Customer Reviews

Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Full disclosure: I produced this film. It took me 18 yrs. to bring it to fruition. Why, you ask? Because I and my fellow filmmakers wanted this film to be perfect. And perfection takes time. This is not a Youtube video (although we like those Youtube videos), it is a 84-minute masterpiece. It is an entertaining study of a complex woman, designed to not only simplify her story so she can reach a wide audience, but also to bring her to life. I hope you enjoy the film.

I used this video last year when I was teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God. I used it as a way to give some spark to a lesson about her life. The video really helps the class understand the time period she lived in as well as her own influence on society. I had taped it when it aired on ch 13 but am about to buy it because I lost it. Absolutely worth it.

Congratulations to Kristy Anderson and the producers of this excellent documentary. I found it to be highly engaging, superbly researched, and artfully filmed- truly a masterpiece! As a Hurston scholar and educator, I appreciate the diligent research and quality production that characterize this film. Hurston's life and works are illuminated through lively narration, archival film footage, insightful interviews with Hurston's friends, and commentary from renown Hurston scholars.
This award-winning documentary not only fills a void in available biographical films on Hurston, it sets the standard for any that follow. - Virginia Lynn Moylan, author of Zora Neale Hurston's Final Decade.

Good solid introduction to Hurston's life in order to contextualize her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. The interviews were terrific and the narrative was engrossing. In future editions, hopefully the editors will do a more careful job with attention to grammar and punctuation in the DVD menu options. I showed this to a group of seniors and their recognition of the error made the whole production a little suspect in their eyes.