Zora Neale Hurston: A Heart with Room for Every Joy 2005
Distributed by Films Media Group, PO Box 2053, Princeton, New Jersey 08543-2053; 800-257-5126
Produced by Paul Iacono
Director n/a
DVD, color with b&, 42 min.
Jr. High - Adult
African American Studies, Literature, History, Harlem Renaissance, Folklore
Date Entered: 12/12/2006
Reviewed by Ernarosa Tominich, MLS, Trocaire College Library, Buffalo NYNarrated by her niece, Lucy Hurston, this biographical overview of Zora Neale Hurston includes background about her life and family and growing up in Eatonville, Florida, the first chartered all Negro city in America. In 1919 Zora starts to write while attending Howard University. Zora concentrates on timeless topics of life and death, not divisive Negro topics. The way she tells a story becomes controversial as she masterfully uses African American vernacular as a standard idiom. The successful combination of Standard English and Black vernacular in her writings sets Hurston apart. She receives recognition and gradually establishes herself as a nationally known, published black female author. Zora becomes a vibrant part of the Harlem Negro movement and Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s.
As an observer of daily life and an anthropologist, Hurston becomes interested in Voodoo and travels South to collect and publish on Black Culture and American Voodoo folklore, a topic she studies all her life. Her works include her biography, Dust Tracks on a Road, Mules and Men, and Their Eyes Were Watching God, a controversial, sensual, groundbreaking work which speaks of culture, love, anxiety and “what gets us out of bed in the morning.”
Includes commentary by Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Negro Folklore classics sung by Hurston herself. All technical aspects are of professional quality. This DVD is highly recommended.