From ‘Gathering Blossoms Under Fire’

Quincy first, in an enormous limousine that had difficulty turning into my lane. Quincy beautifully dressed and hair done just so. And Steven, who arrived later, casually & in (partly) someone else’s clothes. Quincy had talked so positively about him I was almost dreading his appearance — but then, after a moment of near I don’t know what, uneasiness, he came in & sat down & started right in showing how closely he has read the book (”The Color Purple”). And making really intelligent comments. Amazing. And Quincy beamed.

We went to Ernie’s for dinner, where Quincy & Steven & I got slightly tipsy and energetic in our thoughts of a movie about Celie & Shug & Nettie. And after three hours they brought me back to my humble abode & rode off into the night in their enormous limo en route to the Warner Brothers jet & then home to L.A. & to bed.

Anyway.

It is agreed that Steven & I will work together on the screenplay. I will write it & confer. Write & confer. I feel some panic. I want so much for this to be good. Something to lift spirits & encourage people.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Eatonton-Putnam Chamber of Commerce

Credit: Photo courtesy of Eatonton-Putnam Chamber of Commerce

March 15, 1984

Yesterday was Quincy’s birthday. I called to sing happy birthday to him. He calls me very often, on the flimsiest excuses. But he was somewhere neither office or home and sounded false. So I made it brief.

So much has happened.

This is my third week in the country writing the screenplay. The first week went remarkably well. And the second. But now I feel stuck. I’ve been lying in bed reading and feeling less energetic than usual. Probably because of the sweet cookies & custard I had last night & yesterday.

But thank the U I have 2 1/2 more months to do a draft.

Meanwhile, Whoopi Goldberg is auditioning for the role of Celie & I go to L.A. to see her on Friday.

I am also buying the property next door! 40,000 down & 70 over 15 yrs. At 10%. It finally just made good sense to buy it — as a guard of my privacy. As free space, but also as a place friends & visitors can stay. The main house has a bath, too. And a hot tub.

On the same day I learned I’d won the Townsend Prize which is I know not what from the Atlanta magazine in Ga. Also, on the same day I learned of having won the Lyndhurst Prize, out of Tennessee — it carries with it (or is) 25,000 a year for 3 years. This has a certain unreality.

Mar. 31

The evening with Whoopi went extremely well. Quincy sent a jet for us & Steven’s building is beautiful. Whoopi was wonderful. And I’ve been typing the screenplay. Trying to get my taxes completed. The land in the country nailed down, & my garden started. I love that there will be lots of space to do all kinds of outdoor things & no one will see me! This is the way it often was when I was a child.

Credit: Warner Brothers

Credit: Warner Brothers

June 18, 1984

I finished the draft of the screenplay a couple of weeks ago. Got it back from the typist yesterday & sent it off to L.A. today. There is nothing like relief! And I’ve told my agent to tell Warner Brothers that I’m not signing the chain-resembling contract they’re offering. I am too happy thinking of nothing but the colors I will/am using to paint my little round house.

Undated

The Color Purple hit the 1 million mark in sales today! The publicist & publisher sent a small bouquet of flowers. It means about 150,000 dollars more, according to Robert (Allen, with whom she cofounded Wild Trees Press and was romantically involved). I expect I’ll buy a really gorgeous house — perhaps with Robert — in the city in Noe Valley, which we both like.

In my emotional life I feel I am stagnating. It is as if my love for Robert never reaches a level in me that pushes me forward. I feel so sorry for him, basically. To have done so much harm to what was such a live & vibrant love/emotion. My love feels now domesticated, whereas before it was wild. But I can see us being companions for a while longer, even a long time longer

When I tally these things up it is now just an exercise. A feeling of distanced amazement:

American Book Award

Pulitzer Prize

1,000,000 sold in paper

70,000 in hard cover

1 year NYTs bestseller list

1 plus years Publisher’s Weekly

& SF Chronicle list between #1 (mostly) & #3

Movie sale 400,000 (including consulting)

Foreign translations:

1. French

2. Swedish

3. Chinese

4. Japanese

5. German

6. Italian

7. Danish

8. Turkish

9. Hebrew

10. Hungarian?

11. Finnish

12.

—A best seller in England. Ditto for In Search

Nothing is missing from this success except my capacity any longer to feel it. Though I do feel it, as a kind of cushion, a way or a means of getting me out of the rat race (of whatever sort); slowly I’m beginning to feel secure about money. That is having money.

June 10

The experience of a set is strange. Today I feel less center stage, just as my horoscope predicted. I don’t understand the ways of film. Talking to (songwriter) Rod Temperton made me realize this. He said When you see the “dailies” you don’t see anything. Everything is constructed in the editing. This pressed my cynical button. Why waste my tears — as I did the other day — on the dailies if they’re not necessarily what’s going to be seen? But then, my less tired self says: Whatever is constructed will be constructed from the dailies. So cheer up.

June 17, 1985

When I’m on the set I’m so into communicating support to the actors & enjoying the characters coming to life that I’m sure a lot of things (changes in meanings, etc.) slip right by me. And I notice that the few things I suggested, other than language, have not appeared in this new script, which in my opinion falls apart ridiculously near the end where there are odds & ends of people long cut suddenly appearing.

I’m impressed by Steven’s dedication to getting just the scene he wants — no matter how many times it must be shot.

Credit: Alice Walker Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives & Rare Book Library, Emory University.

Credit: Alice Walker Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives & Rare Book Library, Emory University.

Aug. 16, 1985

The end of the movie — which we saw last night — is really the cinematic expression of the alternate title of my script “Watch For Me in the Sunset.” She’s disillusioned by his absorption & apparent callousness; arrogance. But, as with Whoopi, all is forgiven once you see what is on the screen. Almost all. Whoopi is incredible as Celie, and Margaret (Avery) is wonderful, I think, as Shug. And is, in many ways, the most vulnerable & brave of the actors. Since she is aware that there are those who thought Tina Turner more appropriate. Not me. Margaret has an immense sweetness (which is, after all, how Shug got her name) and an innate, frustrated dignity. And she tries so hard & unfailingly to do the scenes right. I like the vulnerability that’s in her eyes. She has beautiful eyes; it’s what you notice first and last. And in the scenes where nothing else could hold you, her eyes do. They’re real eyes that show experience as plainly as her face does — not marbles that show nothing no matter what they’ve seen.

6:45 a.m. Sept. 7, 1985

Of all the scenes I felt least happy with the African ones. The location of the village is wrong, the scarification ceremony is wrong (not to mention how every person’s scar has a different design whereas if they’re from the same tribe the scar would be the same) & there’s no way you could have a rubber plantation on this dry, barren land.

Sept. 22, 1985

Two “moments to remember” on the set: The day, well into shooting in North Carolina, when Whoopi told me she’d never read the script. The day Steven referred to “Gone With the Wind” as “the greatest movie ever made” & said his favorite character was Prissy.

Oct. 31, 1985

Whoever you are

Whatever you are

Start with that

Whether salt of

The earth

Or only white

Sugar.

There is impatience now when I write. I’d rather muse my thoughts than write them.

All in all, while my energy seems to be returning, with the help of massages, colonics & gym/yoga, my self seems suspended. I am in limbo.

Credit: Johnny Crawford / AJC File

Credit: Johnny Crawford / AJC File

Undated, Early December 1985

I have mixed feelings about the film. I’ve only seen it once, in such a state of tension I left the theatre with a crushing headache. I’m afraid I saw more of what is not there than what is there, and have been mourning the characters & events that were lost in the editing or never attempted from the book. There were scenes I didn’t like, but many that I loved. But in order to know what I truly feel about The Color Purple film I’ll have to see it again, perhaps many times, when I am able to be more open to what it is rather than grieving over what it is not.

Dec. 6, 1985

One basic way I feel about the film — after one viewing — is terrible. It looks slick, sanitized & apolitical to me. Some of the words coming out of Shug & Celie’s mouths are ludicrous. The film looks like a cartoon. There are anachronisms: Shug’s father driving horse & buggy in the 30s, for instance. In short, on first viewing, I noticed only the flaws.

Plus, I went into mourning for the characters who appeared much better actors in dailies than in the finished product; in the finished product they seem miniaturized when not actually chopped to bits. Samuel almost doesn’t appear. Harpo lacks fullness — the fullness I saw in dailies. Oprah is wonderful but too aged, regardless of how hard a time she had. And who straightened her hair? The big house is just that. Everyone is too well dressed. And Shug’s song to Celie seems to be coming from a much smaller woman.

The things I like: Not the Oliver Twist or the carved heart in the tree which is so cutesy as to be alienating, but the parting scene, between Celie & Nettie, which is good, though not the best of the efforts shot, and the scene where Nettie defends herself against Mister. Nettie, in fact, is quite wonderful. The kissing scene between Celie & Shug. The whole section where Shug & Celie find the letters & begin to read them. Especially the scene where Celie smells the dried flower petal. Shug in the juke joint, first song. Second song sounds strained & too small for Shug’s body, so the effect is a distancing from the emotions of C & S. The scenes in the church are all fine, although the last one is hokey & I resent the imposition of Shug’s father between her & “God.” The music is wonderful. Although Nettie in Africa is teaching reading & writing, not music.

Credit: Photo by Jean Weisinger, 1992. Alice Walker Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives & Rare Book Library, Emory University.

Credit: Photo by Jean Weisinger, 1992. Alice Walker Collection, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives & Rare Book Library, Emory University.

The ending is moving.

I feel disappointed that it didn’t turn out better. But it didn’t turn out better because —? I saw how hard everyone worked. How earnestly they tried to do it right. I helped as much as I could. All this week I’ve wanted to weep. I fear I have failed the ancestors.

But no. I did my best & the ancestors themselves are far from perfect. We try everything in an effort to express ourselves. They did this. I do this. I do so hope it’s true that there are no mistakes, only lessons. This one could be big.

From the book ‘Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker (1965-2000)’ by Alice Walker, edited by Valerie Boyd. Copyright © 2022 by Alice Walker. Reprinted by permission of Simon and Schuster.