On Location: The Color Purple
The State of Things
w/ Frank Stasio
WUNC-FM
Director Steven Spielberg took one look at Anson County, North Carolina and decided it was the perfect setting for the film adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Color Purple.” That was in 1985. Twenty-five years later, the little purple flowers that were planted by Spielberg’s production team still bloom in Anson County and the film that catapulted the careers of lead actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey remains significant for its beautiful cinematography, powerful performances and controversial depictions of African-American life.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the film, “The Color Purple,” host Frank Stasio talks to a panel of guests about the movie’s production, its connection to Walker’s written narrative, and how it challenges audiences with complex themes of race, family, gender and sexuality. Joining the conversation is Lu Ellen Huntley, an associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a member of the family that owned the Anson County farm where the movie was filmed; Michael Connor, theater coordinator at Livingstone College who appears in the film; Charlene Regester, associate professor of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of “African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960”; L. Lamar Wilson, an English PhD student and Composition Teaching Fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill; and Karla FC Holloway, James B. Duke Professor of English and a professor of law at Duke University.
Listen HERE
The State of Things
w/ Frank Stasio
WUNC-FM
Director Steven Spielberg took one look at Anson County, North Carolina and decided it was the perfect setting for the film adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Color Purple.” That was in 1985. Twenty-five years later, the little purple flowers that were planted by Spielberg’s production team still bloom in Anson County and the film that catapulted the careers of lead actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey remains significant for its beautiful cinematography, powerful performances and controversial depictions of African-American life.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the film, “The Color Purple,” host Frank Stasio talks to a panel of guests about the movie’s production, its connection to Walker’s written narrative, and how it challenges audiences with complex themes of race, family, gender and sexuality. Joining the conversation is Lu Ellen Huntley, an associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a member of the family that owned the Anson County farm where the movie was filmed; Michael Connor, theater coordinator at Livingstone College who appears in the film; Charlene Regester, associate professor of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of “African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960”; L. Lamar Wilson, an English PhD student and Composition Teaching Fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill; and Karla FC Holloway, James B. Duke Professor of English and a professor of law at Duke University.
Listen HERE
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