The Roots Mural was the same, but when the title Roots was shown on-screen it was over a dark blue background. The cover of the novel rises up from a horizontal to a vertical position. Also, the end credits have been changed considerably. In the original, there were eight sets of end credits one for each episode. When the show was re-edited to six episodes, names were combined for different hours and some of the end credit sequences with a still from that episode are missing, including one featuring Kizzy and Missy Anne having a picnic.
Soundtracks Oluwa by Quincy Jones. User reviews 71 Review. Top review. Still the most important miniseries in the history of television. All my life I have heard the same old "smoke screens" every time something happens to expose the history of racism in this country that they don't want to acknowledge.
That is the case with "Roots", and all the rationalizations used by these people to try and denigrate the story's impact.
It does not change the fact that racism is "as American as apple pie". But these people never give up. It has been over 40 years since "Roots", and while things may have improved, we still have a long, long, long, long way to go. Details Edit. Release date January 23, United States. United States. David L. Wolper Productions Warner Bros. Technical specs Edit. Runtime 9 hours 48 minutes. Related news. Oct 5 ScreenDaily. Contribute to this page Suggest an edit or add missing content.
Top Gap. Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update. Through example, this film shows the triumph of human dignity in the face of tremendous suffering and oppression. Courage, perseverance, integrity, and compassion are all major themes. Kunta Kinte never stops yearning for freedom and never forgets his African heritage.
He passes this heritage -- the stories, the folklore, the language -- to his wife and children, who in turn pass it along to future generations.
Through skill, charm, and sheer dedication, Chicken George buys his freedom, and his freedom serves as an example to his wife and children, who remain enslaved for much of the miniseries. Through tremendous suffering and dedication, the descendants of Kunta Kinte do their best to maintain their dignity, even as they're forced to act meek and overly polite to their white overseers. As an unsparing account of the ravages and despair of slavery, Roots shows many instances of the abuse of slaves.
Slaves are whipped, beaten, and tied up in chains. The raping of female slaves by their white owners is discussed and shown right before the act occurs, on several occasions. A slave gets half of his foot cut off by slave catchers after the slave attempts an escape from a plantation. On a slave ship sailing between Africa and America, an African woman jumps off a boat to her death.
Some gunplay and knifeplay. After the Civil War, racist whites set fire to black sharecroppers' homes. In Episode One, the puberty rites of an African tribe are discussed. Brief nonsexual nudity of African tribal women. Frequent use of the "N" word, both by whites and African-Americans. Other mild profanity throughout includes "dammit," "bitch," and "hell.
White characters are often shown drinking wine, cider, or rum. One of the slave owners is frequently shown intoxicated on rum; in one scene, he's passed out drunk in the back of a carriage.
Characters smoke cigarettes, cigars, and pipes accurate for the era. Parents need to know that Roots is the classic miniseries based on the best-selling book by Alex Haley, who spent 13 years tracing his genealogy back to In graphic and heartrending detail, the miniseries shows the brutality and misery of slavery, from people who were kidnapped from their villages in Africa to the slave auctions that separated families to the degrading conditions on plantations.
Unsurprisingly, as an evocation of the cultural attitudes of the 18th and 19th centuries, the "N" word is frequently used, and white characters frequently discuss African-Americans in derogatory terms; but the dignity of Kunta Kinte and his descendants throughout the miniseries shines as a contrast to such degradation and offers hope in a series of seemingly hopeless situations.
Obviously, the racism, profanity, and violence are meant to bring into clear focus the horror of those times. Make no mistake: Roots is absolutely crucial and necessary viewing for any American seeking to understand her or his history, the lessons to be learned from that history, its effects on those who lived it, and the resonance we feel today from the events chronicled within it.
Add your rating. Add your rating See all 4 kid reviews. In the midth century, Kunta Kinte Levar Burton is a year-old living in West Africa, on the verge of manhood and becoming a Mandinka warrior. While leaving his village to find a tree to make a drum, he's kidnapped by trappers, who take him to a slave ship. On the ship, he faces the first of a great many indignities, culminating in being sold to work on a plantation in Virginia. ROOTS chronicles Kinte's life, as well as the lives of his children and grandchildren, for the next years, as they live under the brutal oppression and misery of slavery and all the racism that slavery engenders.
And yet, through all the horrors that Kinte's descendants experience, they never forget where they came from, who they are, and what freedom means, with Kinte's daughter Kizzy passing this down to her son, Chicken George Ben Vereen , who in turn passes the message of freedom and tradition to his children.
This iconic miniseries brings American history to life in ways that history textbooks so often fail to do. The horror, degradation, and violence of slavery are brought into painfully clear focus, so viewers experience the pain that Alex Haley's ancestors felt.
By doing so, it becomes the pain of a nation, the reverberations of which we still feel to this day. But, beyond all this brutality, Roots offers hope in the form of an indomitable human spirit, passed from generation to generation, as the story of a people who never forgot their African home and whose culture somehow transcends so much suffering.
For families curious about where we were and how we got here, Roots is essential viewing. It was a best-selling book and a highly regarded miniseries when it was first broadcast in , and it has stood the test of time.
While it is gruesome to witness the level of human suffering depicted here, it would be pointless to tell the story without it. Roots review: this remake is brutal and harrowing — but it needs to be. Roots revival: how does the new Kunta Kinte compare to the classic?
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