This artful and intimate meditation on the legendary storyteller examines her life, her works and the powerful themes she has confronted throughout her literary career.
Despite considering myself an avid reader, I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never opened a Toni Morrison book. I know of her, of course, and I did see the film adaptation of Morrison’s arguably most acclaimed novel, “Beloved,” starring Oprah Winfrey, a massive fan of the author. Winfrey is also prominently featured in Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ documentary “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am,” showering her with praise. There are other notable talking heads, such as Fran Lebowitz and Russell Banks – but mostly, it’s Toni herself, reminiscing about her life, her work, the African-American experience, among many other subjects.
Greenfield-Sanders avoids artistic flourishes or embellishments – he simply lets his subject speak, and her words are more than enough. Eloquent, deeply intelligent, possessing a verbal dexterity that puts most other writers to shame, Morrison reiterates the importance of literature. Watching her passionately read excerpts from her own books will evoke turbulent emotions within you, those of guilt and pride and admiration – such is the power of her passages.
When Morrison was young, she miraculously balanced work as an editor, writer and single mother to several children. Her fiction unflinchingly adopted the perspective of black people without the “white gaze” upon them; Morrison eradicated it altogether, portraying her characters as individuals with their own identities, self-reliant and complex. Her hard work and perseverance (and of course unparalleled skills) were recognized in a time when it was tremendously difficult for women of color to have a voice. Morrison rose up the ladder; the doc traces the lead-up to her accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
Cheeky and wise, passionate about writing and utterly confident in her skills, Toni is simply marvelous. While her work’s importance/influence on African-American culture cannot be underestimated, Greenfield-Sanders does a good job emphasizing how it transcends race – her lyrical, meticulously structured prose is about us, human beings, overcoming the worst adversities and finding beauty in unspeakable horror. Sure, his doc may focus on her major works while skimming past others, and it may run a tad long at two hours, but it made me order “Beloved,” “Songs of Solomon,” and “The Bluest Eye” on Amazon right after watching it.
In select theaters Friday, June 21st
