Product Description

Oprah Winfrey Presents THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD, the story of a remarkable and resilient woman's quest for love and fulfillment based on the best-selling book by Zora Neale Hurston. Academy Award(R) winner Halle Berry (Best Actress 2003, MONSTERS BALL) stars as the beautiful Janie Crawford, who embarks on an emotional and dramatic journey of self-discovery. Refusing to compromise in spite of society's expectations, Janie endures two stifling marriages until finally finding love in a passionate romance with a much younger man. In one of the greatest, most lyrical love stories ever written, Janie experiences all that life has to offer, from unbelievable triumph to unspeakable heartbreak. Be inspired again and again by this timeless story of passion, romance, and the spirit of true love. ~

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7807 in DVD
• Brand: BUENA VISTA HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2005-11-29
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 113 minutes

Amazon.com
Produced by Oprah Winfrey, this lush, yet earthy telefilm was adapted from the 1937 novel by Zora Neale Hurston. Set in rural Florida, the story begins several years after emancipation. Janie (a soulful Halle Berry) is a dreamy-eyed teenager, who never knew her parents. She was raised by the bitter Nanny (Ruby Dee), an ex-slave, who marries her off to an older man the minute she gets the chance. Mr. Killicks works Janie like a dog, but leaves her alone otherwise (he's abusive in the book). Then Janie meets the courtly Joe (Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Lackawanna Blues), who whisks her away from the muck to the black township of Eatonville. The two proceed to transform the town from a patch of dirt into a real community. Along the way, Joe becomes mayor and Janie a mere helpmate. Except for her friend Phoeby (Nicki Micheaux), the townspeople confuse her sadness for conceit and she ends up lonelier than ever. Twenty years later, Joe dies and Janie takes up with the younger Tea Cake (Michael Ealy, Barbershop). Much like the other literary adaptations with which she's been associated (The Color Purple, Beloved, etc.), this Oprah production boasts an impressive line-up of African-American talent, including Terrence Howard (Crash) as the covetous Amos. A mostly successful mix between suds and substance, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which premiered on ABC, was directed by Darnell Martin, co-written by Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan Lori-Parks, and graced with a classy score by frequent Spike Lee collaborator Terence Blanchard. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

No Tribute to Zora Neale Hurston
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.

Disappointing.
This is my favorite book of all time. I'm also a huge fan of Halle and Oprah, but I found this to be a very bad adaptation of the book on many levels. It was just bad. I have no idea how one would receive this movie without reading the book, but it left out so much of the book. It lacked the emotional depth. And the saddest thing is that when I first read this book in 1993 that Halle Berry would make the perfect Janie. I still think I'm right. And the fact that this was done in 2 hour movie was an atrocity. This should have been a miniseries. I still applaud Oprah for bringing Zora's work to the masses.

Halle's best work
Oprah is responsible for the filming of this classic and it is a triumph indeed. It is based on the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Harlem Renaissance novelist, Zora Neale Hurston. The reknown Miss Hurston drew colorful depictions of of her community. She used colorful characterizations that illuminated the spitit of the black America.

Halle Berry plays heroine, "Janie", who is African American but actually looks white. Janie Crawford is raised by a strict grandmother she calls "Nanny." Nanny is determined to stamp out Janie's fire by marrying her off early. In my opinion, Berry shines in this role and pulls off Janie's sex appeal and beauty as described in Hurston's book.

Janie's marriage to the elderly first husband ends when she leaves him and walks off with husband number 2, Joe Starks, who promised to "show her the world." Hurston's descriptions of Janie's meticulous second husband is worth noting. We peer into their disagreements about how Janie should appear before the public as the mayor's wife and listen in on the gossip that follows as the townspeople marvel at her transformation into a lady.

Hurston's great dialogue captures the ongoing gossip of the townspeople who are quick to notice when things turn sour in Janie's house-hold. They wonder what she will do with herself when her husband dies, leaving her all his money.

You will champion Janie's strong will to be who she wanted to be and cheer her on as she sheds her mourning clothes and trades them in for pretty dresses, letting her proverbial hair down again!

When a gorgeous drifter by the name of Tea Cake comes to town, you sense what Janie will do once he catches her eye! Janie leaves her home, her business and memories of two stiffling marriages behind to run off with Tea Cake, played brilliantly by Michael Ealy. He and Halle definitely have chemistry on screen!

Of course he can't support Janie so they live off of her money until it runs out. She feels that Tea Cake's love "gave her the world everyday." Things take a turn for the worse when they both get caught in a hurricane and Tea Cake gets bitten by a rabid dog. Janie ends up putting him out of his misery and goes back home to relive her memories, never regretting the decision to live the way she wanted during her brief time with her man.

Rent this DVD and experience Janie's joie de vie in the sensual Juke joints dancing and laughing it up. But have your tissues ready for the tear jerking ending because it will definitely tug at your heart.