Their Eyes Were Watching God - Essay Example

Response Essay to the Movie: Their Eyes Were Watching God Their Eyes Were Watching God refers to a U.S Broadcasting Company film that was aired on March 6, 2005 at 9 p.m. (Hagopian 1). The movie was based on Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 book with a similar name. The movie was adapted and reproduced by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studio, and directed by Darnell Martin. Winfrey was the main host for the show. Its teleplay was done by Janie Crawford (Halle Berry), Teacake (Michael Ealy), Jody Starks (Logan Killicks), along with Mayor Joe Starks (Ruben Santiago-Hudson).

Oprah Winfrey is immensely admirable, owing to her encouraging rise to fame due to her determined pursuit of quality and because of her wish to leave something optimistic for the world. However, her description of this most thoughtful and uplifting novel fell short of grasping Ms. Hurston’s brilliance (Hagopian 1). The film focused almost totally on the love story between transformed playboy, Tea Cake, and Janie Crawford. She missed the fact that there were other layers to the book such as the studies in developmental cultural anthropology and psychology.

Crawford’s life with Tea Cake lasts for only about a year and a half (Hagopian 1). However, the film made it appear as though the companionship lasted much longer. Even though, it was the most noteworthy relationship of Crawford’s life, through it, Janie acquires the identity and voice that she has been denied for past 37 years. Also, through that voice, Janie saves herself from prison. The love story in the movie outshines the character development in the film. In reality, that is what the film is loomed on, a study in personal development and character (Hagopian 1).

Hurston uses Janie's affairs as the vehicle for her development. However, those relationships serve to portray Janie to herself, as well as to Janie’s viewers. Through Janie, readers can evaluate themselves, and hence, work to achieve their own identities. The film is noteworthy for its description of hot Black romance, as well as sexuality. It also would be a cliche, as well as an understatement, to state that sparks fly between the film’s star, Janie Crawford, and the last of her three companions in the film, acted by Michael Ealy.

These two actors can burn down the bed (Hagopian 1). I feel as if Halle Berry and Michael Ealy’s chemistry are what makes the film go beyond the limitations of its setup and at least tap the level of Hurston's jovial narrative. The film tells the story of Janie Crawford, an African American girl who is brought up in the poor, rural Western Florida, yet she never gives up on the thought that life should be full of deep and abiding love. Crawford lives with her grandmother, Nanny (Ruby Dee), who, panicking that the young girl is starting to kiss boys, weds her off to a mature planter, Logan Killicks.

Logan has 60 acres of land which he can give his young spouse a step up in life. A sad Janie takes this step up. She, however, finds herself breaking away from the elderly man. She runs off and gets married to Joe Starks, who, in the film, is a mayor, businessman, as well as a main landowner, of Eatonville, Florida. Eatonville is the earliest African American municipality to be founded and incorporated in the United States. Crawford also does not find love in this man and runs off to a third husband (Hagopian 1).

This is a quality film by Oprah's Harpo Film Studio. The environment does not incorporate that “made-for-television” cheesiness (Hagopian 1). The setting seems to be on far off location. The movie’s cast, which also includes Terrence Howard, offers believable acts that keep viewers in the Deep South of the first half of the 20th Century. Halle Berry should be given cheers for a top notch performance like that, and so should Santiago-Hudson and Ealy. Halle Berry, in the film, has the starpower to attract viewers, but she might be miscast as a female described in the novel as "exceptionally dark".

Hence, people might think that Berry is defying the typical obstacles of color discrimination within the African American society, especially during that era. Moreover, Halle Berry's stylists went overboard when she used long and wild hair weave similar to the book's illustration of Janie's hair worn in a long and thick braid. In conclusion, Halle Berry's acting is one of quality and size, as befits the person who has outlived her miserable creator to become the fictional character of the African American female experience.

I suppose that Their Eyes Were Watching God should be a worthy attempt at adapting to the screen one of the classics and admired American films, as well as novels. Work Cited Hagopian, Kevin. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: State University of New York, 2005. Web