2023-11-17 15:39:05
Oprah Winfrey Getty image
Oprah Winfrey told how her book, The Color Purple, helped her overcome the trauma she suffered as a result of being raped at the age of 14, during a screening of a new film adaptation of the hit novel in Los Angeles.
The new musical film is the second version of Alice Walker’s book to be transferred to the big screen, after the 1985 film directed by Steven Spielberg, in which the American television star made her first appearance on the movie screen.
The film “The Color Purple” evokes the experiences and suffering faced by many women from the black community in the American South at the beginning of the twentieth century, including, in particular, sexual assaults against them.
“(The book) ‘The Color Purple’ was a blessing in my life from the first time I read it, because until then I did not know that there were words to describe what happened to me,” Oprah Winfrey said, Thursday, during a presentation in Los Angeles.
The American journalist, who is currently considered one of the most influential women in the world, added: “I was raped when I was 14 years old, and I became pregnant with a child who later died, and I did not have the words to explain it.”
“The Color Purple” tells the story of Celie, a young black woman from rural Georgia in the southern United States, who is raped by her father and forced to abandon her two children.
Celie is then forced to marry an abusive man, but finds strength in her interactions with other women confronting their trauma.
Winfrey said that when she learned in the 1980s that Steven Spielberg would direct the film adaptation of The Color Purple, “I literally got on my knees and prayed every night for the opportunity to be in the movie.”
Her performance as Sophia in the film earned her an Oscar nomination, and she told an audience in Los Angeles on Thursday that the film “changed my life.”
As for the new cinematic adaptation, which was directed by Blitz Baszwoll in the form of a musical, it adopts a lighter, more cheerful and optimistic tone in presenting the topic.
Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey participated with Warner Bros. Studios in producing the film, which is scheduled to be released in cinemas in the United States on Christmas Day.
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