By Ron Wynn
NASHVILLE, TN — Those who missed their opportunity to see Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ definitive documentary on noted author Toni Morrison get a second chance over the next few days. The Belcourt announced this week there would be an encore engagement for “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.” It will run for a five-day period starting Friday.
The two-hour work covers every phase of her life, chronicles her influence in notable ways as a writer, commentator and editor and combines biographical reflection with historical analysis and insight. It includes a visit to her childhood home Lorain, Ohio, and also follows her on various book tours including one with the late Muhammad Ali. It also shows her interacting with Angela Davis, and also in the famous riverfront writing room, where she penned many of her 11 novels and other acclaimed nonfiction commentaries and essays.
The film also covers her many years working as a Random House editor and also her time at Princeton as a professor. A variety of writers, friends and critics are interviewed, among them Hilton Als, Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Walter Mosley, Sonia Sanchez and Oprah Winfrey.
The encore showing begins Friday with screenings at 4:40 and 9:10 p.m. There are three shows scheduled Saturday at 11:50 a.m., 4:40 p.m. and 9:10 p.m. There will be only one showing on Sunday at 4:40 p.m. Then it will air next Tuesday – Thursday. The Tuesday screenings are 4:15 p.m. and 9:10 p.m. There’s only scheduled screening on Wednesday and Thursday, and it’s at 4:15 both days.
Morrison passed on August 5 at 88. Among her many honors were a Pulitzer Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Black woman to be so honored. Though originally not intended in that manner, “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” has proven the ideal tribute and a most fitting memorial to a genuine legend.
