Oh Oprah!

Sandy Nguyen

Mr. Beddingfield

AP Literature/Composition

March 12, 2012

Beloved

The 1998 movie adaptation of Beloved, directed by Jonathan Demme, wasn’t an overall good portrayal of the novel. The scenes were all very brief and it provided few details and/or moments for the characters to fully develop. 

The first few chapters of the book were presented within the first five minutes of the movie-if even. It starts right at the haunting of 124 when the spirit injures their dog, Here Boy, and Sethe’s two sons, Howard and Buglar, runs away from home. There was nothing much about Baby Suggs or her colors which was one of the main motifs in the novel. 

Eight years later we have the arrival of Paul D. Let me start off by saying that he was not nearly as handsome as I thought he would have been whatsoever! He was an old, hairy, and crusty man . Yuck, Beloved! The “red light” that appears as Paul D is entering 124 was also a bit harsh and unrealistic. I found that and the combination of camera angles, creepy music, and kid voices to be very odd. As for Sethe, I had no idea that Oprah was to play the role. She was a pretty good actor, but I found myself too stuck on who she was (Oprah Winfrey) to concentrate on her acting. 

Denver, on the other hand, was just as I expected her to be-attention hungry. Beloved was a bit too much for me though. She had bugs crawling all over her and that face, those eyes. They were like those of a play doll. When she first opened her mouth it creeped me the hell out. I guess you can say I eventually got use to it. From the novel, I thought that Beloved eventually got herself together and behaved more human-like than she did in the movie. She looked like a zombie or a possessed being with her eerie, baby-like movements. 

Despite the brevity of the movie in comparison to the novel, there were certain aspects of the movie that the book itself didn’t contain; for example, music. Because movies do not have a certain type of diction, they have music instead. The opening scene had some African singing in the background. The carnival had some content music, Sethe’s discovery that Halle was in the barn with her that one night had sad music, there was relief music when her and Amy reached the river, and so on so forth. There were also a couple scenes of trees, nature, and water. 

However, the movie was still a poor portrayal of the novel. The flashback scenes were very quick and back and forth. It just wasn’t as deep as Toni Morrison’s Beloved. There weren’t even any roses when the family went to the carnival. And how would I know that Sethe’s sudden urge to urinate when she first sees Beloved has anything to do with labor? If I were to only watch the movie (having never read the book before), I would be missing out on alot of big key points, motifs, symbols, and themes. The movie is like an animated Sparknotes of the novel. You may get the jist of the plot, but you can’t unfold the hidden layers it’s meaning unless you read it. Literary devices actually do make a difference.