Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

Movie Information

The Nobel Prize-winning author details her life's artistic process in this thoroughly moving documentary.
Score:

Genre: Documentary
Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Starring: Toni Morrison, Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis
Rated: PG-13

The most brilliant and transcendent aspect of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s documentary on acclaimed author Toni Morrison is, naturally, the essence of the subject herself. The more the narrative and portrayal pertain to her, the more they reflect a panoramic view of America, the world and history. The film is highly empowering, reflective, enlightening and informative.

A collage of pictures, art, interviews and testimonials guides the audience on a journey through broken boxes that scatter and drip their contents over everybody and everything. This documentary not only details Morrison’s story and family history, which includes the Northern Migration, but it also encapsulates a story of immigration, opportunity and good luck.

The woman behind such works as Beloved and Song of Solomon takes aim at the ridiculousness and irony of racism and segregation — of black women caring for Caucasian children despite not being allowed to sit beside a white person in public. She also addresses the accusations that her writing is too ethnocentric.

Numerous engaging subjects are addressed, including self-hatred — particularly in the black community. Morrison also gives in-depth details of her ascent up the ladder of success, to ultimately win a Nobel Prize, and reflects on the challenges of being a single working mother and, noting how her novels have been banned from prisons and classrooms alike, the power of words.

Though this beautiful and acutely humanistic work explores many perspectives, one detail that seems purposely omitted is Morrison’s romantic life. While it’s arguably inconsequential in the telling of her story, oddly, she doesn’t refer to the father of her children, nor does she allude to any other men of intimate or amorous significance in her life. It seems Morrison and the creators of this picture sought to let her story, accomplishments and essence stand on their own without any justification via male approval or desire.

I certainly recommend The Pieces I Am to everyone, especially artists and dreamers. It vividly peels back the papyrus that covers humankind’s daily existence and aids in healing the deepest of wounds.

Starts July 19 at Grail Moviehouse

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2 thoughts on “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

  1. Marcianne Miller

    The only thing wrong with this wonderful, informative, inspiring documentary is that you want to run right home and start devouring every word ever written by the blessed Toni Morrison.

  2. Marcianne Miller

    Celebrated novelist Toni Morrison reportedly died on Monday night [Aug. 5, 2019] at the age of 88. The Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer was perhaps best known for the novels Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, and Song of Solomon. She published her latest, God Help the Child, in 2015. Before she became an internationally renowned author, Morrison worked as an editor at Random House for 19 years, where she has been credited with lifting up a new generation of black writers, including Angela Davis. “We die,” Morrison said in her Nobel Prize address. “That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”–Daily Beast

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