"Beloved" came out on video today & I watched it earlier tonite. In a year when Gwyneth Paltrow took home the Best Actress Oscar basically for nothing more than getting a hair weave & doing a good British accent (which she's done twice before -- in "Sliding Doors -- a dud from earlier this year/& in "Emma" 3 years ago)/I think Thandie Newton shd also have been nominated for her role in "Beloved". Imagine being faced w/the task of portraying a character who has come back from the dead. How do you choose her voice/how she shd sound when she speaks? How do you decide how she shd move & walk? Certainly there was the novel to go on (& admittedly/much of the strength of the book was it's nterior monologue /which just cdn't be translated to film). But when Netwon uttered her 1st word in "Beloved" -- that voice made me jump right out of my skin! This wasn't yr usual benevolent ghost -- this was the spirit of a baby who had died a horribly violent death & was drawn back to earth in the flesh becuz of her mother's deep love & longing for her. But apparently/no one in Hollywood bothered to notice the stunning performance Newton gave. Which is a shame/becuz Sisters wait their entitre careers for a role like that. Johnathan Demme did a solid job of directing this film. Which wasn't easy/becuz "Beloved" was as daring & surreal in terms of structure as anything by David Lynch. A story of slavery -- not just what it looked like/but what it felt like/& the psychological scars it inflicted -- as powerful as "Schindler's List". And more personal/since it focused on a single family. With set & costume designs as meticulous & true-to-the-period as anything you saw on screen in "The Last Emperor"/or any of those English period dramas Hollywood loves so much. (Coleen Atwood did receive the film's only Oscar nomination/for costume design.) The score was moving & evocative. Yet no one in Hollywood saw anything of value in this movie/anything deserving of a nomination/beyond the costumes? Danny Glover gave a good performance/but this is a woman's film. Thandie Netwon was dazzling. Kimberly Elise (who played Denver -- Sethe's only 'surviving' daughter) was excellent as a character who is half-mad from living with a ghost/who is choked by fear & often has to express those fears w/out words. Even Lisa Gay Hamilton (the Sister in "The Practice" on Sunday nights) gave a standout performance in the flashback scenes as the young Sethe. And I honestly couldn't find any great fault w/Oprah's performance. (Altho' I wd have cast Alfre Woodard as Sethe. But Oprah bought the book rights/so...) Yet no one in in the AMPAS paid any real attention to "Beloved" when to came time to recognize the best film work of the past year. Which makes me want to vomit. It also makes it very hard to try to do anything abt it. After sitting thru yet another Oscar cast with no Black presence other than Whoopie as m.c./I decided to buckle down/finish polishing my film script & send it out wherever/to whomever. Becuz nothing will ever come of it if I leave it sitting on my hardrive. But it makes it very hard to have any confidence in yr ideas/to believe in yrself when you're trying to find just the right phrase or sentence for a character/it makes it hard to make yrself believe that Hollywood will ever give a shit abt telling Blackfolks stories -- beyond the usual middle -class Sisters & their men-troubles/or homies-in- the-hood killing each other. But do rent "Beloved" if you haven't seen it. Particularly if you haven't read the book. It's a difficult story to watch/but well worth the effort.

What's the one about the funeral parlor, does it have the same title? the black and white one. you know.

Thats the one I was trying to find to no avail as yet on the intranet. The black and white . .(maybe) "The Beloved" with that black humor. let me know if you find that one.

This is probably another exercise in futility, but I am taking a class called Film and Fiction and one of the book/ movie combos we are studying is Beloved. Its a great book, and although we are only halfway through the movie, it is enthralling. As a southerner whose family roots are buried for almost 200 years in the soil of Georgia and Alabama, I want to learn the truth of the disgrace and cruelty of slavery. It is not right that we should try to forget. I hope that you find success and creativity in your life and film career. Thank you, Cam