A Raisin in the Sun: The Unfilmed Original Screenplay

By Lorraine Hansberry

Book Overview

Under the editorship of the late Robert Nemiroff, with a provocative and thoughtful introduction by preeminent African-American scholar Margaret B. Wilkerson and a commentary by Spike Lee, this completely restored screenplay is the accurate and authoritative edition of Lorraine Hansberry's script and a testament to her unparalled accomplishment as a Black artist.

The 1961 film version of A Raisin in the Sun, with a screenplay by the author, Lorraine Hansberry, won an award at the Cannes Film Festival even though one-third of the actual screenplay Hansberry had written had been cut out. The film did essentially bring Hansberry's extraordinary play to the screen, but it failed to fulfill her cinematic vision.

Now, with this landmark edition of Lorraine Hansberry's original script for the movie of A Raisin in the Sun that audiences never viewed, readers have at hand an epic, eloquent work capturing not only the life and dreams of a Black family, but the Chicago--and the society--that surround and shape them.

Important changes in dialogue and exterior shots, a stunning shift of focus to her male protagonist, and a dramatic rewriting of the final scene show us an artist who understood and used the cinematic medium to transform a stage play into a different art form--a profound and powerful film.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452267765
• ISBN13: 9780452267763
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: Plume Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

a very good play, that had to do with the.

good play because it influance many black people to stand up for their rights.

LOstiantance y cinco y beta !

Asa y triente wete y bilifico!Asia magnifico bujione la trakento

9

i though that the raisin in the sun was a very informative play. It touched on many themes that touched eveybody. Such as the false pride that money brings. Walter lee's obession with money was clearly stated and illustrated. My expectations were that walter lee would sell the house and obtain the money,but it did not happen. He was a bigger man and realized that his dream of becoming rich was nothing compared to the actulaziation of a sane mind. Walter lee is a man in all of us. He is the common man of today