Their Eyes Were Watching God

After reading the book, I watched the film. What a disappointment the film was. The filmmakers have taken a book that explores the differences between women and men as well as issues of race, prejudice and class difference, and turned it into little more than a formulaic romance novel. I note that most of the reviewers who rated the film highly had not read the book. I encourage you to do so. It is such a rich novel--far richer than the film. What the screenwriter has done is purge the movie of all the more difficult issues the book deals with. Gone is Mrs. Turner's discussion of race and her prejudice against darker-skinned people. Gone is Janie's jealousy as well as the explanation for Tea Cake's violence (of course, Tea Cake's violence is gone, too, because he's supposed to be the romantic hero; romantic heroes can't hit their wives as Tea Cake does in the book). Gone are the conversations on the porch of Joe Starks store. Gone is Nanny's explanation of her reasoning for Janie's marriage to Logan Killicks. It's really too bad that the production company didn't have faith in Zora Neale Hurston's story and felt they had to over-simplify it; I'm sure the audience could have handled it in all its complexity.

I didn't enjoy the movie because I expected it to be more like the book which was way more interesting. The book had so much more detail it gave more examples, more to imagine. There's a part in the book were it shows a Ms. Turner, but in the movie there was no Ms.Tuner. Another part is when he has to bury dead bodies it shows nothing about that in the movie. The movie cuts out a lot of parts that were in the book. Maybe if i would of just saw the movie it would have been better, but since I read the book first I expected more scenes.

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD, is a remarkable story based on the best-selling book by Zora Neale Hurston. Halle Berry stars as the beautiful Janie Crawford, who embarks on an emotional and dramatic journey of self-discovery.

Set in Florida in the 1930's, Janie struggles to satisfy first her grandmother, and then the men in her life. As a half-black, half-white woman, Janie's life was one of new rules and boundaries, new borders and bridges. She is half black and therefore destined to live the life of a black, but she was also half white and she deserved the life of a white. But neither appealed to Janie Her sense of freedom and adventure shaped who she was and who she would become. Throughout this book Janie never gave up her search for love and happiness. And throughout her three marriages she gained a lot of positive experiences.

Her first marriage was to a man named Logan Killicks, and she gained many positive experiences from that marriage. She learned the valuable lesson "that marriage did not make love. Shortly after that she left Logan. She then married a man named Joe "Jody" Starks and she learned a lot from that marriage as well. She learned, for example, that money doesn't equal happiness. Also in that marriage Janie learned to "talk some and leave some." Some things were important enough to fight with Jodie over and some, well most, weren't. He always won the fights so only the most unique matters could or would be quarreled over. Her third marriage was to Teacake, and she learned a lot of positive things from that marriage too. What she learned was the greatest lesson of them all. She learned Love. How to give it, how to receive it and how to express it. She loved him so much that "her soul crawled out from its hiding place," and she was able to begin her dreams once more. She learned how to express her feelings without fear of what would follow them. All of the good, bad, and worse in Janie's life were worth something because she learned from it. She became who she was because of it. Without the hurt and the pain and the heartbreak, she would not have been strong, and had she not been strong, she would have died along side Teacake. But she didn't, she lived on, and though it is not seen that she loved again it was not shown that she didn't keep learning.

This movie has touched me all around and I am happy that I had purchased this DVD. This is a timeless story of passion, romance, and the spirit of love I highly recommend this film.

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