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Jack Taylor (TV series)
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Jack Taylor
Genre
Crime drama
Created by
Ken Bruen
Written by
Marteinn Thorisson
Marcus Fleming
Directed by
Stuart Orme
Starring
Iain Glen
Killian Scott
Nora-Jane Noone
Siobhán O'Kelly
Paraic Breathnach
Jack Monaghan
Composer(s)
Colin Towns
Country of origin
Ireland
Original language(s)
English
No. of seasons
3
No. of episodes
9 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)
Ralph Christians
Richard Price
Dirk Schweitzer
Producer(s)
Clodagh Freeman
Location(s)
Galway, Ireland; Bremen, Germany
Running time
90–100 minutes
Production company(s)
Magna Films
Distributor
TV3 Television Network
Release
Original network
TV3
Picture format
16:9
Audio format
Mono
Original release
2 August 2010 – present
External links
Jack Taylor Films
Jack Taylor is an Irish mystery television drama based on the novels by Ken Bruen. Set in Galway, the program features Iain Glen in the eponymous role of Jack Taylor, a former officer with the Garda Síochána (national police) who becomes a "finder" (private investigator) after leaving the service; Taylor looks for clues others have overlooked, and knows the streets of his hometown like the back of his hand.
Contents
[hide]
1 Premise
2 Cast
3 Background
4 Episodes
4.1 Series 1 (2010–11)
4.2 Series 2 (2013)
4.3 Series 3 (2016)
5 Reception
6 DVD releases
7 References
8 External links
Premise[edit]
Set in Galway, the series is based on Ken Bruen's crime novels and features Iain Glen as the leading character, Jack Taylor, an old-school detective, and a maverick who often drinks much more than is good for him. After he is sacked from the Gardaí (the Irish police force) for assaulting a politician he had stopped for a traffic violation, Jack begins to work as a private investigator, reluctantly taking on cases the police will not investigate. According to the series' voiceover, there are no private eyes in Ireland–"It's too close to being an informant – a dodgy concept". Jack soon realises his experience suits him in his new role. He is aided in his investigations by his contacts, including some of his former Gardaí colleagues, notably Officer Kate Noonan.[1][2]
Cast[edit]
Iain Glen as Jack Taylor
Killian Scott as Cody Farraher
Nora-Jane Noone as Garda Kate Noonan (series 1—2)
Siobhán O'Kelly as Garda Kate Noonan (series 3)
Tara Breathnach as Anne Henderson (series 1)
Frank O'Sullivan as Superintendent Clancy (series 1)
Pádraic Breathnach as Father Malachy
Jack Monaghan as Darragh Noonan (series 3)
Background[edit]
The first Jack Taylor film, The Guards, received its television debut on Ireland's TV3 on 2 August 2010.[3] It was later shown on Canvas in Belgium with Dutch subtitles, and received its first UK broadcast on Channel 5 on 21 February 2013.[1] Following The Guards, two further films, The Pikemen and The Magdalene Martyrs, were recorded and aired in September 2011. In November 2011 the Irish Film and Television Network reported that a further two films, The Dramatist and Priest, were in production, and that Noone and Scott would once again join Glen, reprising their roles. Aaron Monaghan, Emma Eliza Regan and Gavin Drea would also join the cast.[4] The Dramatist aired on TV3 on 3 March 2013,[5] with Priest debuting a week later.[6] Filming for Shot Down, the sixth episode of the series, and billed as the season one finale, began on 7 June 2013. The film is based on Bruen's novel The Killing of the Tinkers.[7] Episodes 1 through 6 are available in the US on Netflix Streaming as of 19 February 2014,[8] episodes 7 througn 9 as of 10 April 2017.[9]
Iain Glen spoke to the Daily Record about his role as Taylor shortly before the series began airing in the UK in February 2013, saying the chance to pay homage to the 1970s film, Chinatown, had inspired him to take the part:
I've always fancied playing a private eye, ever since I saw Jack Nicholson play Jake Gittes in Chinatown. It is familiar territory but I think there are various aspects that individualize it. One is Ireland's west coast, which has a stunning coastline, and the town of Galway itself [...] The big advantage of taking stuff from books as well written as Ken Bruen's, is that he offers you fantastic dialogue. It's kind of Philip Marlowe with American, quick, dry one-liners all the way. It's lovely to play.[10]
Episodes[edit]
Series
Episodes
Originally aired
First aired
Last aired
1 3 2 August 2010 (2010-08-02) 15 September 2011 (2011-09-15)
2 3 3 March 2013 (2013-03-03) 1 December 2013 (2013-12-01)
3 3 17 November 2016 (2016-11-17) 1 December 2016 (2016-12-01)
Series 1 (2010–11)[edit]
No.
overall
No. in
series
Title
Directed by
Written by
Original air date
1
1 "The Guards" Stuart Orme Tom Collins, Anne McCabe & Ralph Christians 2 August 2010 (2010-08-02)
Jack Taylor, a sergeant with the Gardaí Síochána, hands in his resignation after being told he would receive the boot for assaulting a politician that he caught speeding. When he is contacted by Anne Hennessy, a distraught mother whose daughter Sarah has supposedly disappeared, he agrees to use his skills as a 'private eye' to investigate her disappearance. After discovering that the girl may have become the latest in a series of suspicious deaths and disappearances in Galway, he seeks help from an old friend, Sutton, to investigate the case. After speaking with a group of young girls, Jack discovers that some of the victims were linked to a local factory, Planters, run by sleazy factory manager named Ford. When he discovers a collection of illegal sex videos, he realises that the revelations are only the beginning of his investigation. However, it soon transpires that Sutton (Ralph Brown) has alternative motives for wanting to work on the case, and Jack soon realises that his closest friend may also be his closest enemy.
2
2 "The Pikemen" Stuart Orme Marteinn Thorisson 1 September 2011 (2011-09-01)
Upon returning to Galway, Jack is an approached by an old friend, O'Shea, whose son, Niall, was killed after falling from a balcony on a construction site. Jack agrees to look into the circumstances surrounding his death, and discovers that he may be connected to several other victims who were found dead in mysterious circumstances. When another man is attacked, Jack learns of a vigilante group known as 'The Pikemen', who appear to be attacking people who were supposedly unconvicted of the crimes that they were responsible for. Assisted by eager young investigator Cody, Jack discovers that Niall was suspected of being responsible for the disappearance of three twelve year old girls. Meanwhile, upon re-establishing contact with Anne Henderson, Jack finds her in an abusive relationship with a local businessman, Caffrey. When Caffrey turns up dead, a victim of the Pikemen, Jack is arrested. He realises that the only way to prove his innocence is to escape from custody, and he is forced to rely on Cody to clear his name.
3
3 "The Magdalen Martyrs" Stuart Orme Marteinn Thorisson 15 September 2011 (2011-09-15)
Jack is hired by Maggie McCarthy, the daughter of a recently deceased former inmate at St Monica's, an infamous Magdalen laundry in Galway, who wishes to identify the sadistic nun mentioned in her mother's diary, known only as Lucifer. The investigation is quickly hampered when Cody discovers that incriminating church records have vanished; while Jack is warned to drop the case by local criminal, Bill Cassell. As the diary reveals the depth of Lucifer's brutality, Jack discovers a 50-year-old family secret that leads him to the nun's identity, and an unexpected connection to the recent deaths of two brothers, the sons of local patriarch Brendan Flood. When Jack is threatened by Cassell, he is forced to hand over the diary. Realising that it is the only piece of evidence which could lead him to Lucifer, and remembering that he promised Maggie that he would guard it with his life, he sets out to get it back – with tragic consequences. Kate is forced to once again suppress evidence from the crime scene in order to ensure Jack's freedom – but will he discover the link between the cases before the killer strikes again?
Series 2 (2013)[edit]
No.
overall
No. in
series
Title
Directed by
Written by
Original air date
4
1 "The Dramatist" Stuart Orme Marcus Fleming 3 March 2013 (2013-03-03)
Seven months after his mother's stroke, and continuing on his path of sobriety and healthier living, Jack is called on to investigate the death of a female university student, Sarah Bradley, who has fallen from a roof while dressed in theatre costume. A ring of paper around her wrist contains an apparent suicide note written in her blood, and Gardaí assume the death to be drug related. Jack is hired by university professor Eugene Gorman to investigate the case, suspecting that the girl was murdered. Jack sends Cody undercover, posing as a university student, to gather information on Bradley's fellow students, as well as one particularly suspicious tutor, Professor Doyle. Meanwhile, Kate has a new boss, DS Griffin, who is overseeing her promotion into a detective. Griffin, however, is less than pleased with Kate's association with Jack and warns him to stay clear of Kate – and the investigation. When a second girl is found dead in similar circumstances, the owner of a local bookshop, who deals in heroin, becomes prime suspect.
5
2 "Priest" Stuart Orme Marteinn Thorisson 10 March 2013 (2013-03-10)
Jack is hired by Father Malachy to investigate the death of a priest, Father Royce, who has been beheaded. He discovers the cleric abused two boys, Michael Clare and Tom Reed, several years earlier. Shortly after interviewing Tom Reed, he is found dead in the bath of a suspected heroin overdose. Jack initially suspects that Reed may have been targeted by a relative of a young boy whom he raped ten years ago, but when he finds a note identical to the one left at the scene of Father Royce's murder, he suspects that Reed met his fate at the hands of the same killer. Upon checking Reed's bank statements, Jack discovers he was receiving regular payments of £2,000 from an unknown account. As Clare's behaviour continues to become more and more erratic, Jack discovers that he was responsible for the rape that Reed was convicted of. As Jack begins to drift back into his old ways, and discovers more of his own demons, Cody decides to do a little covert digging of his own – but it leads him right into the path of the killer.
6
3 "Shot Down" Stuart Orme Marteinn Thorisson 1 December 2013 (2013-12-01)
Riddled with guilt after Cody's shooting, Jack leaves Galway, and after six months on the road, finds himself in Dublin. Whilst meeting with a client one evening to provide him with some surveillance photos, Jack finds a young girl, Rosie, covered in blood, who claims to have witnessed her mother being murdered. Her mother, Sinead Mangan, is later found dead with a shotgun wound to the head. Moving himself into the local traveller community, Jack becomes embroiled in a long-standing feud between the Kelly and Mangan families. As he tries to help Rosie recall the events of the tragic night, he discovers that Rosie's father, Eddie, is connected to well known Dublin crime kingpin Bridie Hannigan. But when Eddie is later murdered in an arson attack, Jack realises that Rosie may have been the intended victim. When Rosie disappears, Jack manages to track her down to a deserted workshop in the Dublin hills. With a little help from Kate, he finally manages to get her to open up – but it's not long before the killer comes calling.
Series 3 (2016)[edit]
No.
overall
No. in
series
Title
Directed by
Written by
Original air date
7
1 "Blood Cross" Stuart Orme Marteinn Thorisson 17 November 2016 (2016-11-17)
A young man is found crucified, and Kate asks Jack to meet with the victim's mother, who is not satisfied with the direction of the police inquiry. Cody is moving to Boston with Sheena. Darragh, Kate's cousin, becomes Jack's assistant. Kate has a medical issue. Original title was "Cross".
8
2 "Nemesis" Stuart Orme Marteinn Thorisson 24 November 2016 (2016-11-24)
A troubled young man is kidnapped, seemingly for ransom from his wealthy parents, who have hired for the case a cocky London investigator (Christopher Fulford). When the victim's severed finger is separately sent to his girlfriend, she approaches Jack for help – even though the man and Jack have some very murky shared history. In the meantime, Kate has to face a personal struggle of her own. Original title was "Headstone".
9
3 "In Purgatory" Charlie McCarthy Marteinn Thorisson 1 December 2016 (2016-12-01)
While still dealing with the fallout from the previous episode's events, both Jack and Kate become involved with investigating the murder of a young intern who worked at the Irish branch of a large American game software company.
Reception[edit]
Bernice Harrison of The Irish Times gave the first film, The Guards, a mixed reception.
Stylishly filmed by director of photography John Conroy, its cool, contemporary atmosphere was spoiled by the corny device of periodically giving Taylor a voiceover, improbably turning the ex-guard in Galway with a drink problem into an old-style gumshoe in a film noir. Perhaps if it had been just an hour long instead of feature-length, director Stuart Orme would have insisted on a tighter script, been sharper with his edits and made a better drama. The book deserved it and grizzly Jack Taylor is a strong enough character to hang it – or for that matter, a series – on.[3]
She was far less positive about the following two films in 2011, finding Glen's Irish accent to be unconvincing.
TV3 is showing two more Jack Taylor investigations...and they are even worse than The Guards...The dramas are a mostly German production – filmed partially in Bremen, which may or may not look like Galway – and there's a touch of the Oirish about the whole thing, and not just because Taylor's weapon of choice is a hurley. Glenn [sic], who in The Guards couldn't quite settle on an accent, has now decided to channel Clint Eastwood: his voice is a husky American-tinged drawl that wouldn't have gone down too well in Templemore.[11]
Keith Watson of Metro felt The Guards had several problems, but that Glen had rescued it.
Sidestepping gumshoe cliché, Glen gave Taylor a world-weary charisma that lifted him above the odd story he found himself in from failure. A mixed-up yarn involving a dodgy old artist mate, a spot of under-age sex, a femme fatale and some sideswipes at the state of the Irish economy, the plot buckled under its baffling lack of logic. But Glen, peering at the world through Taylor's boozed-up eyes, lent the action a credibility and mystery it scarcely deserved.[12]
David Jenkins of Time Out was more positive about The Guards, although he felt there was nothing new in the storyline.
It's all very clichéd, from the wiseacre patter to the generic chase scene through a strangely empty warehouse. But who's complaining when the clichés are thrown together with this much tenderness and panache?[13]
David Stephenson of the UK's Daily Express praised the episode's opening sequence.
The first few minutes of this new feature-length drama confirmed in my mind that I was going to enjoy the next 90 minutes. For a start it began with a car chase after Jack had taken a requisite large slug of booze.[14]
Reviewing The Pikemen following its British television debut, the Radio Times's David Butcher was generally positive, praising Glen for his portrayal of the central character.
It's not the paciest of crime thrillers but Iain Glen makes Jack the kind of doleful, rugged character you want to keep watching and the story has the right kind of rough edges.[15]
Phil Harrison of Time Out called the second film, "surprisingly enjoyable", but echoed Jenkins's concerns about plot. "[T]he familiar scenarios are at least played out with appropriate relish and conviction and Glen's excellently gnarly in the lead. Daft, grimy fun."[16]
Reviewing the DVD release of the first three films, The Independent's Ben Walsh gave it three out of five stars, saying Iain Glen "convinces as damaged Jack Taylor, an alcoholic former cop who now works as a Galway gumshoe."[17]
In March 2013, The Guardian's Laura Barnett spoke to a real-life private investigator from UK Private Investigators who had a mixed opinion of the series. Tim Burchell of UK Private Investigators told Barnett:
The first time I tried to watch this, I turned it off after 20 minutes. I just couldn't stand all the cliches: the heavy-drinking, loner ex-cop. That's not who I am at all [...] I enjoyed it much more the second time. It does show all the groundwork we have to put in: people think we sit and type names into Google, but we're out there, pounding the streets. And although I've never taken on a murder case, as Taylor does, missing-person cases are our bread and butter."
He also felt that such shows can give a misleading view of his occupation. "Shows like this are great entertainment, but they do give people the wrong idea."[18]
DVD releases[edit]
Lumière released the first five episodes on DVD with Dutch subtitles on 29 January 2013.[19][20] Acorn Media released the first three episodes on DVD in the UK on 4 March 2013.[21]
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b Simon, Jane (21 February 2013). "Channel 5's Jack Taylor The Guards hurtles around at an exhausting pace". Daily Mirror. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
Jump up ^ Carter, Carol (21 February 2013). "Jack Taylor, Murder on the Victorian Railway and Meet The Izzards". Metro. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
^ Jump up to: a b Harrison, Bernice (7 August 2010). "A sub-standard adventure". The Irish Times. The Irish Times Trust. Retrieved 1 March 2013. (Subscription required (help)).
Jump up ^ Drohan, Ciara (24 November 2011). "New 'Jack Taylor' Movies Filming in Galway, Monaghan, Regan & Drea Join Cast". The Irish Film & Television Network. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
Jump up ^ Gilmore, Gearóid (28 February 2013). "Jack Taylor Returning To TV3 With Two New Instalments". The Irish Film & Television Network. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
Jump up ^ Cronin, Kevin (7 March 2013). "'Jack Taylor' investigates murder of beheaded priest in TV3 finale". The Irish Film & Television Network. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
Jump up ^ "'Jack Taylor: Shot Down' Filming Until 28th June". The Irish Film and Television Network. 21 June 2013. Retrieved 15 December 2013.
Jump up ^ "Jack Taylor: A Netflix Original : 2016 undefined 1 Season". Movies.netflix.com. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
Jump up ^ "[US] Jack Taylor (2016) After a long absence, new episodes are back of the Irish ex-cop with a drinking problem solving cases on his own. • r/NetflixBestOf". Reddit.com. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
Jump up ^ Hendry, Steve (17 February 2013). "Game of thrones star Iain Glen ditches his sword and becomes a detective". Daily Record. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
Jump up ^ Harrison, Bernice (17 September 2011). "One forensic documentary beats two cliche-ridden cop dramas". The Irish Times. The Irish Times Trust. Retrieved 1 March 2013. (Subscription required (help)).
Jump up ^ Watson, Keith (23 February 2013). "TJack Taylor got a credibility it scarcely deserved from Iain Glen". Metro. Associated Newspapers. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
Jump up ^ Jenkins, David (14 February 2013). "Jack Taylor: The Guards review". Time Out London. Timeout. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
Jump up ^ Stephenson, David (24 February 2013). "PI Jack is worth a shot". Daily Express. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
Jump up ^ Butcher, David (1 March 2013). "Jack Taylor | Series 1 – 2. Jack Taylor: The Pikemen". Radio Times. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
Jump up ^ Harrison, Phil (22 February 2013). "Jack Taylor: The Pikemen review". Time Out London. Timeout. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
Jump up ^ Walsh, Ben (22 March 2013). "DVD & Blu-ray review: Jack Taylor: Collection One". The Independent. Independent Print Limited. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
Jump up ^ Barnett, Laura (18 March 2013). "A private investigator's view on TV drama Jack Taylor". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
Jump up ^ "Ken Bruens Jack Taylor binnenkort op DVD". Crimezone.nl. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
Jump up ^ "Jack Taylor (DVD)". Bol.com.
Jump up ^ "Jack Taylor: Collection One (DVD)". Amazon.co.uk.
External links[edit]
Official Website
Jack Taylor show page at Channel 5 (UK)
Jack Taylor on IMDb
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List of Coronation Street actors
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Many actors have appeared in Coronation Street who have then gone on to become more notable for other work. Actors and actresses who began or spent part of their career in Coronation Street include:
Regular appearances[edit]
Amanda Barrie, who played Alma Halliwell, one-time wife of Mike Baldwin, was an early star of the British series of Carry On films, and appeared in the prison drama Bad Girls.
Vicky Binns played Molly Dobbs. She is the daughter of Diggory Compton, and wife of Tyrone Dobbs.
Chris Bisson as Vikram Desai, later the star of East Is East and a recurring star in Shameless. He currently plays Jai Sharma in Emmerdale.
Craig Charles, star of Red Dwarf and played cab-driver Lloyd Mullaney.
Boyzone star Keith Duffy played Ciaran McCarthy, a barman in The Rovers Return.
Peter Duncan, who went on to present Blue Peter and become the UK's chief scout, played Christopher Cullen in the mid-1970s.
Roy Hudd played Audrey Roberts' close friend - and professional undertaker - Archie Shuttleworth from 2002 to 2003, who assisted Audrey in trying to bring down the Street's serial killer, Richard Hillman.
Sue Johnston, best known for her roles as Sheila Grant in Brookside and Barb Royle in The Royle Family, played Mrs. Chadwick in 1982. She returned to the show in 2012 to play regular Gloria Price until 2014.
Ben Kingsley, who portrayed Mahatma Gandhi in Richard Attenborough's biographical film Gandhi, appeared from 1966-1967 as Ron Jenkins.
Arthur Lowe, who starred as Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army appeared for several years as Leonard Swindley, taking the character into the spin-off sitcom Pardon The Expression.
Helene Palmer, as Ida Clough from 1978 to 1988, and again from 1995 to 1998.[1]
Adam Rickitt who had played Nick Tilsley went to New Zealand to star on the soap opera, Shortland Street.
Linus Roache, son of William Roache (Ken Barlow) who played Peter Barlow in the early 1970s and went on to star in the film Priest. He returned in 2010 playing the guest role of Lawrence Cunningham.
William Russell, regular companion in Doctor Who as Rita Sullivan's second husband Ted Sullivan in 1992.
Michael Sheard who played Mr. Bronson in Grange Hill appeared as Arthur Dabner in 1989.
Elisabeth Sladen, who went on to genre fame as Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who, played Anita Reynolds in 1970.
Debra Stephenson, star of ITV prison drama Bad Girls played Frankie Baldwin from 2004 to 2006.
Bradley Walsh, comedian, once half of a comedy duo with Joe Pasquale, played Danny Baldwin, Mike Baldwin's "nephew" who later found out he was his son. Is now famous for presenting popular gameshow, The Chase.
Kenneth Cope, best known for playing Marty Hopkirk in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), appeared as Jed Stone, a.k.a. "Sonny Jim", Minnie Caldwell's gaolbird lodger throughout the early 1960s.
Short-term appearances[edit]
Honor Blackman played Rula Romanoff, an ageing wife-swapper who wanted to swap with Norris and Rita, in 2004.
Music star Cliff Richard appeared in a scene, but he had his back to the camera. The main characteristics of him in the scene, which was shot in the Rovers, were black hair, and a jumper which had the words 'Rock and Roll' across it.
Graham Fellows, the comedian-pop star who created the fictional personae Jilted John and John Shuttleworth, had a cameo role in one episode and later returned as truck driver Les Charlton, a regular at Gail's cafe.
Davy Jones of the Monkees made an appearance before he became famous in 1961 (and again in 1972) as Ena Sharples's grandson Colin Lomax.
Farnworth comedian Peter Kay played a shopfitter in 1997 and made a cameo appearance over two episodes in January 2004 as Eric Gartside, a man who went on a date with Shelley Unwin.
Joanna Lumley of Absolutely Fabulous and The New Avengers played Elaine Perkins, a girlfriend of Ken Barlow, in 1973.
Bill Maynard, better known as Greengrass on Heartbeat, appeared as song agent Micky Malone when Ena Sharples's songs were being stolen and sold by Stan Ogden.[2]
Ian McKellen starred in 10 episodes in 2005 as con-merchant 'novelist' Melvin Hutchwright.
Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits played Stanley Fairclough in 1961.[3]
Norman Wisdom, comedian, played fitness fanatic Ernie Crabbe in one episode in 2004.
Patricia Routledge, better known as Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, appeared in 1961 as Sylvia Snape.
Zöe Lucker, who played Tanya Turner in Footballers' Wives, played Sonia Leach in 1996.
Prunella Scales, best known as Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, played bus conductress Eileen Hughes in 1961.
Martin Shaw, who played Doyle in the ITV action series The Professionals, played hippy Robert Croft in 1968.
Joanne Whalley, who starred in the acclaimed BBC dramas Edge of Darkness and The Singing Detective before a Hollywood career beckoned, played Pamela Graham in 1974.
Laurence Olivier once offered to take part in a scene on the Street, acting alongside Jean Alexander, whom he admitted was his favourite actress on the programme. However, scheduling conflicts between the Street and the film Marathon Man denied him the chance to act on his favourite TV programme.[4] Michael Crawford and Robbie Williams have both appeared as extras, drinking in the bar of the Rovers.[citation needed]
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Thursby, Keith (2011-01-13). "Corrie star bows out". Bridlington Free Press. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
Jump up ^ Nown, Graham ed.(1985). Coronation Street 1960-1985: 25 years, CBC Enterprises, 1986. ISBN 0-88794-231-8 photo with brief description of cameo role p203.
Jump up ^ Nown, Graham ed.(1985). Coronation Street 1960-1985: 25 years, CBC Enterprises, 1986. ISBN 0-88794-231-8 photo with brief description of cameo role p209.
Jump up ^ William Roache (2010). 50 Years on the Street: My Life with Ken Barlow. Mainstream Publishing. p. 121.
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For the television film adaptation, see Their Eyes Were Watching God (film).
Their Eyes Were Watching God
First edition
Author
Zora Neale Hurston
Country
United States
Language
English
Publisher
J. B. Lippincott
Publication date
September 18, 1937
OCLC
46429736
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a 1937 novel and the best known work by African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston. The novel narrates main character Janie Crawford's "ripening from a vibrant, but voiceless, teenage girl into a woman with her finger on the trigger of her own destiny."[1] As a young woman, who is fair-skinned with long hair, she expects more out of life, but comes to realize that people must learn about life 'fuh theyselves' (for themselves), just as people can only go to God for themselves. Set in central and southern Florida in the early 20th century, the novel was initially poorly received, but today, it has come to be regarded as a seminal work in both African-American literature and women's literature.[2] TIME included the novel in its 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923.[3]
Contents
[hide]
1 Historical context
1.1 Racial Climate in the Early 1900s
1.2 Hurston, Racial Uplift, and the Harlem Renaissance
2 Plot synopsis
3 Themes
3.1 Gender Roles
3.2 Liberated Woman
3.3 Value of Women in a Relationship
3.4 Voice and Language
3.5 Race
4 Inspirations and influences
5 Reception
5.1 Initial reception
5.2 Rediscovery
6 Critical analysis
7 Adaptations for theater, film and radio
8 Notes
9 External links
Historical context[edit]
Racial Climate in the Early 1900s[edit]
With legislation like the Jim Crow laws, enacted from 1890 to 1910, many African-Americans were disfranchised. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized black citizens, leading to the steady decline of African-American political representation. Tenant farming and sharecropping systems constituted the de facto re-enslavement of African Americans in the South, where Hurston's novel is based.[4]
Racism was gaining legitimacy in the decades leading up to Hurston's writing of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Baptist preacher Thomas Dixon, Jr. wrote The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden in 1902, asserting white supremacy amidst supposed African-American evil and corruption. The book was so popular that Dixon wrote a trilogy. His second novel, The Clansman, was adapted for the silent film The Birth of a Nation, portraying African-American men in an unintelligent, sexually aggressive light (1915).[4] During the Harlem Renaissance, African-American writers were urged to write toward an Uplift program, to improve the image of African-Americans in society.[5]
Hurston, Racial Uplift, and the Harlem Renaissance[edit]
Where many of her fellow writers were participating first in W. E. B. Du Bois' Uplift agenda and, later, in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston refused to comply. The renaissance was meant to be a liberating response to the restrictive standards of the Racial Uplift program, encouraging writers and artists to expose racist oppression in American society. In an essay by Nick Aaron Ford, Hurston is quoted to have to said, "Many Negroes criticise my book, because I did not make it a lecture on the race problem."[6] When asked why she chose not to comment on the race problem in her novel, Hurston replied, "Because I was writing a novel and not a treatise on sociology. [...] I have ceased to think in terms of race; I think only in terms of individuals. I am interested in you now, not as a Negro man but as a man. I am not interested in the race problem, but I am interested in the problems of individuals, white ones and black ones."[6]
Similar to Hurston, Wallace Thurman rejected both the traditional Uplift politics and the agenda of the "New Negro".[7] He organized a group of authors including Hurston to create their own magazine, FIRE!!, that would publish the African-American experience without any filters or censors. Hurston's contributions, like Their Eyes Were Watching God, used vernacular southern African-American English. Hurston viewed her work as distinct from the work of fellow Harlem Renaissance writers she described as the "sobbing school of Negrohood" that portrayed the lives of black people as constantly miserable, downtrodden and deprived.[8] Instead, Hurston celebrated the rural, southern African-American communities as she found them. In addition, Hurston refused to censor women's sexuality, writing in beautiful innuendo to embrace the physical dimension of her main character's romances. Completely rejecting the Uplift agenda, the magazine also included homoerotic work as well as portrayals of prostitution.[9] Foreshadowing the African-American community's response to Their Eyes Were Watching God, FIRE!! sold very poorly and was condemned as maligning the image of the community. A Baltimore Afro-American reviewer wrote that he "just tossed the first issue of FIRE!! into the fire".[10]
Plot synopsis[edit]
The main character Janie Crawford, an African-American woman in her early forties, tells the story of her life to her best friend Pheoby Watson through an extended flashback. Readers receive the story of her life in three major periods corresponding to her marriages to three very different men.
The flashback in the book begins with Janie's sexual awakening which she compares to a pear blossom in spring. Not long after, Janie allows a local boy, Johnny Taylor, to kiss her, which Janie's grandmother, Nanny, witnesses.
Nanny is an elderly woman who, as a slave, was raped by her owner and gave birth to a mixed-race daughter Leafy. Nanny escaped from her jealous mistress and found a good home after the end of the American Civil War. Nanny tried to create a good life for her daughter, but Leafy was raped by her school teacher and became pregnant with Janie. Shortly after Janie's birth, Leafy began to drink and stay out at night. Eventually, she ran away, leaving her daughter Janie with Nanny.
Nanny, afraid Janie's life may follow Leafy's or her own, transfers all the hopes she had for Leafy to Janie and arranges for Janie to marry Logan Killicks, an older farmer looking for a wife. Although Janie is not interested in either Logan or marriage, her grandmother wants her to have the stability she never had; legal marriage to Killicks, Nanny believes, will give Janie opportunities. Nanny feels that Janie will be unable to take care of herself, so she must marry a man who will take care of her.[11] Janie marries Logan Killicks.
Janie's image of the pear tree causes her to imagine that marriage must involve love—in Janie's pear tree scene, she sees bees pollinating a pear tree and believes that marriage is the human equivalent to this natural process. However, Killicks wants a domestic helper rather than a lover or partner; he thinks Janie does not do enough around the farm and that she is ungrateful. Janie speaks to Nanny about how she feels, but Nanny, too, accuses her of being spoiled. And so, Janie's idea of the pear tree is tarnished. Soon afterward, Nanny dies.
Unhappy, disillusioned, and lonely, Janie chooses to leave Killicks and runs off with the glib Jody (Joe) Starks, who takes her to Eatonville, Florida. Finding the small town residents unambitious, Starks arranges to buy more land, establishes a general store which he has built by local residents, and is soon elected as mayor of the town. Janie soon realises that Starks wants her as a trophy wife, to reinforce his powerful position in town. He asks her to run the store, but forbids her from participating in the substantial social life that occurs on the store's front porch. He treats her as his property, controlling what she wears and says, and criticizes her mistakes. He also begins to strike her occasionally. As time passes, he teases her in public about being old, even though she is only in her thirties.
Eventually, she cannot bear it and snaps back at Joe to look at himself. Starks hits her as hard as he can. Later, he gets sick, and refuses to let Janie see him. He does not realize that he has a failing kidney, a likely fatal illness. When Janie learns that he might die, she goes to talk to him. She tells him who she really is and says that he never knew because he would not let her be free.
After Starks dies, Janie becomes financially independent through his estate. She is beset with suitors, some of whom are men of some means or have prestigious occupations, and all of whom she turns down. She meets a young drifter and gambler named Vergible Woods who goes by the name "Tea Cake". Tea Cake plays the guitar for her and initially treats her with kindness and respect. At first Janie is doubtful of his affections, as she is older and has wealth, but eventually falls in love with him.
Deciding to run away with him, Janie has a friend look after the store, and the two head to Jacksonville to marry. They move to the Everglades region ("the muck") where they find work planting and harvesting beans. While their relationship has its ups and downs, including mutual bouts of jealousy and an episode in which Tea Cake whips Janie in order to demonstrate his possession of her, Janie realizes she now has the marriage with love that she's always wanted; her image of the pear tree blossom is revived.
However, the area is hit by the great Okeechobee hurricane, and in the chaos of surviving, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog while saving Janie from drowning, and he contracts the disease. While the disease runs its course, he becomes increasingly jealous and unpredictable despite Janie's best efforts. He ultimately tries to shoot Janie with his pistol, and she is forced to shoot him first with a rifle in self-defense. She is charged with murder.
At the trial, Tea Cake's black male friends show up to oppose her, but a group of local white women arrive to support Janie. The all-white jury acquits Janie, and she gives Tea Cake a lavish funeral. Tea Cake's friends are apologetic and forgive her, wanting her to remain in the Everglades. However, she decides to return to Eatonville.
As she expected, the residents gossip about her when she arrives back in town. The story ends where it started, and Janie finishes telling her story to Pheoby.
Themes[edit]
Gender Roles[edit]
The novel explores traditional gender roles and the relationship between men and women. Nanny believes that Janie should marry a man not for love but for 'protection'.[12] Janie's first two husbands: Logan Killicks and Jody Starks both believe Janie should be defined by her marriage to them. Both men want her to be domesticated and silent. Her speech, or silence, is defined by her physical locations, most often. For example, Joe forces her silence in the store, a public—and therefore, male—space. Joe says, "...Muh wife don't know nothin' bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's uh woman and her place is in de home."[13] Janie is also forbidden from socialising with the men on the porch. Her place is seen as in the home and not out on the porch, a public space which can be defined as male. Tea Cake is Janie's last husband who treats her as more of an equal than Killicks and Starks did, by talking to her and playing checkers with her. Despite his equal treatment in the beginning, Tea Cake does hit Janie in order to show his possession over her. Thus, Janie's life seems defined by her relation to male-centric spaces.
Liberated Woman[edit]
Janie is searching for her own identity throughout the novel. She is seen as separated from the other women in the novel who follow the traditions in place and do not find a life independent of men. Janie's womanliness is a source of jealousy for both Starks and Tea Cake who shame her for her looks. Starks orders Janie to cover her hair as other men found it a source of attraction. Similarly, Tea Cake is conscious of Janie's lighter skin and her appeal to Mrs. Turner's brother. Janie finds her independence as a woman after the death of Tea Cake. She returns to Eatonville with her hair down and she sits on her own porch chatting with her friend Pheoby. She has overcome the traditional roles of a woman by the end of the novel, thereby cultivating an image of the "liberated black woman."[14]
Value of Women in a Relationship[edit]
Throughout the novel, Hurston vividly displays how African American women are valued, or devalued, in their marital relationships. By doing so, she takes the reader on a journey through Janie's life and her marriages. Janie formed her initial idea of marriage off the image of unity she witnessed between a pear tree and a bee. This image and expectation sets Janie up for disappointment when it finally came time to marry. From her marriage to Logan Killicks to Tea Cake, Janie was forced to acknowledge where she stood as a female in her relationship.
Starting with her marriage to Logan, Janie was put in a place where she was expected to work. On top of all the physical labor expected from her, Janie endured physical beatings from her male counterpart. Hoping for more value, Janie decides to leave Logan and run off with Joe Starks. However, in reaction to this decision, she's only faced with more beating and devaluement. Joe expected her stay in the home, work in the kitchen, and when she was in public, Janie was expected to cover her hair and avoid conversation with the locals. With one last hope, Janie engaged in a marriage with Tea Cake, a much younger soul, and things finally seemed to look up for her, even though she was still expected to help in the fields and tend to her womanly duties. Overall, throughout her marriages, Janie experienced the hardships that most African American women went through at that time. From the physical labor to the physical beatings, Janie was presented with the life that a woman was expected to live. [See detailed argument and synopsis in Addison Gayle, Jr.'s article, "The Outsider"[15]]
Voice and Language[edit]
Janie is the narrator and protagonist of her own story. She spends the novel seeking a voice for herself which she achieves in the end of her story. Later in her life, Janie is able to sit on her own porch and chat just like the men. Throughout the novel, there is a strong use of dialect and colloquial language which reiterates that this is a story of a black woman from the South.
Race[edit]
While the novel is written about black people in the South, it is not primarily a book about racism. Nanny is the first character to mention the notion of slavery. "Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn't for me to fulfil my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do. Dat's one of de hold-backs of slavery."[16] The novel, while mentioning the issue of racism between the white and black communities, depicts the treatment of minorities within the black community. Starks is compared to as the master of the plantation due to his huge house in the centre of the town. "The rest of town looked like servants' quarters surrounding the 'big house'.[17] Starks becomes a figure of authority in the town due to his access to money and his determination to create the first black town. However his plans of creating a town in which blacks can live as equals creates a hierarchy between the townsfolk. "Us talks about de white man keepin' us down! Shucks! He don't have tuh. Us keeps our own selves down."[18] The divide between the black community is not only seen in Eatonville. When Janie marries Tea Cake and moves to the Everglades she becomes friendly with a woman named Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner compliments Janie on her light skin and her Caucasian features. She disagrees with Janie's marriage to Tea Cake, since he is darker skinned with more African features. Mrs. Turner tries to get Janie to leave Tea Cake and marry her brother, Mr. Turner. This results in Tea Cake's jealousy and distrust of Mrs. and Mr. Turner.
Inspirations and influences[edit]
Perhaps the strongest inspiration for Hurston's writing of Their Eyes Were Watching God was her former lover Percival Punter.[19] Hurston writes in her autobiography that the romance between Janie and Tea Cake was inspired by a tumultuous love affair. She described falling in love with the man as "a parachute jump".[20] Like Janie in the novel, Hurston was significantly older than her lover. Like Tea Cake, Punter was sexually dominant and sometimes violent.[21] Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God three weeks after the tumultuous conclusion of her relationship with Punter. She wrote in her autobiography that she had "tried to embalm all the tenderness of [her] passion for him."[22] With this emotional inspiration, Hurston went on to paint the picture of Their Eyes Were Watching God using her personal experience and research as a template.
In 1927, a decade before writing Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston traveled south to collect folk songs and folk tales through an anthropological research fellowship arranged by her Barnard College mentor Franz Boas.[23] The all-black Eatonville of Their Eyes Were Watching God is based on the all-black town of the same name in which Hurston grew up. The town's weekly announced in 1889, "Colored People of the United States: Solve the great race problem by securing a home in Eatonville, Florida, a Negro city governed by negroes."[24] The hurricane that symbolizes the climax of Hurston's story also has an historical inspiration; in 1928, "a hurricane ravaged both coastal and inland areas of Florida, bringing torrential rains that broke the dikes of Lake Okeechobee".[25] Scholars of the African diaspora note the cultural practices common to the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States in Their Eyes Were Watching God.[26]
Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God while on a Guggenheim Fellowship in Haiti to research Obeah practices in the West Indies.[27]
Reception[edit]
Initial reception[edit]
Hurston's political views in Their Eyes Were Watching God were met with resistance from several leading Harlem Renaissance authors.
Novelist and essayist Richard Wright condemned Their Eyes Were Watching God, writing in a review for New Masses (1935):
Miss Hurston seems to have no desire whatsoever to move in the direction of serious fiction… [She] can write; but her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality that has dogged Negro expression since the days of Phyllis Wheatley... Her characters eat and laugh and cry and work and kill; they swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.[28]
Ralph Ellison said the book contained a "blight of calculated burlesque."[29]
Alain Locke writes in a review: "when will the Negro novelist of maturity, who knows how to tell a story convincingly—which is Miss Hurston's cradle gift, come to grips with motive fiction and social document fiction?"[30]
The New Republic's Otis Ferguson wrote: "it isn't that this novel is bad, but that it deserves to be better". But he went on to praise the work for depicting "Negro life in its naturally creative and unselfconscious grace".[31]
Not all African-American critics had negative things to say about Hurston's work. Carter G. Woodson, founder of The Journal of Negro History wrote, "Their Eyes Were Watching God is a gripping story... the author deserves great praise for the skill and effectiveness shown in the writing of this book." The critic noted Hurston's anthropological approach to writing, "She studied them until she thoroughly understood the working of their minds, learned to speak their language".[32]
Meanwhile, reviews of Hurston's book in the mainstream white press were largely positive, although they did not translate into significant retail sales. Writing for The New York Times, Ralph Thompson states: "the normal life of Negroes in the South today—the life with its holdovers from slave times, its social difficulties, childish excitements, and endless exuberances... compared to this sort of story, the ordinary narratives of Negroes in Harlem or Birmingham seem ordinary indeed."[33]
For the New York Herald Tribune, Sheila Hibben described Hurston as writing "with her head as with her heart" creating a "warm, vibrant touch". She praised Their Eyes Were Watching God as filled with "a flashing, gleaming riot of black people, with a limitless sense of humor, and a wild, strange sadness".[34]
New York Times critic Lucille Tompkins described Their Eyes Were Watching God: "It is about Negroes... but really it is about every one, or at least every one who isn't so civilized that he has lost the capacity for glory."[35]
Rediscovery[edit]
As universities across the country developed Black Studies programs in the 1970s and 1980s, they created greater space for Black literature and academia. Several prominent academics, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Addison Gayle, Jr., established a new "Black Aesthetic" that "placed the sources of contemporary black literature and culture in the communal music and oral folk tradition".[36] This new respect coupled with a growing Black feminism led by Mary Helen Washington, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and others would create the space for the rediscovery of Hurston.[36]
Hurston first achieved a level of mainstream institutional support in the 1970s. Walker published an essay, "Looking for Zora," in Ms. magazine in 1975. In that work, she described how the Black community's general rejection of Hurston was like "throwing away a genius". The National Endowment for the Humanities went on to award Robert Hemenway two grants for his work to write Hurston's biography.[37] The 1977 biography was followed in 1978 by the re-issue of Their Eyes Were Watching God.
In 1975, the Modern Language Association held a special seminar focusing on Hurston.[37] In 1981 professor Ruth Sheffey of Baltimore's Morgan State University founded the Zora Neale Hurston Society. Hurston had attended the school, then known as Morgan Academy, in 1917.[38]
In 1978, Harper and Row leased its rights to Their Eyes Were Watching God to the University of Illinois Press. However, the printing was so profitable that Harper and Row refused to renew the leasing contract and instead reprinted its own new edition.[37] This new edition sold its total print of 75,000 in less than a month.[39]
The New York Times's Virginia Heffernan explains that the book's "narrative technique, which is heavy on free-indirect discourse, lent itself to poststructuralist analysis".[40] With so many new disciplines especially open to the themes and content of Hurston's work, Their Eyes Were Watching God achieved growing prominence in the last several decades. It is now firmly established in the literary canon.[36]
Critical analysis[edit]
In Maria J. Johnson's article "'The World in a Jug and the Stopper in [Her] Hand': Their Eyes Were Watching God as Blues Performance," she states that Hurston's novel takes a similar structure and aesthetic to blues culture. Johnson also shows how the contrast of Hurston's images, such as the pleasure and pain dynamic of the bee, can be seen in songs by singers like Bessie Smith.[41]
The article "The Cognitive Construction of the Self in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God", by Patrick S. Bernard,[42] highlights the connection between the construction of self and cognition in Hurston's novel. According to Bernard, cognition is the inner essence of an individual that embodies the idea of "thinking, seeing, speaking, and knowing", but is often determined by one's exterior environment. Janie, the protagonist, uses her cognitive skills in order to find her identity and throughout the novel develops her cognition further. While Janie is living in a sexist society, she continues to rise above her opposition, specifically that of her three husbands. Bernard demonstrates this,
In a conversation with Jody, Janie defends 'womenfolk,' disagreeing with the sexist claim that God made men "different" because they turn "out so smart" (70). When she states that men "don't know half as much as you think you do," Jody interrupts her saying, 'you getting too moufy Janie... Go fetch me de checker-board and de checkers' (70-71) so that he and the other men could play (Bernard 9).
The comment from Jody, Janie's second husband, attempts to suppress her voice and manipulate her thoughts. Rather than acting submissive to Jody, Janie for a brief moment contends with Jody by telling him how men misunderstand women. Jody fears that Janie's thinking will lead to her gaining more knowledge and naturally to speaking her mind, eventually leading to Janie achieving the power of knowledge to recognize and change the mistreatment and unfairness she has been receiving. Bernard proposes the idea that Jody's relationship with Janie represents society's assumption that women are of limited cognition. This assumption positions women in subservient roles that limit their ways of thinking, speaking, and seeing.
In addition to bringing up Janie's relationship with Jody, Bernard emphasizes how her relationships with her other husbands influenced her cognition. He points out the fact that Logan Killicks, Janie's first husband, mistreated her by severing any beginning form of self-construction by treating her as an infant. Bernard also brings forth the idea that Janie's construction of selfhood blossoms when Tea Cake, her third husband, allows her to participate in experiences unimaginable to her. While Logan Killicks gives her no opportunity of expressing herself, Jody overpowers her expressive voice; Tea Cake allows her construction of self to mature link between self construction and cognition. Bernard's main point therefore is that self-construction is influenced by cognition, that is, knowing, thinking, seeing and speaking are important to the construction of self in Zora Neale Hurston's novel.
In "The Hierarchy Itself: Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Sacrifice of Narrative Authority," Ryan Simmons argues that Hurston made a statement against models of authority that supplant an oppressive system with other oppressive systems and offered an alternative. By models of authority, Simmons means the narrative voice of the author and Janie's narrative voice. Hurston represented the different ideologies of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois through the characters of Logan Killicks and Joe ("Jody") Starks. Like Washington, Logan models the path of "gradual progress" that would not threaten the white-dominated sphere of power and Hurston presents his practices as a tradeoff between liberty and modest prosperity. Joe models the path advocated by Du Bois, which is one of assertion of dignity and less compromise. However, the issue shown by Joe's eventual isolation from the community dialogue he helped establish and Janie's overpowering of him through a usurpation of authority, Hurston shows that the weakness with Joe's approach is that it mirrors that of white suppression.
Instead, Hurston introduces a third way of achieving self-autonomy through Tea Cake. He represents an independence from reliance on communal validation, and instead serves as a mirror for Janie to discover her narrative power. In relation to the author's narrative power, Tea Cake is the epitome of a good reader, one that is receptive to the transformative message of the text. Language is the understanding and sharpening of one's identity while communication comes second. In Hurston's innovative narrative, she is attempting to fulfill the "ideal narrative", which is one that nurtures and changes both the reader and the author.[43]
Adaptations for theater, film and radio[edit]
In 1983, the graduate repertory Hilberry Theater at Wayne State University produced To Gleam It Around, To Show My Shine, which is based on Their Eyes Were Watching God. The play was written by Bonnie Lee Moss Rattner and directed by Von Washington.[citation needed]
In 1988, To Gleam It Around, To Show My Shine was produced by the Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The production was enhanced by an award from The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' Fund for New American Plays. Denise Nicholas played Janie, Novella Nelson played Pheoby. Rick Khan directed. Writing in The New York Times on October 16, 1988, in a review entitled "Luminous' Drama On Black Woman's Struggle", Alvin Klein said, of "the dialogue that is so pure and lyrical, it positively sings and pierces the heart. Out of an unutterably beautiful book, a luminous play has evolved."[citation needed]
In 2003, To Gleam It Around, To Show My Shine a.k.a. Eatonville was to have opened at the ATA (American Theatre for Actors) in co-production with Amas Musical Theatre and Sage Hill Productions, with a score composed by Wynton Marsalis. (see "Wynton Marsalis Pens Music for Rattner's 'Eatonville'", Playbill, August 21, 2003.)
In 2012, the new artistic director of the State Theater of Maryland, the Centerstage in Baltimore, chose to produce "Gleam" a.k.a. "To Gleam It Around, To Show My Shine" written by Bonnie Lee Moss Rattner. The play was directed by Marion McClinton. The production was enhanced by a grant of $55,000 from the National Endowment of the Arts. Writing in "DC Theatre Scene," Debbie Jackson says "Gleam hits a glorious stride at the Centerstage in Baltimore mainly because of the well-tuned script by Bonnie Lee Moss Rattner in the capable hands of director Marion McClinton."[January 18, 2012] Andrea Appleton writing in the "Citypaper" on 1/20/2012, wrote a headline that states "Gleam: A classic novel comes to breathtaking life." Donna Owen writing in Grio [1/18/2012] says GLEAM "practically leaps off the stage with power, witty dialect, and poignancy."
Oprah Winfrey served as executive producer of the made-for-TV adaptation Their Eyes Were Watching God in 2005. Harpo Productions sponsored the film directed by Darnell Martin and with a screenplay written by Suzan-Lori Parks, Misan Sagay, and Bobby Smith, Jr. The show was broadcast on ABC on March 6, 2005, at 9 pm. Catering to its TV audience, the film largely avoided the more controversial themes of race, gender, and power. Karen Valby of Entertainment Weekly comments, "While the book chews on meaty questions of race and identity, the movie largely resigns itself to the realm of sudsy romance."[44] New York Times critic Virginia Heffernan writes, "the film is less a literary tribute than a visual fix of Harlequin Romance: Black Southern Series—all sensual soft-core scenes and contemporary, accessible language."[45]
In 2011, the novel was adapted into a radio play for BBC World Drama, dramatized by Patricia Cumper. The play first aired on February 19, 2011.[46]
In 2012, a live radio play performance of Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Arthur Yorinks was broadcast on February 29 and March 1 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the book's publication.[47]
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ National Endowment for the Arts website.
Jump up ^ Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present (New York: Amistad, 1993), p. xi.
Jump up ^ "All Time 100 Novels". Time. October 16, 2005.
^ Jump up to: a b ↑ King. The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston, p. 20.
Jump up ^ The Crisis, Vol. 32, October 1926: pp. 290–297.
^ Jump up to: a b Bloom, Harold (1986). Modern Critical Views: Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. p. 8. ISBN 0-87754-627-4.
Jump up ^ King. The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. p. 28.
Jump up ^ Bray, Rosemary L. "Renaissance for a Pioneer of Black Pride". New York Times, 02 09, 1990.
Jump up ^ King. The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. p. 29.
Jump up ^ Baltimore Afro-American review, cited in Harris, E. "Renaissance Men." The Advocate, 07 11, 2008.
Jump up ^ "Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston". Plot Summary, Book Notes, Summary. BookRags.com. 18 Aug 2010.
Jump up ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: University of Illinois Press. pp. Page 20.
Jump up ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: University of Illinois Press. pp. Page 53.
Jump up ^ Bloom, Harold (1986). Modern Critical Views: Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. pp. 29–33, 40. ISBN 0-87754-627-4.
Jump up ^ Bloom, Harold (1986). Modern Critical Views: Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. pp. 35–46. ISBN 0-87754-627-4.
Jump up ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: University of Illinois Press. pp. Page 21.
Jump up ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: University of Illinois Press. pp. Page 58.
Jump up ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: University of Illinois Press. pp. Page 48.
Jump up ^ King. The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. p. 25.
Jump up ^ Hurston, Zora. Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1942, p. 205. as cited in Bloom, Harrold. Bloom's Guides - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009, p. 15.
Jump up ^ Bloom, Bloom's Guides - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, p. 15.
Jump up ^ Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road, p. 188. as cited in Bloom, Bloom's Guides - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, p. 15.
Jump up ^ King, The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. p. 7.
Jump up ^ The Eatonville Speaker, 1889. cited in Lester, Neal. Understanding Their Eyes Were Watching God. London: The Greenwood Press, 1999, p. 148.
Jump up ^ Bloom, Bloom's Guides - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. p. 14.
Jump up ^ Wall, Cheryl A. Their Eyes Were Watching God - A Casebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. p. 6.
Jump up ^ Miles, Diana. "Diana Miles on Female Identity and Rebirth". Bloom's Guides - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Edited by Harrold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009, p. 66.
Jump up ^ Wright, Richard. Review in New Masses, October 5, 1935. cited in Bloom, Bloom's Guides - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, p. 15.
Jump up ^ Ellison, Ralph. As cited in Burt, Daniel. The Novel 100. Checkmark Books, 2003, p. 366.
Jump up ^ Locke, Alain. Opportunity, 06 01, 1938. (accessed April 18, 2012).
Jump up ^ Ferguson, Otis. The New Republic, 13 October 1937. (accessed April 18, 2012).
Jump up ^ Forrest, Ethel. "Book Reviews" The Journal of Negro History. January 1, 1938. (Accessed April 12, 2012).
Jump up ^ Thompson, Ralph. "Books of the Times." The New York Times. October 6, 1937. accessed March 30, 2012.
Jump up ^ Hibben, Sheila. "Book Review". New York Herald Tribune, 09-26, 1937. As cited in Bloom, Bloom's Guides - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. p. 16.
Jump up ^ Tompkins, Lucille. "Book Review." The New York Times. September 26, 1937. As cited in King, The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. p. 113.
^ Jump up to: a b c Spencer, Stephen. "On Hurston's Contribution to the Canon." Bloom's Guides - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Edited by Harrold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009, p. 87.
^ Jump up to: a b c Carby, Hazel. "The Politics of Fiction, Anthropology, and the Folk: Zora Neale Hurston." Bloom's Interpretations - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Edited by Harrold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008, p. 23.
Jump up ^ Bray, Rosemary L. "Renaissance for a Pioneer of Black Pride." The New York Times, 02 09, 1990.
Jump up ^ Carby, Hazel. "The Politics of Fiction, Anthropology, and the Folk: Zora Neale Hurston." Bloom's Interpretations - Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Edited by Harrold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008, p. 24.
Jump up ^ Heffernan, Virginia. "A Woman on a Quest, via Hurston and Oprah." The New York Times. March 5, 2005. (accessed April 3, 2012).
Jump up ^ Johnson, Maria J. "'The World in a Jug and the Stopper in [Her] Hand': Their Eyes Were Watching God as Blues Performance". African American Review, 32(3) 1998: 401-414. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. October 23, 2012.
Jump up ^ Bernard', Patrick. "The Cognitive Construction of the Self in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God". Purdue University.
Jump up ^ Simmons, Ryan. "The Hierarchy Itself: Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Sacrifice of Narrative Authority". African American Review 36.2 (Summer 2002): 181-93. Print.
Jump up ^ Valby, Karen. "Review of film Their Eyes Were Watching God." Entertainment Weekly. November 25, 2005. (accessed March 28, 2012).
Jump up ^ Heffernan, Virginia. "A Woman on a Quest, via Hurston and Oprah" The New York Times. March 4, 2005. (accessed April 5, 2012).
Jump up ^ "Their Eyes Were Watching God". BBC World Drama. BBC World Service. 2011. Retrieved February 20, 2011.
Jump up ^ Itzkoff, Dave. "Radio Play of 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' Is Set" The New York Times, February 8, 2012. (accessed March 25, 2012).
External links[edit]
Describes Hurston's participation in the Harlem Renaissance; also summary, analysis, themes, and essays from "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
"Their Eyes Were Watching God": Folk Speech and Figurative Language
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