• Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (film)

4/1/21 (Thurs), Netflix

Part of August Wilson’s 10-play cycle of the black experience in the US in the 20th century. A white-owned record company in Chicago has contracted to make a recording with the imperious Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), a real-life Southern singer from the 1920s known as Mother of the Blues. The record makers hope to broaden her appeal by commissioning new arrangements from Levee (a spectacular Chadwick Boseman), a young black musician who is more tuned in to the tastes of the broader public and sees this as his stepping stone to fame. Unfortunately Ma doesn’t take kindly to suggestions, well meaning or not, and takes every opportunity to stick it to the white man regardless of how that affects others, including the young kid’s future. The clash between Ma and Levee – over music, her various demands, her woman (over whom both are fighting; the real Ma was evidently an unashamed lesbian) – leads to fireworks.

Ma, a superstar down South, knows that her records are hugely profitable for the Chicago men and that they need her more than she needs them. She takes every opportunity to lord it over them: she arrives an hour late, summarily rejects their new musical arrangements and insists on singing it her way, refuses to start unless she gets her Coke (which she gulps down unglamorously in one swig), demands that they use her stuttering nephew on the record, and so forth. She sees this as a way of retaining her dignity, aware that the executives wouldn’t give her the time of day if she were a normal black woman. But, perhaps because of Viola Davis’ one-note performance, she comes off as a diva of the worst kind, irritating even to her own accompanists. I can understand her wanting to show the white executives who’s really boss, but she doesn’t seem to care that this actually hurts the young black musicians she’s working with. How does that show up the white man? It’s impressive that Ma is willing to sacrifice popularity in order to maintain what she considers her artistry, if that’s her motive (and I’m not sure it is), but I can assure her that record executives are not choosy as to who they screw over. The older band members, having seen this all before, simply look at this as a nice-paying gig, but Levee has set his sights higher. Without her support, he is easy prey for the record executives, white or otherwise. Her determination to use her position to right social ills is ultimately self-destructive, limiting her own appeal and damaging others even of her own race. That seems a metaphor in itself.

There is also an implication that the desire of the music executives to make Ma more accessible to white audiences (such as using the young black kid’s hipper arrangement) is somehow an indignity, a form of oppression by the white majority. I’m glad European immigrants didn’t feel that way about Louis Armstrong’s version of their songs. The ending added for the film, where Caucasians are singing a “white” version of the song effectively stolen from the black kid (the real tragedy here), is presumably intended as a shocking case of cultural appropriation. But why is that any worse, say, than Etta James destroying “At Last” (to immense popularity, it should be noted)? In a Making Of section following the film, Denzel Washington, the film’s producer, observed interestingly how blacks down South in the day had their own society but were rootless up North. Ma indeed shows a cultural confidence that Levee, interested only in appealing to a wide audience (which will inevitably include whites), might have lacked. Much food for thought here, as always with August Wilson, though maybe not as intended.

George Wolfe is primarily a stage director, and his work here shows it. Attempts to open up the story were not particularly convincing, such as the curious opening when several men who appear at first to be running from danger are revealed to be rushing to attend Ma’s concert. What was that all about? The camera also seemed jumpy at times, and the lesbian scene was overdone – we don’t need to be beaten over the head with it. At the same time, the claustrophobic feel of the recording studio and rehearsal room, where most of the film takes place, was nicely rendered. The dialogue, adapted by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, felt natural, especially the banter among the musicians, each of whom gets his moment in the sun with a key speech. Ma’s bitterness (“All they want is my voice. . . As soon as they get my voice down on them recording machines, then it’s just like if I’d be some whore and they roll over and put their pants on”) contrasts with the resignation of the older musicians, who speak of blacks as the “leftovers” in the stew of life. They talk matter-of-factly about the preacher who was humiliated by a white group, a woman who found the church and dumped her husband as a result, and a black man who sold his soul to the devil. Only the fiery Levee still has his ideals, including his confidence in dealing with the white world, though those are shattered by the end. The beautifully wrought dialogue in particular makes me curious to see the stage version.

Davis lays it on too thick with Ma’s anger, lacking any subtlety even allowing for the tough-as-nails character she’s playing. Her approach made it hard to believe in Ma, and I have to think that another actress would have made this a different experience. Otherwise, though, the cast was very fine. The musicians all gave their roles distinct personalities, and the white manager dealing with Ma was a good picture of exasperation.

But it was the dynamic Boseman who was the heart and soul of the film, a walking stick of dynamite with a fuse constantly lit. He delivered both his key speeches to perfection: the horrific story of his mother’s treatment at the hands of a white gang, and especially his ferocious questioning of God’s existence. This was a great performance by any standard. I had assumed before watching this that his Oscar nomination was a sympathy move in response to his untimely death just after filming this, but I take it all back. On the evidence here, his young demise at only 43 was a big loss for the film world. He certainly went out in a blaze of glory.

Denzel Washington, who himself appeared in the movie version of Wilson’s Fences, is evidently committed to filming the other eight plays in the cycle as well. Given the high level here of the acting, the distinctive characters and Wilson’s sharp-eared dialogue, I’ll be there.