I can only say to your novel-size pan of the film that :

A) The Story.

First of all, the rough-edges of a film (especially one that's told in different time
periods) can sometimes substitute for a story. It's like building blocks. I enjoyed the
ambiguous nature of the film - not only could it cover more ground in that manner, but, it
could present to me, the audience, the thoughts and memories taken directly from a
human mind in a way more characteristic to the way thoughts and memories are revealed
in real life (particularly if your real life is one taunted by repression, anger, sadness, guilt
and loss - that's a hell of a burden to try and narrow into a direct narrative). In my humble
opinion, I liked the way the material was presented.

B) Paul D fornicating with Beloved.

Paul D. has been wandering around the country since he was set free. That is a fact I
picked up from reading up on the film. My best guess as to why he ends up there is that
he was looking up an old friend. The whys and hows are not important in this case,
because I believe that Paul D. simply fell in love with Sethe as a result of knowing her
from the past, their chemistry and the need of both of them for a mate. As for being
threatened by Beloved, I assume that Paul D. could see the kind of love that Beloved had
for Sethe. He could see how she was looking up to Sethe and how she was sponging up
Sethe’s love in attempts to make ammends. He had an objective point of view, while
Denver was too busy enjoying having a playmate and Sethe was too busy keeping house
and caring for her new partner.

As for the sexual advances she made on Paul D., the character was supposed to have
grown up over time which would make her eighteen or so. This is a natural coming of
age stage for a girl and I assume she was sexually experimentative. The “child” thing, in
my mind, came from living all her life as a spirit and never having any control of a body.
Think about it. If you were born at age 18 and had to master motor skills and control of
your body, would you be able to do it right away? I don’t think you would. (By the same
token, she would not have had control of her speech patterns either, leaving her inable to
talk correctly.)

C) The Length of the Film.

The length is simply a matter of personal taste. Whether or not you feel that it was too
long is a personal thing, I won’t touch that. I personally did not feel the film was too
long.

D) The Slaves wanting to remain or at least not wanting to return home.

As far as slaves not wanting to return home, the few shots from the past were
excrutiatingly brutal : the boys stealing Sethe’s milk, the “tree” cowhide whipping and
the men in irons, etc. But, let’s not overlook the way her life was impacted by being a
slave. She is living in poverty. She has lost her children. Her husband is not with her. She
ran to avoid the brutality of her captors. I’m sorry, but at this point in history, that much
is quite enough to prove to me that she wouldn’t want to return to Sweet-home. Show me
a slave and I don’t even need to know their past or their situation, I’ll show you a person
who deserves to be free.

E) Sethe’s POV, insanity, leaving the yard and the Bodwin incident.

The POV may change and that is a jolt, but, it’s also necessary because Sethe’s about to
spend weeks and weeks in bed. That would really make for a bottoming in the film. It
would really have gone nowhere. She went nuts because Beloved left her for the second
time. I think that was pretty well established. Denver always wanted to leave the yard,
this much is true, but, she was always afraid to do so. I believe it was fear left over,
possibly from slavery, but, Sethe became the mother figure she never had and she was
probably afraid to leave the nest and the protection it provided. When she leaves, it’s a
matter of survival. Sethe’s pretty far gone and somebody has to feed them.

She went to the Bodwin’s because the girl that answers the door was a friend of Sethe’s.
That’s established when the girl recognizes Denver.

F) The dual gravestone skepticism.

I’d have to study Sethe’s reaction to Beloved’s annunciation of her name, but, I think that
Sethe was at once suspicious that this was, in fact, her dead daughter. Suspicion coupled
with the idea that she would have to have had a hand in the tombstone. Or would she?
The point I’m making is that after she murdered her daughter, how much actual power do
you think she had over the funeral arrangements? Can you picture her attending, putting
together and reveling in a funeral for her own murder victims? Also, wouldn’t it serve
that she would want to move on as quickly as possible, letting proper funeral
arrangements go. Perhaps the townspeople, the man or Baby Scuggs took care to have the
child buried with the name Sethe had given it. Perhaps Sethe even knew this (because
why else would she visit the grave later in the film). The reaction of the women at the
church when she visits the grave goes a long way to back up this theory. The idea of their
disbelief at a mother visiting the grave of a daughter she murdered with her own hands.

I will only assume that the first sighting of the tombstone stood as a title for the film.

G)  My final words and conclusion of the defense.

I was moved by Oprah's "Labour of Love”. It was truly a film that all involved can be
proud of. The past/present filmmaking techniques ("that brown, lived-in look" and the
"saturated antique tone") made for a great looking movie. I enjoyed the savage and
haunting visuals, Beloved coming out of the swamp, covered in ladybugs and butterflies,
perched on a tree stump---very disturbing. The combination of supernatural fantasy that
was a reality in these people's lives; and, the actual reality of former slaves, I thought,
made for just the right pitch of gothic horror, one that i thought was not achieved in
either ‘Eve's Bayou’ (the supernatural connection) or ‘Amistad’ (the slavery connection).
I thought ‘Beloved’ had the perfect voice of Reconstruction as told in a magnificent and
dazzling creative narrative. As frightening as it was, it was also a film to behold. It gave
me the kind of feeling about slavery and the time period that I had hoped ‘Amistad’
would give me. We still haven't seen a perfect film about the horrors of slaves, the
Reconstruction, etc. - - -but this film comes damn close in the way it made me feel - -
The Exorcism scene was particularly moving. All in all, ‘Beloved’ worked me over,
rattled me and stuck with me. A haunting and powerful film.