Letters were one of our first forms of communication from one to another and this is the  form of writing used to narrate The Color Purple. Not even three years later Steven Spielberg brought us his movie adaptation of the original book, written by Alice Walker, in the form of a historical drama. This work of literature was an important step in African-American literature due to Alice becoming the first African-American woman to earn a Pulitzer Prize. Today the book is still read as one of America’s great works selling an impressive 5 million copies worldwide in 25 languages. The story of The Color Purple is told from Celie, a young woman’s perspective who had a tragic start in her life. We as the viewers are taken on her recovery mission, to witness her growth as a person despite those attempting to hold her back. This story boiled down shows us the true interactions between various men and woman, this being the leading conflict throughout the story. Director, Steven Spielberg made an excellent interpretation of The Color Purple though changes in plot structures and scenes, while also making excellent casting choices.

It's all about story, and how it's told. The overall plot of The Color Purple remains authentic to the novel but its focus is redirected. Steven Spielberg dialed in on supporting female characters influencing Celie to show her true strength. This is expressed through the depiction of the scene where Nettie is forced to leave Mr.___’s land. In this scene, the sisters are crying, being ripped apart at the hands of Mr.___ whilst the girls are attempting to fight back by locking to each other refusing to let go. This change to the scene emphasizes the burst of strength awakened in Celie when around strong female influencers compared to when she has no companions. On the other end of the spectrum in Walkers version, we see the girls powerless to Mr.__’s request to kick out Nettie. This is demonstrated by their reactions; “I tell Nettie the next morning[that Mr.__ wants her to leave]. Stead of being mad, she glad to go...She say she hate to leave me is all”(Walker 17). Walkers scene captures a sense of hopelessness against Mr.___ in the sisters. In contrast, Steven Spielberg’s choice to demonstrate the effects women have on one another is greatly highlighted in this scene by Nettie and Celie’s action. In addition, this pushed the plot forward in a more dramatic leaving the audience to be more interested.

In the movie adaptation, many scenes from the novel were omitted to make the storyline focus more on Celie. Throughout the book, various subplots are explored in depth with meaning behind them but weren’t worth bringing into the movie adaptation. An example of this from the novel is the Olinka’s struggles after the construction of the road, “But the worst was yet to be told. Since he Olinka no longer own their village, they must pay rent for it, and in order to use the water, which also no longer belongs to them, they must pay a water tax”(Walker 170). Walker included this to display how people of higher power can easily take advantage of those lesser to them through Nettie’s anecdotes about living with the people of Olinka. The director found a majority of these anecdotes unimportant to the story removed them accordingly to keep the focus on Celie. Steven Spielberg's value of these scenes from the story is revealed through the unfinished subplots of the olinka people as they aren’t heavily shown after the construction of the road whereas in the novel this is about the middle of the Olinka storyline. Instead, this screen time is given to Celie to capture more of her character throughout the movie.

The film casting plays an important role in the movie’s quality. This is even more apparent in movies originated from books because they reflect the characters depicted in the story. The Color Purple makes an outstanding use of casting to represent the characters well with award-winning actresses. Actress, Whoopi Goldberg, did an excellent job at acting as Celie throughout the film. Goldberg managed to encapsulate the brokenness that Celie pours off at the beginning of the story through her use of facial expressions, and her ability to show the emotion.  This was truly expressed during Shug’s singing where Goldberg’s performance of her being upset, and near crying managed to perfectly express the inner thoughts of Celie’s emotions during the performance, “Before I know it, tears meet under my chin. And I’m confuse. He love looking at Shug. I love looking at Shug. But Shug don’t love looking at but one of us. Him. But that the way it supposed to be. I know that. But if that so, why my heart hurt me so? My head droop so it near bout in my glass”(Walker 73). In this quotation, Celie is undergoing a variety of emotions at the viewing of Shug’s performance which Whoopi Goldberg manages to convey all of them without any dialog demonstrating her impressive skills. Furthermore, the actresses’ ability to share Celie’s sorrow makes the audience feel personally connected to her and feel empathetic in not only her sorrow but also her joy in later scenes. More specifically in the last scene of the movie where she is finally reunited with her sister, the joy caused by the scene is very profound because the audience can really feel for her previous pain and now gets to take part in her joy as her story is wrapped up.