The loss of Chadwick Boseman in August was one of those deaths that just came out of left field.
The 43 year old had been privately battling colon cancer while working.on 'Black Panther,' '21 Bridges' and other projects.
After his work on Spike Lee's Vietnam adventure 'Da 5 Bloods' for Netflix, there was a real sense he was building a promising A List career.
The sense of loss, not just among Marvel Avengers' fans was acute.
When a Hollywood star's death comes out of the blue like that, interest in their final movie, of course, intensifies.
So there has been a lot of high expectations for his performance in the Netflix's release of George C Wolfe's 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' - a movie adaptation of August Wilson's acclaimed 1982 Tony nominated play.
Boseman plays trumpeter Levee Green in one of those roles that was always going to command a lot of attention.
Levee is a gifted horn player and has a lot of naked ambition.
He is very sure about his songwriting prowess and is not afraid to boast about it.
However he is the member of a four-piece backing band that supports Viola Davis' jelly roll singer, Ma Rainey.
Every time Levee tries to assert himself, the other members - Colman Domingo's trombone player Cutler, piano player Glynn Turman's Toledo and Michael Potts' double bassist Slow Drag - like to rein him back in.
Wolfe's film and Wilson's play takes place over the course of a recording session in 1920's Chicago.
Cutler, Toledo and Slow Drag arrive at the studio in bright sunshine ahead of Levee and Ma Rainey and her entourage.
But they are quickly swallowed up by the dark, clammy interior of the studio and its rehearsal space.
Not long afterwards, Levee arrives with a great fanfare after purchasing a pair yellow leather shoes from the winnings of a card game the previous night with Cutler.
The band members exchange banter about the shoes and Levee's boasting about his more feisty arrangement of their signature tune 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'.
Cutler, the de facto shop steward of the band, dismisses Levee's claims that Ma Rainey's white boss, Jeremy Shamos' Irvin and Jonny Coyne's Mel Sturdyvant have sanctioned the recording of the new, more uptempo arrangement.
He quickly reminds Levee that only Ma Rainey's opinion counts and they will rehearse the song the way it is always played until she says otherwise.
That doesn't stop Levee insisting his arrangement will appeal to audiences in Harlem and the big urban centres of the north who, he insists, view the band's current sound as old fashioned and too rooted in the Deep South.
Levee even cockily claims he is ready to quit and front his own band and he berates his colleagues for their lack of ambition.
Ma Rainey's arrival at the studio is no less eventful.
Her car, driven by her nephew Dusan Brown's Sylvester, slams into another when they realise they have arrived at Sturdyvant's studio.
A row erupts in the street as Joshua Harto's beat cop threatens in front of a crowd of mostly white passersby to have her arrested for pushing the other driver.
Irvin, however, intervenes and, after receiving a bribe, the cop orders that both cars move on and the drivers go about their business.
As Ma Rainey, her girlfriend Taylour Paige's Doussie May and Sylvester sweep inside the studio, it is clear Sturdyvant resents her diva attitude.
And when she insists that Sylvester, who has a stammer, does the vocal introduction to her signature song on the recording, it sets off all kinds of tension - not just with Sturdyvant but within the band.
Not surprisingly, given its origins, the film of 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' feels quite theatrical and it is not that hard to imagine, if you have never seen the play, what it must be like onstage.
But to Wolfe's credit, the 66 year old director, who is a Tony award winning theatre director and playwright in his own right, works hard to expand Wilson's play in the cinematic medium.
Tobias A Schiessler's camera wanders around as the action unfolds and refuses to be static.
Wolfe, nevertheless, understands the power of the source text and he allows the cast to revel in the rapid fire banter and the storytelling that their characters engage in.
Boseman is in sparkling form as Levee, revelling in his loudmouth cockiness but also showing a real brittleness and volatility.
A scene where Levee loses it after his bandmates rib him for being in thrall to the white man elicits an illuminating story about his traumatic upbringing.
He delivers a tour de force final screen performance that would have attracted awards season buzz even if he was still with us.
The same could be said for Viola Davis, whose Oscar for Best Supporting Actress came two years ago for another film of a Wilson play 'Fences' with Denzel Washington directing and starring alongside her.
Here, Davis is depicting a real life blues singer - albeit a fictionalised version - but she has bulked up and is barely recognisable under the make-up and as she sports fake gold teeth.
At the start of the movie, we briefly glimpse the life Ma Rainey had in the South - performing to packed audiences who run through the woods to the sound of barking dogs just to see her.
A larger than life performer on and offstage, Ma Rainey is no wilting lily in facing down Sturdyvant and Irvin or her own band - even holding up the recording at one stage to insist on getting ice cold bottles of cola to quench her thirst in the clammy studio heat.
She later confesses to Cutler that the reason she behaves like a diva is that she knows her voice is a commodity.
Once it is captured on vinyl, Ma Rainey observes Irvin and Sturdyvant treat her like a prostitute after a client has had his way with her.
Davis turns in a barnstorming performance that is every bit Boseman's equal and it is fair to say it is a career best.
To Wolfe's credit, though, he draws terrific performances out of the entire cast but special mention should go to Domingo who brings heart and gravitas to the role of Cutler and Turman who amuses as the cynical Toledo who we learn nurses his own wounds from a strained marriage.
Religion and specifically Levee's disdain for it is not far from the surface of Wilson's play, as the characters trade stories about a musician who sold his soul to the Devil (as it was claimed the legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson did) or a preacher mocked by a white mob.
The tension between artistic expression and just doing what the audience likes and expects also figures prominently
Race also plays a huge part, with Ma Rainey and her band enjoying her flexing her star power muscle in front of obsequious white industry execs like Irvin and Sturdyvant.
They also share grim tales of racial brutality.
The presence of Ma Rainey's girlfriend Doussie, who she gropes at one point, and Levee's interest in her means sexuality is also thrown into the mix and creates further friction within the band.
All of this emotion and tension bubbles up nicely and Wolfe, who made the Richard Gere vehicle 'Nights in Rodanthe,' has no bother handling it.
Wolfe and his screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson arguably do an even better job than Denzel Washington did directing 'Fences' and August Wilson did adapting that play.
Brantford Marsalis' musical arrangements, Mia Neal's hairstyling, Matiki Anoff and Sergio Lopez-Rivera's make-up and Ann Roth's costume design also impress.
As final movies go, Boseman's last film is as good as it gets.
And while it can never make up for the loss of an actor whose career was only starting to make its presence felt, it should be a cause for celebration.
If by next April, Wolfe's film is not contending for a host of Oscars, especially in the acting categories, it will not just be a shock.
It will be an outrage.
('Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' was briefly released in UK cinemas on December 4, 2020 before being made available for streaming on Netflix on December 18, 2020)
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