Beloved. 1998. USA. Directed by Jonathan Demme. Screenplay by Akosua Busia, Richard LaGravanese, Adam Brooks, based on the novel by Toni Morrison. With Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandiwe Newton, Kimberly Elise, Beah Richards, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Albert Hall. 35mm. 172 min.
Like Stephanie Rothman, director of The Velvet Vampire, Jonathan Demme got his start making exploitation films for producer Roger Corman in the 1970s. Corman eventually advanced to big-budget, award-winning features in a number of Hollywood genres, including two of the most prestigious horror films of the 1990s: The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and this adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer prize-winning 1987 novel Beloved, a ghost story about the psychological effects of slavery on Black home life and relationships after Emancipation. Boasting an epic running time and the highest-profile cast of Black performers to headline a horror film at the time, Beloved was well reviewed but less successful than expected. Whether or not its emotionally engaging narrative structure was too demanding for genre fans, as some claimed, the film testifies to the higher profile that race-themed horror had achieved among mainstream audiences.