Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Captivating performances, but a poor stage to hold them on
 |
| The recording room is where Viola Davis shines throughout the film |
1: It exposes me to media that I may not have encountered otherwise due to obscurity or difference to my usual tastes.
2: It widens my knowledge as someone who is attempting to enter this industry fully and take the job seriously and professionally.
Ma Rainey's is one of these films. From the promotion I had seen I wasn't sure it would ring my bell so to speak, but it features both Viola Davis and the late great Chadwick Boseman; two actors who I revere very highly. Since Chadwick's passing I have made it a personal mission to watch all of his films. After having become a fan of his through his indelible performance as T'challa in the MCU, it stang that much more to learn he was taken away in what was inarguably his prime. In the weeks prior, I had watched 21 Bridges and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ma Rainey seemed even more of a departure from the type of performances from Chadwick that I was accustomed to. I couldn't have been more on the money.
I had no idea whilst watching this film that it was adapted from a stage production, let alone that Ma Rainey and her experience were real world events, which in itself is a little disheartening. I commented to my mum who I watched this film with that it seemed well fit to a stage, with essentially just two locations in the entirety of the film, and an intense focus on dialogue. I learned soon after the reason behind it. Denzel Washington's involvement in the film further made sense of its form, as his producing work has tended to focus on more theatrical adaptations in recent years.
I think that the dialogue in the film is pretty consistently strong, and does a good job of making both Levee (Boseman) and Ma (Davis) sympathetic characters, and gives a decent portrayal of the inherent racial inequalities at the time without beating it over our heads too much. The main issue is a heavy layon of dialogue by default tends to suit the stage better than the screen. The story told is an engaging and important one, but leads the film to have very little rewatchability. The main arrow in this films quiver is, unfortunately, that it was Boseman's final film performance. The set design, costumes and performances all equate to a believable and atmospheric setting, appropriate and representative of the time period; the cinematography also assists here but for the most part is relatively milque-toast, with a few establishing shots early on standing out. The limited locations accentuate the issue further into conscious thought; there are only so many ways you can shoot the same two small rooms and can feel painfully repetitive in some scenes.
 |
| Levee (Boseman) commands the brick floor of the rehearsal room |
The rest of the ensemble does a relatively solid job of believably conveying what little drama there is in the plot, mostly dragged out and rehashed in slightly differing conversations; to extend the runtime or in an attempt to add the sense of artificial depth, I'm not sure. The slow burn of the creative focused bust up between Levee and Ma reaches a mostly earned, if predictable peak in the final moments of the film; nevertheless the final actions of Levee still seem to skyrocket in intensity out of nowhere, and his conclusion (and therefore the conclusion of the film) seems lacklustre. Even more egregious, it seems almost entirely antithetical to Levee's character, at least in the way he was presented thus far. Nevertheless, Boseman sells it near perfectly and does in a way conclude the tragic sense of foreboding seeping throughout the film. Both Boseman and Davis earned their nominations, Chadwick especially earns his wins (even outside of the context of his death) and the film is a worthy watch, particularly if you are a theatre fan craving a stage-like production.
SH
Comments
Post a Comment