Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

[StevePulaski]

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)
Directed by: George C. Wolfe

Chadwick Boseman gives his best (and final) performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Rating: ★★★★

It's 1927 Chicago. The legendary blues singer Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) and her band are set to record three songs (one of which is called "Black Bottom") on a hot, humid day in the Windy City with the session overseen by her manager Irvin (Jeremy Shamos) and the recording studio's own Sturdyvant (Jonny Coyne). Despite their insistence on how her songs should be performed, Ma is uncompromising in her demands. They're her songs and she wants them sung a certain way.

Ma's band arrives well in advance, equipped with their instruments and personal baggage: bandleader Cutler (Colman Domingo) is the level-headed one of the bunch, while Toledo (Glynn Turman), Ma's pianist, and Slow Drag (Michael Potts), her bass player, are more jovial and expressive. Then there's Levee Green (Chadwick Boseman), a cocksure young trumpeter who enjoys the camaraderie of the band, but feels in his heart-of-hearts that he can and will do better. His goal is to start his own band and be as big as Ma. He's deadset on those dreams enough it's as if he attempts to nuke his longstanding relationship with his bandmates in order to get in front of Sturdyvant for his solo shot.

Adapted from August Wilson's stage-play of the same name — one of ten works Wilson published in his series known as The Pittsburgh Cycle, despite this one being set in Chicago — almost the entire film takes place in the confined recording studio. It's an uncomfortable arrangement given the heat, Ma's tardiness, and her constant demands. To make matters more stressful, Ma insists her nephew (Dusan Brown) do the intro of the song despite his awful stutter.

The bulk of the film's first half keeps us in the rehearsal room with the bandmates, where things are kept upbeat until one too many jokes are tossed towards Levee. When Cutler suggests Levee doesn't know "how to handle white folks" given the way he sucks up to Sturdyvant, it sets off a fiery monologue about Levee's tumultuous upbringing which culminated with a violent clash between his family and racist whites. It's the tipping point of what becomes a contentious meeting all around, further compounded when Levee starts messing around with Ma's girlfriend (Taylour Paige).

All eyes will understandably be on Chadwick Boseman, who gives the performance of his career, making it all the more upsetting it will be his last. Ordinarily stoic, Boseman is loose here; a freewheeling fool you can't tell nothing. His contagious spirit despite his own naivete makes him likable in spite of himself. Levee is a damn good musician, but as much as he loves to scold others for stepping on his fancy yellow shoes, he steps on his own feet more than anyone ever could. Boseman is magnetic, and it yet again reminds us we don't fully appreciate what/who we have until we don't.

That said, like I can only imagine the real-life Ma Rainey, Viola Davis demands your undivided attention whenever she's on-screen. Your eyes gravitate to her loud makeup and outfits, but keep you fixated when she starts monologuing about an industry controlled by whites lining their pockets with the money made off of black voices. Ma Rainey has no problem mouthing off to her manager nor the recording studio's owner. She has all the leverage until they've gotten from her what they want. Something about Wilson's works bring out the absolute best in Davis — who starred in Denzel Washington's Fences, another Wilson film-adaptation — which is saying something given her consistent greatness.

The only thing more compelling than Wilson's ability to write characters was his ability to deftly instill commentary into his plays, and screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson keeps the idea of "expression vs. exploitation" at the center despite the ensuing ruckus.

Some will inevitably gripe about the lack of cinematic flare. It happens often when you have films based on plays. I've never minded and I certainly don't mind here. This is not a story that warrants theatricality; while we're surrounded by performers, we're immersed in one of the least glamorous situations. The tight settings give way to claustrophobia in a brickhouse recording studio that traps sound and heat like an oven. They cook our characters as we can ascertain from their glistening skin. The temperature of the picture is increased by these enclosed quarters.

Then there's the luscious music. At one point, Ma has a wonderful conversation with Cutler about how many hear the blues, but the real ones feel it in their bones. Music offers a window of empathy and relatability that gets you out of bed in the morning, knowing someone somewhere is feeling your same pain or enduring your same struggles. She adds that she could never tolerate silence; music fills the air and subsequently a void.

August Wilson was a treasure of a playwright. He humanized working class African Americans that loaned a window to those who overlooked that concepts of love, betrayal, loyalty, hard-work, and resilience transcend color. Wilson illustrates his characters in dynamic ways that grant them a tender kind of humanization for which I long in fiction. Whether it's one long monologue ala The Janitor or confined to a domestic situation as was the case for Fences, the power of his words and characters routinely makes for compelling cinema — "stagey" productions be damned.

Finally, I laughed loudly and often throughout Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Many times, it was because of Levee and Boseman's comic timing, something I was happy to learn he had and had en masse. The finality of it all recontextualizes the film for the better. He went out entertaining and uplifting — all while fighting — which is how I'm sure he'd love to be remembered.

NOTE: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is now available to stream on Netflix.

NOTE II: Catch my review of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom on Sleepless with Steve:


Starring: Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, Michael Potts, Jeremy Shamos, Johnny Coyne, Taylour Paige, and Dusan Brown. Directed by: George C. Wolfe.