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Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
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Wikipedia article
'Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am' is a 2019 documentary film, directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, and produced by Johanna Giebelhaus, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Chad Thompson, and Tommy Walker. The film follows American novelist Toni Morrison who examines her life, her works and the powerful themes throughout her literary career. The film also features Oprah Winfrey, Russell Banks, Angela Davis, and Barack Obama.
Synopsis
Toni Morrison describes her life, her works, and the powerful themes she has written about throughout her literary career.
Cast
* Toni Morrison
Morrison was an American novelist from Ohio. In 1998 she earned the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her work 'Beloved' (1987), and in 1993 became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. She died on 5 August 2019, when the 'HuffPost', wrote that the "world lost one of its most important voices".
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "'Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am' honors its acclaimed subject with a comprehensive, illuminating, and fittingly profound overview of her life and work." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."Alan Zilberman of 'The Washington Post' wrote: "The film suffers from some of the familiar bad habits of the biographical documentary. At times, Greenfield-Sanders provides too many images and too much context, almost as if he doesnt trust his own subject. The use of music more filler than necessary at times is also cloying". Gary Goldstein of 'The Los Angeles Times' wrote: "The remarkable documentary 'Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am' does so many things so well that its often like watching several fine films at once. Look for this one to be front and center in its category come Oscar time." Nick Schager of 'Variety' wrote: "Yet, inasmuch as it locates the heart of the authors inspirations and attitudes, as well as her guiding ethos to capture grand national truths while focusing on the complex interior particulars of individual experience, 'Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am,' at its best, serves the soul of its subject." Caryn James of 'The Hollywood Reporter' wrote: "In The Pieces I Am, the outer self is enough to let viewers know that Morrison and her novels are treasures."
Joshua Brunsting of 'CriterionCast' wrote: "Its a captivating, if flat, meditation on one of the great artists of our time, and while it may lean into hagiography, there are moments of genuine introspection that make this more than worthy of one's time". David Bax of the Battleship Pretension wrote: "The film resists analysis in its essayistic plainness. Though Morrisons writing is alivejumping, soaring and diving deepGreenfield-Sanders' film lays flat on the surface."
Accolades
{| class="wikitable sortable"! Year
! Award
! Category
! Nominees
! Result
! class="unsortable" |
|-
| rowspan = "6" | 2020
| AARP Movies for Grownups Awards
| Best Documentary
| Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
|
|
|-
| Black Reel Awards
| Outstanding Documentary
| Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
|
| [https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000957/2020 2020 Black Reel Awards]
|-
| rowspan="3" | News & Documentary Emmy Awards
| Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary
|
|
| rowspan="3" |
|-
| Outstanding Music Composition
| Kathryn Bostic
|
|-
| Outstanding Research
| Johanna Giebelhaus
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|-
| NAACP Image Awards
| Outstanding Documentary
|
|
|
|-
| rowspan="4" | 2019
| Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| Best Biographical Documentary
|
|
|
|-
| Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| Best Original Score in a Documentary
| Kathryn Bostic
|
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | Society of Composers & Lyricists Awards
| Outstanding Original Score for an Independent Film
| Kathryn Bostic
|
|
|-
| Outstanding Original Song for Visual Media
| "High Above The Water" by Kathryn Bostic
|
|
|}
References
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