A Documentary That Shows Another Side of Toni Morrison

One of my white teachers in high school insisted that Toni Morrison would be confusing to me as a reader. So I approached the author’s work with that notion in mind, and quickly realized how wrong my teacher’s assessment was. Morrison’s prose is lush and thick, her plotting complex—but I recognized the characters, the places, the moments. In hindsight, it’s clear that my teacher was unfamiliar with the power and magnitude of the black imagination. When our class finished The Bluest Eye, it wasn’t enough. A group of us turned to Sula, Morrison’s second novel, just so that we could see ourselves again.

“She took the. The film, which opened in select theaters on Friday, is a beautiful, exhaustive, and lovingly personal profile of a brilliant writer who ignited the imaginations of millions.