Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Director: George C. Wolfe
Quick Impressions:
I didn’t write any movie reviews over Christmas break because my sister and her fiancé were here, and I wanted to be present for them and my children and my father as we celebrated this first Christmas without Grandma much, much sooner than any of us had ever anticipated. (I wanted to be present for my husband, too, of course, but he doesn’t mind if I sit, squirreled away, buried in my writing.)
We did watch movies. My sister desperately wanted us to see Split (which we missed when my son was a baby and still hadn’t gotten back to) and Ghosts of War (this little niche meditation on trauma she discovered and loved). And then we watched Wonder Woman 1984 (which I had a lot of thoughts about, but I convinced myself that in the spirit of Christmas, it was better not to say anything at all). (That makes it sound like I hated the movie more than I did. I liked Kristen Wiig as the Cheetah, but I think what the film did with that iconic villain was almost a travesty.) (Seriously, Wiig was great in the role, and whoever did her make-up and costuming deserves commendation, too, but Cheetah should have been the film’s actual villain instead of remaining sympathetic for 99.9 percent of the movie, having a wish as the source of her power, and never coming up with even one villainous scheme.) (Seriously! The Mandalorian should have been a red herring, and Cheetah should have emerged as the actual villain of the film. Instead, Barbara Minerva remains sympathetic–in an entirely uncomplicated way–the entire time, sometimes even more sympathetic than Wonder Woman herself. I mean, I like Gal Gadot as much as the next person, but Cheetah gets carried away beating up a guy who has established himself as a sexual predator, whereas Wonder Woman practically becomes a sexual predator, jumping into bed with the first guy whose body her boyfriend has stolen!) At any rate, I didn’t have time to write a review about that because I was busy learning to make enchiladas. We also watched Soul. I like Jamie Foxx. I like Tina Fey. I wish the film would have stayed more high concept and delved into mysteries of the afterlife rather than devolving into a zany, tired, “oh no! I’m inside a cat,” kind of thing, but it’s a good movie, and it will probably win an Oscar.
So now for the film I actually am reviewing. I have been desperately trying to see Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom for months, and I finally got my chance this week.
Long story short, Chadwick Boseman is a lock for an Oscar nomination. I’m barely paying attention this year, and even I can see that. I would expect a nomination for Viola Davis–well outside her comfort zone here–too. Both of them could easily win. At least one of them probably will.
The Good:
This movie is lots of fun to watch. My husband declared early on, “I could watch them just banter back and forth in this basement for hours!” Later we laughed about it because he was in luck. That was the movie. Most of it features four black musicians in late 1920s Chicago sharing stories and exchanging barbs in the basement of a recording studio while they wait on star vocalist Ma Rainey.
All four actors are perfect in their parts. I particularly liked Colman Domingo as the wise, practical band leader Cutler, but as piano player Toledo, Glynn Turman has some standout moments, too. Also good in a more unassuming role is Michael Potts as base player Slow Drag. But the standout, of course, is Chadwick Boseman as Levee, the contentious, ambitious, daring, damaged, delightful young trumpet player who dreams of having his own band, writes his own songs, invents new arrangements of old standards, and manages to create serious friction with just about every other major character.
What a last role for Chadwick Boseman! That he died so young is such a tragedy, but no actor could go out on a higher note. His work in his last two films, Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods and this one, could earn him two well deserved Oscar nominations in one year. I’ve been a fan of Boseman’s work since I saw him in 42, and he’s at his best as Levee. I see no realistic scenario in which he does not end up with at least a nomination for Best Actor for his moving and complex performance. (And he’ll probably win!)
These actors take turns getting poignant moments, giving moving monologues. But most of the time, they keep the story moving with the energy of their delightful banter. Their playful conversations have an almost hypnotically immersive quality, making the audience feel like a fly on the wall in a recording studio in Chicago in 1927. (That’s impressive when you consider that the era is being recreated by actors from the present day.)
This film is based on a stage play by August Wilson (the playwright who also wrote Fences, the film for which Davis won her first Oscar). (I say first because it seems likely that she could win for this, too, though from what I hear she has fierce competition.) Denzel Washington directed Fences. He produced this film.
Although Ma Rainey is a real, historical person, a famous blues pioneer who had relationships with women as depicted here, most of the other characters and events in the film are fictional. (And by “most,” I mean “all” as far as I know!) The characters seem to be largely composites. They may not be real individuals, but the stories they share and the troubles they face represent a real, historical truth.
Boseman’s Levee is the conspicuous standout of the film, but as Ma Rainey herself, Davis gives him a run for his money. (If her part were slightly enlarged, she would probably eclipse him, but the way Ma’s character is revealed to us leaves Levee center stage.)
Best Scene:
My favorite scene is the moment when everything works (eventually) (so they think), and the group makes it through a glorious performance of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” I now can’t stop humming that song. I definitely need to find some of Ma Rainey’s actual recordings.
Best Scene Visually:
Ma Rainey certainly makes quite an impression on the audience (and presumably the other guests) as she slowly leaves her hotel and heads to the recording studio. Viola Davis should win an Oscar for that charged stare alone!
Another great moment involves a difficult-to-open door in the basement. That door reminded me of the nail on the stairs in A Quiet Place. I hope it’s a member of the Screen Actors Guild because that door is basically a character in its own right. My husband was beside himself the entire movie wondering about the significance of that door. “Is the basement going to catch on fire, and they won’t be able to get out?”
In the end, the door provides one of the best pieces of visual symbolism in the movie, a way of wordlessly dramatizing a central concept of Levee’s story.
Best Action Sequence:
The opening scene is so well done. My husband, who usually watches movies in hyper-attentive silence, could not resist commenting on it in the moment.
“I assumed they were running away from danger,” he said. “But they were actually running to something.”
He’s right. It’s a great trick, almost certainly done intentionally and by far the most cinematic moment of a movie that at almost every other moment seems 100 percent like a stage play.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Viola Davis:
No kidding, the moment Davis first showed up on screen, I thought, “Well, it looks like somebody will be winning another Oscar!” Viola Davis is such a good actress. She has such presence. The first time I saw her, she was stealing Doubt from Meryl Streep. (And that was something. Not too many people steal a scene from Meryl Streep, let alone a entire movie with only a few minutes of screen time! I loved Doubt. Streep herself, Amy Adams, and Philip Seymour Hoffman all give excellent, Oscar worthy performances, but Davis was the one everybody left the theater talking about. I mean, that’s extraordinary. How often do you watch Meryl Steep in a short, two-person scene and gasp in awe, “Wow, she’s amazing,” and you mean the other person?)
But if Davis’s career has a negative side–and it doesn’t really; she’s so good in everything–it’s that she so often ends up playing superficially similar characters. Note, when you dig deep, the characters are actually quite different, but Davis exudes a kind of powerful, reserved stoicism, a quiet command, that makes them all seem similar at first glance. But whoa does she break out of that mold here!
Davis disappears into the character physically. She’s almost unrecognizable, and she somehow manages to find a way to make that famed intensity of hers Ma’s own. (I personally was deeply curious about why Ma is so much sweatier than everyone else. I believe the studio is hot. Why isn’t everyone else sweaty at all? What makes Ma glow with perspiration? Is it menopause? Willpower?)
Davis’s strongest moment comes when Ma candidly explains just why she is so difficult, why she makes so many seemingly arbitrary demands.
My husband and I were nodding along. “Well, that makes sense,” he agreed. “I can’t argue with that.”
Ma is so intractable and contentious. She turns everything into a fight. But she does have a reason for behaving that way, and while she takes things to extremes more often than I would, she is not wrong.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Chadwick Boseman:
If I’m being completely, 100 percent honest, as of this moment, I’m rooting hard for Delroy Lindo in Best Actor this year. Of all the performances I have seen, his is probably my personal favorite (so far). (I really liked Gary Oldman, too.) But I also loved Chadwick Boseman in this film, and it’s hard not to want him to win the Oscar because he died so young and won’t get another chance.
It would be even better if he won two Oscars! His supporting role in Da 5 Bloods is small, but Boseman plays a crucial character with a big moment there.
Is it fair to give someone an edge to win an Oscar because he has died? Maybe not, but it’s not fair for a forty-three-year-old to die of colon cancer, either. Besides, the Oscars are never fair. So I’ll just be completely transparent here. I’m thrilled that this film exists to give everyone the opportunity to nominate Boseman for Best Actor. Do I want him to win because he died? Yes.
(He also deserves to win based on the strength of his performance. Many people die every year. We don’t nominate them all for Best Actor.)
Boseman is so talented. I first noticed him in 42, and he was so appealing as Jackie Robinson that while watching the movie, I started wishing that I could be him. (Yes, I know. I’m an adult white woman who can’t play baseball. That’s a weird reaction to a performance, but I’m just being really honest.) Boseman made Jackie Robinson seem so handsome, healthy, wholesome, and then (ultimately) heroic. It crushes me to think that someone who made me say to myself, “That’s the way to live life,” could tragically die so young.
Just seeing him on screen moves me now. As we watched this film, I kept remembering when the news of his death first broke. Not just saddened, but stunned, I immediately ran upstairs to tell my mom and dad. I remember my mother being genuinely shocked and dismayed. And now my mother is dead, too. After watching this movie, I woke up in the middle of the night filled with inexplicable panic and dread. I think it came over me because both my mother and Chadwick Boseman are dead. Neither of those things should be true.
If just seeing Boseman on screen moves me to tears and gives me panic attacks, imagine what it must do to people in Hollywood who actually knew him! Grief and good will alone should secure him a nomination. And then there’s the performance itself, which is fantastic.
Levee has many fantastic moments, but his monologue about a trauma from his past lets Boseman shine.
The Negatives:
Do you like stage plays? If you want to watch Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, you’d better. (I do like stage plays, so this isn’t a true negative for me.)
In my youth, I watched a lot of stage plays and musicals on video tape. (A lot! Way more than average, I am quite sure.) When my cousins appeared in a play or show that I wasn’t able to attend as a child, quite often another relative would obtain a VHS copy for me, and I’d watch at home. Often I’d watch them over and over again. I didn’t mind not being there in person. And then when I was in college, I was able to catch very few of my sister’s high school plays live, so again, I’d watch the video.
That’s really what watching Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom feels like, watching a well made video tape of a play. The difference of course is in production value. Obviously this is professionally shot in HD with movie quality sound. But almost every moment of this film could be performed exactly as is on the stage. There are few locations. Most of the time, the characters are either talking or singing in one of two rooms of recording studio. This is basically a well filmed play.
As I said, for me that’s not a problem. I like watching and reading plays. In fact, I generally get really annoyed when I love a play or musical, and it gets all messed up when it’s adapted for the screen because somebody wants to make it more like a movie. As far as I’m concerned, if it was originally written for the stage, and it worked on the stage, I’d prefer it to remain as much like that original version as possible. You know, kind of like the way those BBC literary adaptations used to be back in the 1980s, when they were basically just videotaping actors in costume, standing around in rooms, speaking all the lines from the written material?
But some movie audiences may find this kind of thing off putting. Because we’re not there listening in person (as we would be in a theater) this style of presentation does bring with it a degree of artificiality, creating distance between the characters and the audience. Chadwick Boseman gets a riveting, chilling, moving monologue about something that happened in his childhood. And he really nails it. It’s a fantastic monologue, but it does feel like a monologue. He might as well be doing Shakespeare. We can’t help but be reminded that he is speaking lines, that we are watching a piece of fiction. Some people might find connecting to the character easier if they can lose themselves in the moment. It’s hard to do that here. The story Boseman tells is moving, horrifying, sad, enlightening, but as he delivers it, we know we are listening to a monologue. The film is simply not far removed from its theatrical roots. For me, that’s fine. But others might not like it.
The only other small complaint I have is that I wanted to hear Ma Rainey sing more songs. For one thing, I’m not entirely sold on the idea that Viola Davis is the lead actress. Despite being the titular character and the reason everyone has gathered for the recording session, Ma is clearly not the focus of the story, which belongs to Boseman’s Levee. (Honestly, Colman Domingo’s Cutler is just as big a presence in the story as Ma.) I’m fine with Davis being nominated for Best Actress, but she has just barely enough of a presence in the film to justify that. (If Davis herself weren’t a big star, people might consider Ma a supporting role.) I want to see her perform one or two more numbers. I also want to see more direct, person-to-person tension between her and Levee. I’m not sure why this doesn’t happen. The character is fascinating and Davis is great in the part, so we need a little more of her, please!
Overall:
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is highly watchable and only ninety-four minutes long. If you’re a fan of Chadwick Boseman or Viola Davis, you should definitely watch it. This year it’s so easy to watch potential Oscar nominees. All you have to do is turn on the TV. This is a well made, engrossing film with great performances and something to say. If you have Netflix, this is such a low stakes decision. Just watch the movie. Why not?