Many, if not most, movies about musicians tend to put the music in the foreground. Even though the film opens with a musical number, that’s not the case so much here (no disrespect to Branford Marsalis’ original music). Going into it, I didn’t know much about the movie beyond the principal cast. Sometimes that’s a blessing as I can see a film without any preconceived notions. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a passionate and emotionally told story of pain, fear, ambition, leverage, power, and respect, framed by the Black-American experience in the early part of the 20th century.
The bones of August Wilson’s play are immediately apparent in George C. Wolfe’s film adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, written for the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. Meaning, it felt more like watching a play than a movie, much like Wilson’s Fences which was adapted into a film (and also starred Viola Davis) in 2016.
The story follows Ma Rainey, The Mother of the Blues, and her band during a recording session in 1920s Chicago. With Ma nearly an hour late, her ambitious trumpeter, Levee, is busy planning his own solo career while the rest of the band just wants to rehearse and perform. In this space, the music itself lays the foundation for a power struggle between the white businessmen who control the studio side of the equation and the Black talent they need in order to make the record.
Viola Davis doesn’t seem to get the credit she deserves as one of her generation’s finest performers, but she continues to show her incredible range and mesmerizing screen presence with performances like this. From the way she makes everyone watch as she loudly and deliberately sucks down an ice-cold, glass-bottle Coca-Cola, to how she wields her power against her weasel of a manager (Jeremy Shamos) and the record producer (Johnny Coyne), Davis is truly something special.
This was the final film for the late Chadwick Boseman, but he played Levee with almost incessant energy. His enthusiasm and charisma took the character on a journey full of wild hopefulness and incredible darkness and those two polar opposites flare in spectacular bursts. It was good to see him on screen again, but still, a reminder that he was gone much too soon. I don’t know that it was the “best” performance of the year but it was strong, rangy, deep and he’ll likely take home the posthumous Oscar for Best Actor.
Boseman’s performance is bolstered by his interactions with Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, and Michael Potts who play Ma’s other band members. Almost half the movie is just the four of them discussing their life experiences and their ambitions as Black men in America. The dialogue is a little crowded in their interactions and could have maybe used a little room to breathe. It’s very fast-paced as they sort of step one each other’s words as the conversation goes around the room and the topic swings in a number of different directions. In those moments, it felt the most like a play and least like a film.
Regardless, all of that foundation set the table for Ma’s arrival at the studio and the power struggle that ensues. That’s really the core of the film as we learn how and why Ma has leverage but Levee doesn’t, despite his bold proclamations.
Recommendation: See it for the performances from Davis and Boseman and for its unique storytelling style.