Janie Crawford staggers barefoot into the small, all black, gossipy town of Eatonville, dressed simply in overalls. The whole place seems to be following her every footstep, and one collective thought hangs in the air, as unavoidable as the thick Florida humidity: Where is the man she loved enough to leave everything behind?
That's the opening scene of "Their Eyes Were Watching God," an Oprah Winfrey presentation starring Halle Berry as Janie. The film begs a question all of its own: Can it live up to the novel that was its inspiration?
Published in 1937, Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" built a legion of fans who appreciated the author's eye for detail, down-home phrases and riveting writing. It's a 1920s tale that has little to do with the outside forces of racism, drugs and alcohol that often overshadow modern-day love stories involving African Americans. The book is one of Winfrey's favorites, and she wanted to make it into a film in part to bring more recognition to Hurston, who died in poverty in 1960. Winfrey also tagged her friend Berry for the lead role.
As Janie, Berry offers a much different performance than she has in previous films, demonstrating a new level of maturity as an actress and seeming more comfortable in connecting with her audience through fine-tuned facial expressions. Gone are the dramatic, emotional outbursts that she unleashed in such films as "Monster's Ball," for which she won an Academy Award, or "Losing Isaiah." And once viewers accept Berry's Beyonce-length hair, it's easy to watch her settle into the main character.
Janie was a woman ahead of her time. She stood up to men and didn't worry about what family or friends thought of her. Her first two marriages brought her security and prosperity, but those things weren't enough. She needed more -- true love and the ability to be herself -- and she eventually found both with a younger man, Tea Cake, played by Silver Spring native Michael Ealy.
"Their Eyes" is a theatrical-quality production with impressive costumes and incredible cinematography. Only a handful of scenes were filmed in Florida, where the novel is based. Most were shot on a set in Valencia, Calif. One of the film's most mesmerizing moments is a hurricane scene with underwater camera shots that show Berry and her co-stars being flung through the violent water.
Though its production values appear good enough for the big screen, Winfrey, who produced the film with Quincy Jones, did not want "Their Eyes" to be released in movie theaters for fear that fewer people would see it. "Their Eyes" is the most expensive of the seven Winfrey-produced TV films, but cost less than most theatrical releases, said Kate Forte, executive producer.
"The challenge was to try to make something extraordinary and epic-quality with a much smaller budget," Forte said. To this end, Berry took a pay cut from her $10-million-per-film price.
One of the biggest differences between the book and the movie is the use of the title. In the book, Hurston sparingly used the phrase "watching God," but the film's producers wanted that theme to resonate more: Several scenes are devoted to capturing this idea and show Janie jumping into a nearby creek and floating on her back while staring at the sky in solitude.
As with many Oprah Winfrey projects, women dominate "Their Eyes." Chief among them are director Darnell Martin ("I Like It Like That," "Prison Song") and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks ("Topdog/Underdog"), who wrote the screen adaptation. Legendary actress Ruby Dee plays Janie's stern but loving grandmother, Nanny.
For Parks, one of the biggest challenges of writing "Their Eyes" for the screen was the dialogue. Hurston's novel is filled with a regional, Southern black sound, the kind of dialect that makes readers re-read lines to understand what's being said. Parks had to simplify the speech to make it more accessible to contemporary audiences.
"We took a step from the brilliantly rendered dialect and split the difference, retaining something like the dialect but putting in a voice that is hearable for the 2005 ear," Parks said.
Both Parks and Berry have said that fans of the book often warned them not to mess up -- and to be sure certain scenes were included.
"Everyone was saying, 'Girl, you better get that scene in when they're doing such and such,'" Parks said, laughing.
