My Eyes Were Watching It's Lids (Their Eyes Were Watching God)

         The televised film Their Eyes Were Watching God was released on March 16, 2005 and was inspired from the 1937 novel There Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, a African-American. The film is of the African-American literature, Romance, and Drama genre. This film is based on the idea of "Never let anyone tell you how to be you. Never let someone control your life. You must be true to yourself." The movie was received positively by the public, with the film being nominated for many awards such as: Emmy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and many more. The film won Best Television Actor (Michael Ealy) from the Black Reel Awards and Breakthrough Artist Award (Terrence Howard) from the Austin Film Critics Association.
           When seeing the title, Their Eyes Were Watching God, I thought the movie was going to be about a group of people who is in the church but sinning at the same time and I expected them to be keeping massive secrets about their sins but, just give each other the evil eye in church.
           The film starts by Janie Crawford walking down a old dirt road,wearing tattered clothes, looking dirty and disgruntled. As the audience, I wondered: Where is she coming from? Why does she look a mess? What happened to her?
           There are three vital points in movie (in my opinion) which has a significant meaning to movie in some way: the first one being that Janie was forced to marry Logan Killicks, who owned sixty acres of land, by her Nanny. Killicks was a man who she probably did not know. He was someone she did not love. Yet, she had to marry him because he had sixty acres of land, he's good and decent. This shows the how people thought in those days, if you had a big amount of land, you are considered a rich man. He represented her unhappiness of being in a forced marriage. The second one is just her whole relationship with her second husband, Joe Starks. She thought they had something but in reality they did not. Starks was the mayor of Eatonville, who did not care much for the looks his wife would receive. Her happiness deteriorated over time as he made her wear a scarf over head like an old woman and, for twenty years, bring him breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday. I am sure he knew she was unhappy but he kept her around. She was not looking this type of life, she wanted to be herself and be free. As she said, "It was Joe's life, not mine." The thrid one is when tells Starks, "Quit messin' up my doins' with my looks then." The two go on to insult each others appearance and ended it with Joe hitting her with the usual crowd, in front of the Starks store, looking on. In this relationship, she was punished by her looks. And it started with that old woman scarf.
           The climax of the film, in my opinion, came at the end when she killed her lover, Tea Cake, when he grew extremely ill from rabies. Janie said, "I won't let anyone hold me down." See finally realized that this is her call for freedom and she is the only person who can get herself there.
           The characters were made to help or give grief to Janie. For example: Joe Starks and Logan Killicks kept Janie trapped  but Tea Cake brought her the freedom she wanted. And this is what me made think, "She can't find no fun with a old man, it takes a wild, free, and young man to bring you freedom." The motif in the story is when Janie is found floating in the water, staring at the sky, and watching God, this occurs three times (the beginning, middle, and end). What also is a motif is her encounters with nature during the movie. The nature brought her a distraction from the world, it brought her comfort.