‘Ma Rainey's Black Bottom’ Review: A Flat Adaptation, But A Soaring Sendoff for Chadwick Boseman
‘MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM’ IS FAR FROM BEING THE GREATEST ADAPTATION OF AN AUGUST WILSON PLAY, BUT CHADWICK BOSEMAN’S FINAL PERFORMANCE IS AN OSCAR-WORTHY TRIUMPH THAT DEMANDS VIEWING.
It is one of the most solemn acts, as a lover of film, to watch the final work of a great performer. Even under “normal” circumstances, where an actor lives a full life, and their final film is like any other in their career, their passing casts a shadow on that work. However, when an actor is taken suddenly, at far too young, that shadow instead becomes a vast, dark cloud. Such is the case with Chadwick Boseman, who passed away this August at the age of 43. Newly released on Netflix, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom - adapted from the August Wilson play of the same name, produced by Denzel Washington and directed by George C. Wolfe, from a screenplay written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson - features Boseman’s final work, and is a tremendous sendoff to a modern legend of cinema, even if it makes for an uneven movie.
The film takes place mostly during one afternoon in Chicago, 1927, where Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (Viola Davis) and her band are set to record a handful of her songs at a rundown studio. Boseman plays Levee, an ambitious but also stubborn composer, and the trumpet player in Ma’s band. Levee often clashes with Ma and his other bandmates, particularly over the arrangement of the film’s titular song: Ma insists on a slower, bluesier arrangement, while Levee tries pushing a faster, more complex arrangement of his own to no success. Opposite Levee are trombonist and bandleader Cutler (Colman Domingo), who attempts multiple times to get it through Levee’s head that he plays in Ma’s band, not his own; pianist Toledo (Glynn Turman), the elder statesman of the musicians; and bassist Slow Drag (Michael Potts). At the start of the film, the band gets to the studio on time, whereas Ma is late. The band are subsequently corralled into a tiny practice room, resulting in a first act mostly composed of interplay between the four men.
As with the original play, this dynamic is the most interesting idea of the film: putting four Black musicians in a cramped room together forces an intimate conversation that ranges from lighthearted, to tense, to downright hostile. It suffers, however, from the play - and, subsequently, the film - only being half-invested in it. The other story being told here is a glorious tribute to the Black blues artists who laid the foundation for most - if not all - music made in the past century. The two halves have never quite meshed on stage, and like most adaptations of plays to film, the ability to instantly cut from one scene to the next causes Wolfe to move things along too quickly. Very few moments, even within an individual scene, are allowed to breathe the way they would in a real-time stage setting. Wolfe is a phenomenal stage director - he won a deserved Tony for his production of Angels in America - but his keen mind for theatre translates to a largely uninspired cinematic vision. He directs his cast with great precision, but thinks too literally of the stage in the way he frames his shots, and portrays the action in a very dry way. It’s frustrating, too, when the establishing shots beautifully capture the grittiness of the American city of the 1920s, the fashion, and the vintage automobiles. As soon as the film moves indoors, though, it becomes a very blandly shot adaptation that merely goes through the motions.
However, Wolfe understands acting, and while the pacing of the film often prevents these performances from truly sinking in, they are nonetheless excellent. Davis is somewhat limited in what she is allowed to do - Ma was a real, influential blues singer, written less as a fully realized character so much as a loving, semi-biographical tribute - but she makes gold from her time on screen. Transformed to uncannily resemble the real Ma Rainey, Davis commands the screen as much as Ma commands her manager (Jeremy Shamos), her girlfriend Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige), and her stuttering nephew Sylvester (Dusan Brown). It is in a scene where Ma insists on Sylvester delivering the intro to “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, no matter how many takes are required for the young man to make a clean delivery, with Ma fending off her manager and bandmates all at once, that Davis showcases the reasons why she has become one of the most beloved American actors working today.
Nearly everyone out of this cast is given an opportunity to showcase their talents, with the exception of Potts: Slow Drag has, by far, the least dialogue of anyone in the band, and exists in the background of most scenes. It’s a notable waste of Potts’ ability, and sticks out like a sore thumb compared to how the other actors are used. Turman, reprising the role of Toledo from a 2016 production, imbues the character with a world-weariness and wisdom that bounces off of Levee’s youthful arrogance beautifully. Assuming Toledo to be Turman’s real-life age places his birth pre-Civil War, making him a witness to the negligible progress the United States had made towards equality between the war and the 1920s. The film’s cold open - evoking imagery of two slaves escaping slave catchers, only to reveal that they’re simply two men rushing to see Ma’s band perform at a remote Georgia venue - teases an exploration of social issues of the time - and of today - that never really comes to fruition.
Domingo is exquisitely cast as Cutler, doing some of his best work as the man trying to keep a level head while frequently needing to be in two places at once as both Ma’s bandleader and confidant. Even in the earlier scenes where - shown masterfully in Domingo’s eyes - Cutler is irritated by Levee’s flippant and flamboyant behavior, he contains himself, trying to ground the younger musician and guide the rehearsals. Domingo and Boseman create wonderful interplay in these scenes, and it’s a tragedy that we will never again get to see these two actors face to face. Cutler proves to be the character who finally snaps at Levee, initiating the film’s standout sequence: a vicious confrontation between the two men that shifts towards a confrontation between Levee and a God he doesn’t believe in.
This emphasizes the film’s main selling point: Chadwick Boseman owns it. For all of the great work done by his scene partners, Boseman gives an otherworldly turn - it not only stands with his best work, but supersedes it as his greatest triumph - and all of the talk about an Oscar nomination or even a win for him is fully earned. An earlier moment in the screenplay sends Levee on a six-minute monologue about a horrific event in his childhood. While it plays a bit on-the-nose on paper, Boseman bares pieces of his soul in delivering it, so much so that you get the impression that the reactions of the other men in the room are instead the real-life reactions of his fellow actors, stunned at the depths they’re watching Boseman reach in that moment. Wondering how Boseman’s illness impacted the way he approached his role is pure speculation: but due to how recent his passing is, it’s impossible to watch this performance, or the ways in which he absolutely peaks as a performer, without at least wondering if the knowledge of his mortality might have influenced his approach.
With all of that said and done, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom has a curiously divided focus that, all the way back to August Wilson’s original version, has always caused it to feel like two halves of different plays, and this issue is only compounded in its translation to film. Washington produced this film as part of an effort to adapt all ten plays from Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle to film: this was also the stimulus for 2016’s Washington-directed Fences, an assuredly more even and better-composed adaptation of, arguably, a better play with a more defined message. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, by comparison, attempts to initiate a social commentary, but it never quite gets there - it’s interesting that the most effective effort towards this comes in the way of the film’s coda, a completely new scene that is not part of the play - and can be as distracting as the overall stage-y feel of the film.
Still, despite the other issues present here, it’s worth checking out Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Netflix just for the performances… especially when we’re treated to such incredible work from one of the greatest talents of his time. Chadwick Boseman is a deep loss to the world of acting, and having a career highlight performance be his swansong is perhaps as great a tribute to his career and legacy as could ever be asked for.