The Wedding (TV miniseries)
| The Wedding | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Charles Burnett |
| Produced by | Doro Bachrach |
| Written by |
Dorothy West Lisa Jones |
| Starring |
Halle Berry Eric Thal Lynn Whitfield |
| Music by | Stephen James Taylor |
| Cinematography | Frederick Elmes |
| Edited by | Dorian Harris |
|
Release date
|
February 22–23, 1998 |
|
Running time
|
135 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Wedding is a 1998 television film directed by Charles Burnett. Based on a novel by Dorothy West and written for television by West and Lisa Jones, it stars Halle Berry, Eric Thal, and Lynn Whitfield, and was produced by Oprah Winfrey's production company, Harpo Productions. The story touches on the subjects of marriage, race, prejudice, class, and family in 1950s Martha's Vineyard.
The film aired on ABC on February 22 and February 23, 1998.
Shelby Cole (Halle Berry) returns to Martha's Vineyard and the Cole family home,in a section of town known as 'The Oval', to wed her white fiancé, jazz pianist and composer Meade Howell (Eric Thal). While her black high-society parents initially accept the pair, even arranging the wedding to be held at the mansion, they have growing misgivings as to the pair's ability to withstand the racial prejudice of the time, only made stronger after Meade admits that his own middle-class parents will not be attending the wedding because of their prejudice against their daughter-in-law-to-be. Through frequent flashbacks throughout, we see the racial, societal and class choices made by Shelby's white great-grandmother on her mother's side (Shirley Knight), her grandparents and parents to insure the family's standing, even while those choices may have robbed them of the very happiness they sought. While Shelby dismisses and even rebuffs much of their advice, her own doubts grow as she and Meade go through their own current experiences of racism and racial expectations. Seeing her growing misgivings, Lute McNeil (Carl Lumbly), local architect, father and neighbor of the Coles, sees an opportunity to try to win Shelby's heart, having loved her from afar for some time. With Lute's persistent, sometimes unwanted, attentions, Shelby starts to question her marrying Meade. After a racist incident at a local restaurant, Shelby even confesses to Meade that she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life defending their relationship and asks him to give her time to finally decide.
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