Upon the stage of 1920's burgeoning Chicago, a blues band deal with creative differences, religion and their experiences of exploitation by the white people.
Just ten feet away from me two people are throwing frisbees at each other. It’s quite windy too. It’ll take just one rogue gust of wind to send that plastic pizza flying towards me, either knowing out one of my front teeth or leaving a massive dent in my laptop screen. I like this random element however, putting my dental health or the price of this laptop on the line just so I can sit out here in the sun with a glass of extremely potent homemade red wine to put this review together. Hold on, a grey pit-bull just bought me a peace offering for leaving a bleeding scratch on my leg. I wonder if it had done that had dogs the concept of shorts. Not a single word about the film has been mentioned in this review thus far, I should really pull my act together and actually cut to the cheese of this thing.
I arrived at the house of my girlfriend’s parents today and we watched Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) together. I had read about it in the previous issue of Little White Lies and was rather taken by the review of the film, sending it straight to my watchlist as soon as it came out on Netflix. But because Netflix have really stepped their game up lately and have been slinging some fantastic movies on their plate, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom found itself lost amongst a growing watchlist of classics. That’s just my own handicap, however, for not sticking to my watchlist in its intended order. As fashionably late as I always am, as per my girlfriend’s idea, we watched the film today, and I found it absolutely spectacular. Exploitation of black people, creative differences within a band, religion and the power of the blues are but some of the themes that play out upon the sprawling stage of late 1920’s Chicago, where the gulf between white and black people was so large that the only way white folk could get along with them was to do what the worst of them do best, exploit them through lies and false hope till they wither, all the while putting up an obsequious front. The entire film unfolds over the course of a day when hugely influential blues singer, Ma Rainey, must get a few of her songs recorded in a recording studio. While she’s on her way to the studio, her band is being shaken up by her passionate and overconfident horn player, Levee as he fights to get his own version of the song recorded rather than Ma’s. The assertive and powerful attitude that has made Ma such an unmovable presence clashes with her white record producer as well as Levee, and that’s the hairline where the drama spills out from.
About the first ten minutes of the film or so are quite hazy for me as I’ve been jumping from plane to train to bus to another bus for the last twenty-four hours, and I’m still another ten hours away before I feel completely human again. But as the band got together and the dialogue began to flow like jazz notes hanging perennially in the air, I was snatched right out of the jaws of my stupor by the film and was held captive by it.
From the very beginning, as I got taken out of the forests and into the wild bewildering metropolis of Chicago, the camera and art direction work in tandem with each other to establish such a painterly vision of the times, reflecting the pristine galleries and hotels against the roadsters sputtering by on muddy cobblestones amidst a throng of people who have found themselves up North, following the wispy comet-tail of opportunity. Wood panelled galleries with extravagant carpets bearing wild patterns lead out of the sunny streets of Chicago that line the way for buildings reaching up to the sun encrusted sky. The manner in which the camera moves with such fluidity, taking me from one setting to the next fills me with such envy for those who watched this film in cinemas because that is truly the most suitable place to witness such scenes. Each moment is packed with such wonderful cinematic quality, whether it’s the character blocking, the unabashed movement of the camera or the lighting.
What really caught my attention during my watch was the band room. This is where the film's stage provenance becomes apparent. The band members continually congregate in the room and just talk. The natural escalation of their conversation takes them into some very poignant territory, their own experiences of horrible treatment by the white people, accented by Levee’s desire to record his own version of Ma’s song and eventually form his own band. At times they’ll just ramble while the other band members will play a little background jam that adds a funky musical quality to whatever they’re saying. The constant symbolism of the brand-new shoes and the mysterious door in the room reverberate through the film like the twanging of a piano wire, escalating out of control into a discordant close at the end as the events of film play away at it. The dialogue is personal, and real, extremely hilarious at times and so thought evoking that it leaves the room in silence.
Every single performance in the film pulls its weight and makes for a pleasure to watch, but the two giants that stick out are Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis. I haven’t seen many films starring the late Mr. Boseman, but this being his final role before he heads up the great party in the sky is perfect. He has done himself proud and went out with such a bang, if his other performances are even half as good as this then he’s one hell of an actor. Being quite familiar with Viola Davis’ range from How to Get Away with Murder, she’s as powerful as ever. Davis’ Ma, who’s full and heavy eyes which seem to have seen the worst of many years that have bought her to the position she’s in now, is quite aware that the white folk only adore her for her voice. As long as she’s their golden egg laying duck, she’s useful to them, the moment the gold runs dry, they’ll kick her to the curb. This is something Boseman’s Levee hasn’t come to grips with that fact yet, still thinking that he’s the one playing the white man when actually it’s the reverse. This is what keeps the momentum of his character so fucking strong, the armour of his personality is as thick as the pain and suffering he’s been dealt, but there’s one chink that’s escaped his awareness, and that perilous Achilles heel keeps his character in such a balance.
Well, the frisbee people are gone, taking away the possible trip to a dentist with them. Although that was a possibility that wasn’t afforded to the black people of that time – and the same goes for some now – some of them don’t know they’re being exploited until it hits them like a frisbee in the teeth, and a trip to the dentist is the least of their worries.
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