Ma Rainey’s black ass
director – George C Wolfe
To emit – Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, Michael Potts, Jeremy Shamos
Conversations flow easily in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, like water in a summer stream. Based on the August Wilson play of the same name and directed by George C. Wolfe, the 94-minute film takes place on a single sweltering day in 1920s Chicago. It may be limited in scale, but the scope of his ideas is majestic.
Four musicians converge in a recording studio one afternoon. They await their boss, Ma Rainey, a legendary singer known in certain circles as the Mother of Blues. It’s a title fit for a queen, and Viola Davis certainly plays Ma Rainey as something of a despot.
Watch Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom trailer here
She quietly walks in with a young lesbian lover and a stuttering, late, scary nephew. Ma Rainey dominates the room, every room, the moment she walks in. You get the feeling that even the taps on your sink bow when you pass by.
When he wants a Coke, he asks someone to grab him a couple of frozen bottles; refuses to sing a single note before taking a snack. When her manager suggests that they try a new version of one of her classic songs, to transform it into something people can dance to, she turns it off with a glance. Later, when the white man in charge of the studio tries to scam her out of the money they owe him, she makes such a chilling threat that her knees go weak.
No cause is too small or too big for Ma Rainey. You must fight for everything, even if it is a bottle of Coca Cola.
Through each of these three scenes, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom reveals what it’s really about. These are black people still emerging from the shadow of their recent past and learning to lead respectable lives. It’s about the power of art and the importance of maintaining one’s creative integrity. And it’s also about the oppression of an entire community and the system that prepares them for nothing but self-destruction.
With just a handful of characters and a single setting, Wilson’s work captured the breadth of the Black experience. The movie is tremendously close.
The readings will certainly be affected by what has happened in real life. Chadwick Boseman, the man behind the film’s most magnificent performance, died in post-production. It’s heartbreaking as the brash trumpeter Levee, a manifestation of all black men who dare to dream, despite their past, but are constantly stopped in their tracks by a skewed system.
Viola Davis as Ma Rainey, in a frame from the new Netflix movie.
As they rehearse before their session, Levee’s blasphemous ideologies collide with the devotion to God that drives the rest of his bandmates. Temperaments flare.
When he is teased for bowing to the white studio owner, hoping he can record music there too, something is triggered in Levee. Furious at the innuendo, monologue about a racially motivated violent incident from his past, the camera inches from Boseman’s face. When it ends, there is a stunned silence. “Stand back and leave Levee alone with the white man,” he says quietly, the rage that was moments ago spilling from his voice now simmering in his eyes. “I can smile and say ‘yes sir’ to whoever I want. I have my time coming to me. ”
This is the scene that will see Chadwick Boseman win his Oscar. It will be just the third posthumous Academy Award given in an acting category, and the first since Heath Ledger won it more than a decade ago.
However, to make things a bit more difficult, Netflix has decided to campaign with Boseman in the lead actor category for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which is fair: Levee has a more resounding arc than any other character in the film. . It also gives the streamer the opportunity to place him in the Da 5 Bloods supporting actor category, thus avoiding any chance of self-cannibalization. So don’t be surprised if Boseman ends up with two nominations at next year’s Oscars.
Also Read: Da 5 Bloods Movie Review: A Spectacular Masterpiece By Legendary Spike Lee; it’s what Netflix was made for
But even the hipster Levee can’t stand shoulder to shoulder with the volatile genius that is Ma Rainey. He talks a lot when he’s with the boys, but flinches in the presence of his boss. Davis also has her moment in the limelight when, in a rare case of vulnerability, she makes a speech about being valued for her voice alone. And it’s true. The ironic coda of the film makes this very clear.
Of the two August Wilson adaptations Denzel Washington has partnered with (he’s a producer on this one), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the best picture. Unlike Fences, which Washington directed and starred in, it is more cinematic and less scenic. It’s one of the best movies of the year and a moving farewell to one of the most talented actors of his generation.
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The author tweets @RohanNaahar
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