Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman Starring in ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ for Netflix (trailer)

[Knowledge]

It was a crime of passion. Levee wouldn’t have done it with premeditation

Just like these nikkas today who pop off over the smallest/silliest shyt

 

[Dillah810]

Yeah, this was pure

Chadwick knocked it out of the park, in a film full of great performances he stood out above and beyond. Between this and his performance in Da 5 Bloods he is a shoe-in for all the awards.

At the same time Glynn Turman is looking to catch some second wind in his career. His part here and his part in Fargo are redefining his career.

And you can't deny Viola Davis. The make-up helped a lot but she disappeared into this role. It has all the power of her other performances but none of it is recognizable.

Since it's a stageplay adaptation I think many will feel the "story" is underwhelming but the dialogues (and in particular the monologues) are perfect. And of course the brilliance of how something as simple as a locked door is used to convey the position of Levee.

That what it is. It was killing me trying to figure out what was missing. I'm watching this wondering to myself why I'm not enjoying this as much as I think I should. The acting is great. The cinematography is good, but I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't love it. But yeah, outside of the story everything was great.

 

[Supa]

I'm alwayss in doubt when people start the Oscar talk after an actor's death but Chadwick earned that. Viola was amazing as well. Her screen presence was ridiculous. If there's two better performances this year you're going to have to go a long way to convince me.

Toledo

Colman Domingo was great. Hope he gets a best supporting nod.

I was in disbelief that that was Brother Mouzone. Not sure I've seen Michael Potts in anything else but The Wire.

Has anyone offered a take on the symbolism of Levee trying to open that door? When he finally opened it

I also liked how they showed her taking care of nephew and believing in him. And when he nailed the take everyone, even Levee gave him props.


There was a real sense of community it seemed like back then. Even Cutler, who didn’t like Levee, tried to persuade Ma Rainey against firing him.

They liked Levee. They all liked each other. You could see a genuine comradery was present.

 

[SchoolboyC]

Toledo hitting the and walking out when ole girl was in the room with Levee

My name is Bennett and I ain't in it

 

[mastermind]

Is Chadwick sick?

This movie was greatness. Chadwick was amazing, as was Miss Viola, Brothers Glynn Thurman, Coleman Domingo and Mouzone.

 

[TheGodling]

Has anyone offered a take on the symbolism of Levee trying to open that door? When he finally opened it

The way I took it:

Spoiler

The door represented Levee's drive to open new doors in his career and life. He was restless in the place he was in (Ma Rainey's band) so he kept trying to get out, always trying to see what's behind the next door. The old timers had accepted their place in life so they paid no attention to the door whatsoever.

The door becomes more important as Levee's goal becomes clear. He wants to record his own music and have his own band. He keeps forcing it, trying to get that door to open. Once he finally manages to break through and arrive in the next place, it's just walls. He's in a place smaller than the room he came from, but looking up he could see the sky. The sky gives off the illusion that he's closer to freedom (the sky is the limit) even though he actually went backwards in relation to having freedom to move around.

It sets up the ending where Levee does "break through" by getting paid independently for the songs he wrote, but it's not the step he thought he was going to make. The studio manager had made him look at the sky, so he never realized that he was just being led into a smaller place than he was in, before a place where he had ended up serving the same white man he so desperately wanted to outsmart.

 

[Dr. Narcisse]

@mastermind

About 26 minutes into Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — the 1927 Chicago–set adaptation of the August Wilson play — comes a moment that neatly encapsulates the film’s failures. Blues singing powerhouse and mainstay Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) beckons Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige), “Come over here and let me see that dress.” The camera is in close-up as Ma Rainey holds Dussie Mae from behind. She croons in the young woman’s ear, delighting her with talk about finding her finer dresses to wear. Ma Rainey’s bejeweled hands glide over Dussie Mae’s body. Yet the camera’s decision to remain so tight amounts to a mostly sexless moment, undercutting any real exploration of Ma Rainey’s queerness. The camera itself seems reluctant to detail the sensuality, but the film’s problems prove more expansive than that. Other faults are on display beyond the rote filmmaking: namely, a script that suggests potentially intriguing ideas but never explores them. Ma Rainey postures toward being an actor’s showcase, but its storytelling — and its actorly pitfalls — prohibit that from being the reality.
The bulk of Ma Rainey’s action homes in on a hothouse dynamic. The boldly egotistical blues star is in Chicago to lay down a record of some of her tried and true songs. While longtime collaborator Cutler (Colman Domingo trying his damnedest to breathe life into the story) is endlessly loyal to Ma Rainey’s whims, new trumpet player Levee (Chadwick Boseman) sees this gathering as a stepping stone for a greater career with his own band, recording the music he writes that he feels better reflects the pulse of the time. Ma Rainey, unsurprisingly, sees Levee as ungrateful and inexperienced. Egos clash. Sex and violence ensue. Yet, with all these combustible characters and incidents, Ma Rainey is a lifeless endeavor never able to shrug off its previous identity as a play to take advantage of the cinematic form.

I don’t want to obscure the rot at the heart of this film. August Wilson may be a beloved playwright, as evidenced by how keen Hollywood is to adapt his work, but Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s version of Ma Rainey does nothing to show us why this is the case. The script touches on issues that have the potential to be powerful — Black intra-racial relations, the tension between northern and southern Black folks, the ways Black artists must navigate white power structures that seek to strip their work bare. But these issues are merely touched on, and the dialogue that otherwise surrounds them is stilted, laughable even. Take, for example, the moment when Levee, in seducing Dussie Mae asks, “Can I introduce my red rooster to your brown hen?” A line that deserves an eye roll is instead received as if it is the height of seduction. Ma Rainey has the weight of Hollywood power players behind it, but it seems incapable or uninterested in taking advantage of the delights of what film can do.

There is a handsomeness to the cinematic costume design of Ann Roth and its touching period details, however; but these only paper over the fact that the film’s aesthetics as a whole are, at times, downright ugly. I can’t get over the sallow nature of the color palette. Director George C. Wolfe — who has clearly been ported from the world of theater, and I don’t mean this as a compliment — and cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler create a strangely airless visual grammar for their film. The issues are apparent in the first few minutes full of odd decisions: lazy transitions, images rendered as newspaper clippings, inelegant editing work. When Ma Rainey appears in her upstairs recording studio, the camerawork is a bit more fluid, a sharp contrast to the static approach it takes downstairs while the band is rehearsing in a ramshackle room. The filmmakers rely too greatly on close-ups like that Dussie Mae sequence, forgetting the stories our bodies are likely to tell. In many ways, the camera acts as a spotlight does on the stage, making blatant choices to signal that this is a moment to pay attention to. But this has the effect of undercutting the acting; the camerawork needs to be more graceful in order to avoid feeling like a recorded play.

As for Ma Rainey herself, I am typically attracted to characters like her: messy, larger than life women who proudly proclaim in body and word their own worth with little care for how the world seeks to make them feel otherwise. But instead of feeling like a powerful emblem of the Black artistic tradition, and a complicated woman, Ma Rainey grates. She’s egotistical and selfish. At times, she’s downright cruel. These traits aren’t so much investigated as laid on thick without any care for the humanity that fuels them. Her queer identity is so fleetingly interrogated, it feels like a questionably methodical choice for representation points. I’m not sure any actor could save this story. Sure, Viola Davis has proven to be a steadily capable performer, particularly for the intensity with which she imbues her characters. But here she’s downright galling, all swagger and braggadocio in a fat suit that adds an uncomfortable undercurrent to the performance. Is this how the filmmakers view fat Black women? Why make her largesse — in terms of personality — so strangely grotesque? Why not give her juicy monologues, the kinds Chadwick Boseman is granted? Sadly, Davis plays Ma Rainey as a caricature; she’s never able to suggest interiority. She tosses her weight from side to side. She leers and licks her gold teeth. She’s brimming with decisions that obscure rather than underscore anything about the woman behind the legend.

Chadwick Boseman, in his final film role, fares better. Partially because the story is undoubtedly more interested in who his character is rather than what he represents. Many of the important turns in the film hinge on Boseman’s presence at the center. He plays Levee with a bravado that mirrors that of Ma Rainey, but this confidence belies a horrifying and sorrowful history. In the first of his lachrymose monologues, Boseman is called to embody the anger of his character that stems from watching the rape of his mother by a group of white men in her own home, when he was 8 years old. Boseman gives the scene his all. He’s anxious with overflowing energy. His eyes are wild. But again, the camerawork renders the monologue strangely claustrophobic, hobbling its potential emotional depth.
Ma Rainey handily demonstrates the strange place Black filmmaking occupies in Hollywood right now. Yes, there are more opportunities and visibility for Black filmmakers and actors on the Hollywood stage. But many of the works being made available — such as horror films and series, including Bad Hair, Lovecraft Country, and Antebellum — feel like they take advantage of an audience’s desire to see themselves onscreen without offering any of the potency or finesse necessary to make these stories work.

 

[Supa]

@mastermind

 

[Bigbigguy]

@mastermind

Shawty used big words for such a horrible take

 

[mastermind]

@mastermind

Good luck to her and her mentions

this is what the play was about


She missed it

 

[mastermind]

The way I took it:

Spoiler

The door represented Levee's drive to open new doors in his career and life. He was restless in the place he was in (Ma Rainey's band) so he kept trying to get out, always trying to see what's behind the next door. The old timers had accepted their place in life so they paid no attention to the door whatsoever.

The door becomes more important as Levee's goal becomes clear. He wants to record his own music and have his own band. He keeps forcing it, trying to get that door to open. Once he finally manages to break through and arrive in the next place, it's just walls. He's in a place smaller than the room he came from, but looking up he could see the sky. The sky gives off the illusion that he's closer to freedom (the sky is the limit) even though he actually went backwards in relation to having freedom to move around.

It sets up the ending where Levee does "break through" by getting paid independently for the songs he wrote, but it's not the step he thought he was going to make. The studio manager had made him look at the sky, so he never realized that he was just being led into a smaller place than he was in, before a place where he had ended up serving the same white man he so desperately wanted to outsmart.

It’s Racism

 

[Kiyoshi-Dono]

Very poignant ending

 

[Rollie Forbes]

Its actually deeper than that. We let disrespect from others fuel our anger/need to hurt each other.

 

[Ya' Cousin Cleon]

August Wilson, i got one of his play's "The Piano Lesson" on my shelf

 

[8WON6]

I finally watched this Monday. It was good. Viola Davis and Chadwick were great. And the phrase "aint nobody stuttin (studyin...or however you spell it)" was one of those authentic things that we say in my family. It wasn't that romanticized language that people like to force into period pieces with black folks. Like yeah nikkas actually said "nikkas" back then before rap. That dude Strand from Fear:The Walking Dead (that's how i know of him...lol) was good too. Underrated supporting actor.