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. Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics, and colleagues on an exploration of race, history, the United States, and the human condition.
USA
Sundance
South Korea
Seoul International Women’s Film Festival
USAPG-13
UK12A
South Korea
UK
USA
I had three intellectual mothers. My biological mother is an amazing person. Full of unconditional love. I can't even tell you the hardships she, singlehandedly, raised me through. She's a smart woman. But she's not an intellectual one. And as I got older, and was taught more and more to be frightened of men by my father and others, I became hungry to be fed ideas by women that were bigger than the day-to-day struggle and street level understandings that my mother could give me. I had a loving, present mother, I needed intellectual mothers. They came to me over time. They were Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Estelle Butler, and Toni Morrison. Toni came last. Because she didn't write…
Going into this, I didn't know a thing about Toni Morrison. I'm not really familiar with literature outside of what we read in high school English class. So, when the trailer for this doc played at another movie, I was intrigued because, again, I knew nothing about her. I knew the name, but thats about it. It was a learning opportunity.
My god, this woman is marvelous. The documentary features both people talking about her and Toni herself talking about herself and her life and I was just so captivated learning about everything she did and the trails she blazed. Then youve got all these other people talking about how Toni and her work impacted them and it just makes…
“If you don’t understand the history of African American Women, then you don’t understand America”
I feel naked. She said if America was a melting pot, then Black People were the pot. 😭
Whenever I fear that I’m being too loud in my Blackness, I remember that this prophet walked the earth and I reason that I’m not being loud enough.
☆"The assumption of books I used to see is that the reader was a white person. They were never talking to me."☆
When Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in 1993, critic Stanley Crouch opined: "I hope that this prize inspires her to write better books." With all due respect, Mr. Crouch, you wouldn't know a good book if it came out of your ass.
I was so happy to see that this film was airing at an arthouse theatre in Wilmington today -- a day before my vacation where it's likely I won't be blogging/reviewing here -- as I was determined to see this documentary after sadly hearing of Toni Morrison's passing earlier this week. Taking the hour's drive…
Toni Morrison's singular, crystalline eloquence — about America, about writing, about blackness — makes her such an exceptional subject that one can forgive the rather stock style of this celebratory documentary.
"And she is loved" 👏🏽
Hearing one of literature's masters of language and storytelling give a glimpse of her own journey was unbeatable!
the sculpture of literary landscape is forever altered by the uncompromising brilliance and sheer perceptiveness of beloved writer Toni Morrison. aptly titled as ‘The Pieces I Am’ this documentary is a sharp fragmentation not only of Morrison’s personal history and ancestry but how they exquisitely spill as subdued influences throughout her literary work; and deftly focuses on her skill in stripping them off of the white male gaze and replacing them with authentic voices and experiences, particularly of black women, which are often disregarded and ignored if not undervalued and mocked. Morrison’s lyricism is enthralling and in their expression of breathtaking beauty, there is a harrowing discovery and exploration of the (involuntarily forgotten) past and its inevitable grip as the…
Shamefully, I have never read a book by Toni Morrison, but I knew what a legend she was ( :( ) and wanted to learn all about her. My favorite arthouse theatre had scheduled this film to run for the week when she happened to pass away, so it was incredibly timely. It felt like everyone watched with reverence, although the audience was strangely vocal and responded to the film as though we were at a church service.
This documentary really kept its focus on Morrison's path as a writer, and only included a bare outline of the rest of her life, so there are plenty of gaps left that I'd still love to fill in about her. That said,…
