girl from the South who has given birth to two children by her thirteenth birthday, both who are given away by her father. She is then married off to brutal black farmer Albert (Danny Glover) who is more interested in her younger sister Nettie (Akosua Busia) than her. Separated from her family and her sister by Albert, who she calls ‘Mister’, Celie grows up raising Albert’s troublesome children. Her hopeless situation changes, however, when one day Albert’s mistress, Shug Avery (Margaret Avery), arrives and opens Celie’s eyes to a whole new world of self awareness and self empowerment.

    One could describe this film in many ways. It is partly an examination of how the black community lived in the South after the civil war. It is party a feminist movie about womanhood. It is partly a musical and partly a melodrama. Ultimately, it is hard to fit into any one box and so remains for me, at least, one of those rare films that can be viewed on so many levels and enjoyed by so many audiences.

    Another fantastic thing about this film is that it has aged well. Unlike so many films from the 1980s that have dated badly, The Color Purple holds its own against many films of the contemporary era, certainly a testament to good writing and Steven Spielberg’s artful direction. Certainly, it has its faults. The melodrama does not always work, and it seems to drag a little in some places or be too brief or too neat in others. But these inconsistencies are made up for by the extremely talented performances, particularly those of Goldberg, Avery and Glover whose atypical lover’s triangle forms the crux of the film.

    If you have not yet seen The Color Purple, this restored and remastered DVD is the ideal way to introduce yourself to the experience. It is a film you should see at least once in your life.

Video

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, this is a very slight modification from the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio of the movie that is so marginal as to be insignificant.

    This new digital transfer, done in 2002, is an exceptional remastering and a vast improvement on the original DVD release. Colours are well saturated and balanced, which is important given the role that colour plays in the telling of this story.

    The image is well defined and only a touch softer than more contemporary films, owing more to the age of the source material and the equipment used to make the film than any fault in the transfer process. There is some fine background graininess, but nothing too noteworthy. The graininess is slightly more apparent in low-light conditions such as at 5:53 - 55. Shadow detail is, on the whole, very good.

    There are no apparent MPEG artefacts and there is only the faintest of background aliasing by way of film-to-video transfer faults.

    There is some dirt on the print which is unsurprising given its age, but although you will be somewhat aware of it if you are closely paying attention to it, the worst is a blotch in the top left hand corner from 105:56 - 59. Otherwise it is non-distracting.

    Subtitles are available in English, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, German, Romanian, and English and Italian for the Hearing Impaired. They are white with a black border, and follow the dialogue largely verbatim.

    The dual-layer pause is at 77:49. It occurs during a scene change and is barely noticeable.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Audio is available in English 5.1 Dolby Digital (encoded at a comparatively low 384Kb/s), as well as French and Italian mixed in 2.0 Dolby Surround (encoded at 192Kb/s).

    I had no difficulty understanding the dialogue, although those who have issues with American accents are likely to have a problem or two here with the thick Southern mixed with African-American dialect. There was a point at 95:10 where the dialogue track develops a ‘tinny’ quality, as if recorded in a studio with bad equipment and bad acoustics, but this was the only real audio glitch that I detected. Audio sync was not an issue.

    The surrounds were used marginally for directional cues but got most utilised for the score composed by Quincy Jones. There is not a terrific range here, probably due in most part to the source, but it is still acceptable.

    The subwoofer was rarely called into action, but there was not much need for it.

    The foreign language tracks were much thinner and lacked the ambience and enveloping quality of the English 5.1 Dolby Digital track.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, and are static. The main menus have a 2.0 Dolby Surround audio track underscoring them.

Disc 1

Cast & Crew

    A still frame with some of the principal cast and crew listed.

Awards

    Two still frames listing the awards that the film garnered.

Teaser Trailer 1 (1:15)

    Presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Surround.

Teaser Trailer 2 (1:23)

    Also presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Surround.

Theatrical Trailer (1:22)

    Also presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Surround, I find it amusing that the second teaser is longer than the actual theatrical trailer. You can see from these trailers what a good job was done remastering the print for transfer to DVD.

Disc 2

Feaurette – “Conversations With Ancestors: The Color Purple From Book To Screen” (26:41)

    This is a documentary looking at the transition of the novel to the big screen. Based around an extensive interview with author Alice Walker and including interviews with director Steven Spielberg, producer Kathleen Kennedy, and composer Quincy Jones.

Feaurette – “A Collaboration Of Spirits: Casting And Acting The Colour Purple” (28:41)

    This documentary takes a look at the cast of the movie and includes interviews with Spielberg, Walker and Jones as well as casting director Reuben Cannon, actresses Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey and Akosua Busia, and actor Danny Glover.

Feaurette – “Cultivating A Classic: The Making Of The Color Purple” (23:34)

    This featurette examines the behind-the-scenes story behind the film, including Steven Spielberg waiting for his child to be born, difficulties in shooting on location, costumes, photography, colours and lighting, weather and various other facets of the making of the film on set.

Feaurette – “The Color Purple: The Musical” (7:36)

    This is a look at the music used in the film and includes an interview with Steven Spielberg talking about the use of music in film and his experiences with it.

Gallery – “Behind The Scenes” (3:27)

    Presented as a 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced frame, these are a series of inset stills taken behind the scenes during the making of the movie, most of them not very big, presented sort of like a slide show but with no music.

Gallery – “The Cast” (9:03)

    A similar thing to that above but featuring photos of the cast, not the crew. Some shots are in black and white while others are in colour.

    Obviously, this new release is far superior to any previous release, given that the previous R1 and R4 releases were flipper discs that interrupted the film at a rather crucial moment. This new R4 release is also superior to the previous R4 release in terms of its extras and (more importantly) its picture quality. The R1 release of this Special Edition would appear to be identical in terms of its features and quality, making the differences only the NTSC/PAL format and language options. Given the low price in R4, I would suggest buying here.

    The Color Purple is Spielberg’s underrated masterpiece from his early years. Certainly a work of art, even if flawed in some respects, but nevertheless a must for all fans.

    The video is a considerable improvement on the original release.

    The sound is acceptable without being the kind of outstanding 5.1 Dolby Digital mix you show off to your friends. But, then, this film never really required that.

    The extras are quite extensive and give a good insight into the making of the film.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall