SPARKLE ADD’S NEW BRILLIANCE TO A CLASSIC BLACK AMERICAN FILM…

The all-star cast of the recently released film, “Sparkle” adds new brilliance to the classic 1970’s Black American classic film.  The movie is replete with well-executed metaphors.  Everything about the 2012 Sparkle spells, “Excellence”!   Whether you are most impressed by the screenplay, the costume, the set design or of course, the stellar acting, for those of us who were fortunate enough to have seen the original Sparkle in 1976 starring Irene Cara as Sparkle and Phillip Michael Thomas as Stix it was an unexpected surprised that this cinematic treasure had not lost its sparkle.   One of the boldest departures from the original film was a refreshing relocation from New York City to The Motor City, Detroit! 

The look and feel of the original movie set in the Harlem Ghetto and filmed only a few years after the Death of Martin Luther King and The Civil Rights Movement was appropriate for its day.  It mirrored the struggle of Black Americans living in the inner cities before they had substantially captivated the popular culture of America as well as having dug its heels into the economic machine driving the music and entertainment industry.  It was a time well before you could count millionaire record producers at a dime a dozen on the red carpet, the playoffs or any one of the hundreds of high-end entertainment venues that count so much in the consciousness of popular American culture.   For those of us who grew up in a bustling American city during the mid-1970’s everything about the original Sparkle spells a time that has forever passed away…  For this main reason the producers, Salim and Mara Brock Akil were fully justified in reinventing Sparkle in such an intelligent, beautiful and inventive way.

The 2012 version is a smart, crisp reenactment of the speakeasies, nightclubs and  entertainment, the religious and family scene as well as the day to day of Detroit in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.  Gifted with such immaculate costume and set design the film effortlessly pulls the viewer into the mind’s eye  of the producer.  Like the 1976 Sparkle, the Patron of the house is glaringly absent but the home landscape is revised to reflect a peaceful middle class Black American family and neighborhood without the typical distractions and “borrowed scenery” of the hood.  In this setting we can better focus on the characters and the meticulously developed series of events that help tell this believable story.  The producers did not attempt to placate us by moving the setting to a gentler world, in this film realness is a constant hallmark! Sparkles family life is warm but strained by the strictly principled leadership of the mother played by Whitney Houston.  Whitney portrays a deeply penitent woman once enamored by the tinsel of stardom who tries to guide her daughters’ into professional and stable careers while providing a solid, loving home firmly grounded in spirituality.   Sisters struggle with narcotics and a lethal dose of “un amant mortel,” in the 1976 Sparkle bears a striking irony to Whitney’s real life and death.  Whitney’s story became the personification of Sister’s. 

The 1976 Sparkle is almost a Shakespearian tragedy, it captured the spirit of the last days of the Blues and Jazz era then still very strong in Americas veins and it surfaced during the climax of the soul music, disco and R&B eras in America.   At that time America was literally obsessed with the realm of Pushers and Junkies, Pimps and Prostitutes, the hip vibe and hustle of the streets.   Hollywood didn’t have to make it larger than life, because for millions of people living in the inner cities of America during the 70’s it was life.  Overdose, sexual and physical abuse on such a massive scale was still very new but had rapidly eroded the very foundations of civilized life; it was a trend everyone knew would ultimately devastate the black community.  Sparkle circa 1976 was a testament of its time a Darwinian struggle between good and evil.    

Sparkle a la 2012 has had the distinct advantage of hindsight!  The new version adds new songs not seen in the original.  The new screenplay develops new twists and turns while maintaining the sanctity of the original story.   The 2012 Sparkle attempts a more detailed examination of the vicissitudes of each characters life.  It is this faithful and spot on attention to detail that drives the film successfully to its conclusion.  Sister does not die in the new Sparkle, rather she takes the blame for the murder of her abusive husband and is thus removed from the conclusion physically because of her imprisonment; her demise is ultimately her salvation.  The sister who has been on the career path of a doctor is the ironic murderer.  One of the things I did find strange is that she allowed Sister to take the fall for her with little remorse or gratitude.  The circumstances surrounding of the murder of Satin and the way they hastily play out represent perhaps the only real weakness of this plot.   In classical Greek Mythology, the river Styx delineates the boundary between the world of the living and the dead.  True to form, the demise of Satin delineates the crossing point in the movie allowing the hard work of Stix who had all but got the group signed by Columbia records to come into fruition. 

The movie is loaded with carefully tailored metaphors many of them religious references but it never reads like a heavy morality play.  The level of religiosity is carefully balanced with simple common wisdom.  One of the last major metaphors is facilitated by Whitney near the very end of the movie.  Whitney has been visiting Sister and on her suggestion visits Sparkle moments before her concert bringing a gorgeous red-lame dress and Sister’s instructions to keep it sexy on the stage!  Only moments earlier Sparkle had had a nosebleed ruining the blue dress she wore.  One could fish for metaphors about the blue dress as a symbol of the Virgin Mary since Sparkle was a virgin in the movie.  The spilling of blood upon the blue dress and the arrival of a new sanguine gown might perhaps represent the blood of salvation through sacrifice, at best though it is but a colorful interpretation.  So I will leave that inference up to the viewer allowing them to mold their opinions as they may.   One thing is certain, the three sister’s pursuit of stardom through secular music clashed with their religious upbringing but their intent to bring beauty and hope to those who heard the message in their craft gilded their ambition.   As Sparkle performed in her concert at the end of the movie her accompaniment was a large choir robed in white and as they performed

Sparkle is a primarily a story about the lives of a close knit family of women and women tend to dominate the film but let’s talk about the important role that men play in this movie.  The 2012 version of Sparkle was kinder to men and more interested in what motivates them than the original had been.  Although its villain, Sisters Husband Satin, (not the demon but the fabric satin), played by Mike Epps was the personification of evil his character was much more developed as a successful black vaudevillian/minstrel, comedian performing for a white audience but largely rejected by his own people.   His inner struggle with drugs, vanity and opulence appeared to be a means of coping with the fact that he considered his occupation to be degrading.  Even the name Satin bears a close resemblance to the demon, Satan perhaps a bit too obvious but clear. 

Satin marries Sister and moves her into his gorgeous 1955 Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian and Pre-Columbian Styled mansion ironically which was purchased and completely restored by a man named Norman Silk in 2006.  Silk represents a man who pursues wealth without regard to personal self-esteem or conscience.  Omari Hardwick plays the role of Levi, Sisters first and devoted admirer in the movie.  Levi is developed as a hard-working, honest and romantic man who is the perfect mate for Sister but not the one to capture her attention in her own struggle to achieve instant economic stability after returning home from a ruined marriage.  He is a close fusion of Mars Blackmon and Jamie Overstreet in the Spike Lee classic film, “She’s Gotta Have It” minus the nerdiness.  The prince of the move is definitely Derk Luke, easily the “Greer Childs” of this movie because of his savvy with money, but with a conscience.  He plays Sparkles beau, Stix and comfortably shares the prince charming award with Levi, but Stix represents a more pragmatic man who just happens to be Levi’s cousin, in the movie.  Stix demonstrates business as well as love savvy, he is a restrained and thoughtful character.  Stix and Levi are everything Silk is not.  Silk seems to have gotten his fortune easy but Stix and Levi have definitely worked hard to get what little they have and they, unlike Silk are ambitious if not only because success was never gifted them with ease.   Silk was expertly played this time with more roundness than the original who was simply too cold, cool and detached to even give a decent crack at acting.  The 2012 Silk adds a spicy personality to his character.  Perhaps one of my favorite scenes with Silk is when he and the Preacher engage in what can only be interpreted as a battle between the ideology of good and evil, a devil angel debacle in which Silk clearly wins leaving the Preacher in a dumbfounded stupor.  The audience becomes silent at the conclusion of this scene because of its heavy implications.  Kudos to the producers for taking time to develop well-crafted male characters and therefore, overall the male roles are especially interesting and well acted in Sparkle 2012.

I’ve saved my ticket stub for the 2012 Sparkle not because It is a coveted memento from an exclusive prescreening party with cast and critics, rather it is because I saw it at a quiet suburban theater a few days after its formal debut and it rendered in me such wonderful memories and emotions that I wished I had kept my original 1976 stub to companion it.  I have only one thing to advise everyone who reads this review of the 2012 Sparkle… “GO SEE THE MOVIE”!

FIN

Written by David Vollin