“Let the Music Play”: Music, Meaning, and Method in Oprah Winfrey Presents: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Abstract

Many people had taken notice of the steamy trailer for Oprah Winfrey Presents Their Eyes Were Watching God, featuring Halle Berry as Janie and Michael Ealy as Tea Cake, frolicking as Alicia Keys’s sensual blues tune “Fallin”’² flirts with and caresses this Hollywood-handsome, light-skinned couple. And while it is significant that 24.6 million viewers tuned in for the Sunday night ABC (American Broadcasting Company) primetime event, making it the third most watched program of that evening, by most critical accounts, Oprah’s efforts were disappointing. Even with the star-studded cast, breathtaking cinematography, actor award nominations, and other nominations for costuming, directing, and hairstyling,³ those familiar with Hurston and this novel wanted more substance, especially those who knew the novel’s narrative and performative richness. Indeed, as is most often the case with television and movie adaptations of novels, this telefilm version is abbreviated, with character development and plot aborted—or otherwise altered—to suit decision-makers’ aesthetic awareness of television and movie constraints. However, as with any television and movie adaptation, interpretative liberties are taken, and in the absence of definitive answers from the production’s screenwriters, producers, directors, and actors, we as critics, scholars, and critical audiences construct narratives to explain and to question why and how certain decisions are made critically and aesthetically.

All night now the jooks clanged and clamored. Pianos living three lifetimes in one Blues made and used right on the spot. Dancing, fighting, singing, crying laughing, winning and losing love every hour. Work all day for money, fight all night for love. The rich black earth clinging to bodies and biting the skin like ants.¹