Toni Morrison, Beloved American Writer

Toni Morrison tells a story of the first time she realized the power of words. At the age of three, her older sister taught her to read by writing with chalk on the sidewalk in front of her house. One day, they saw a word written in graffiti on a wall down the block, so they copied it: f...u...

Her mother came screaming out of the house, extremely upset and angry about the word on the sidewalk. She made the two sisters get sponges and mops and a bucket of water to wash it away. Young Toni had never heard or seen the word before. She didn’t know what it meant, and her mother didn’t explain it either. But burned into her mind was the reaction her mother had to the word, and immediately she understood the power of language and the written word.

Almost every year, Sundance premieres a major, retrospective documentary about an American icon. Least year, that film was “Won‘t You Be My Neighbor,” about writer/director/child psychologist Fred Rogers. This year it is “The Pieces I Am,” a sweeping biopic about the life and writings of hailed author and American icon Toni Morrison.

Morrison's journey was never an easy one. She was a young single mother who struggled to provide for her family and care for her two children. Working as a woman of color in a white man's world brought its own set of challenges, but her strength and determination made her a force to be reckoned with, and backing down was never an option she considered.

Morrison's works challenge the "master narrative," and look at life and people from a new perspective. As a young girl, she loved to read, but couldn't find books where she saw her own reflection, or her own point of view. As an editor for Random House, she transformed the book publishing industry by giving a voice to female writers of color. As a writer herself, Morrison has become one of the seminal authors and a pillar of modern American literature, and has expanded the landscape to include the stories of those who have previously been pushed to the side. Because of her courage and fortitude, both in her life and in her writing, Morrison broke boundaries and gave rise to a new generation of women and authors.

In this documentary, director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders takes the audience of a journey of Morrison's life from her humble beginnings in Lorrain, Ohio, to the stage of the Nobel Peace Prize. (One friend says she "highly recommends having a friend who wins the Nobel Prize" because the parties are so amazing.) Greenfield-Sanders has compiled an amazing amount of archival material and interwoven it with spectacular interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis, and other friends and writers who Morrison has influenced, or whom she's been influenced by. All recount their incredible experiences with both Morrison and her works, and how these experiences have shaped their own lives and their own writing.

I love Toni Morrison. I have most of her books in my personal library. Sorry Marie Kondo, but I will never be parting with any of those books. I wouldn't say they spark joy - in many cases they spark extreme pain and deep sadness. But they are works of art, and I've read them each several times through. They are necessary. While Morrison says shes "writing for black people,” her stories are filled with universal truths that transcend through time and race, and her writing speaks to all womanhood in a way that a white man's never will.

"The Pieces I Am"

Broadway Centre Cinemas January 29, 2019

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