Bewitching Beloved

(5 of 5)
For Winfrey, it was a big gamble that deserves a solid payoff. As Demme says, "She is, indeed, the mother of the movie." The film has many gifted midwives. But it was Winfrey who gave birth to a strong, stately film; to the chance for a renewed awareness of how slavery's shackles still chafe. She has also given birth to herself--as a force in a Hollywood that needs a more mature future, and in an America that needs to remember its past.

--Reported by Georgia Harbison/New York and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles