I alluded to it the other day, but I managed to squeeze in one last movie Sunday afternoon, prior to the Academy Awards. And much as the ceremony attempted to (albeit failing utterly in the process), I would like to provide an in memoriam of my own for the 2020 movie season by offering up a quick review of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Taking place in the 1920’s and primarily set in a Chicago recording studio, the movie stars Viola Davis as Ma Rainey, a blues singer who is simultaneously fawned over for her recording voice and treated as less than human for the color of her skin. With her in the studio are her band, including trumpetist Levee Green, played by Chadwick Boseman in his final film appearance. Ma Rainey drags her feet and flaunts what little power she has over the white studio producers, insisting that she get a Coca-Cola before starting, and requiring a voice-over recording from her stuttering nephew. Green, meanwhile, has aspirations of his own, and is more than happy to betray the band for the sake of his own (in his own eyes, at least) blossoming career as a solo artist. Green is a loose cannon that comes a little too untethered, and tragedy strikes the recording studio… but not before Ma Rainey and the producers all get what they want, it seems.
Davis is, of course, a powerhouse on the screen, here seemingly given a role tailor made for her larger-than-life persona and just-try-and-mess-with-me attitude. She is an amazing actress who has proven herself in half a dozen movies or more already. But Boseman easily holds his own next to her. In fact, his acting is far more… transformative. Just the day before watching Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, I sat through Mank and found myself continually having to remind myself that I was, in fact, watching Gary Oldman. I had that same feeling here. This couldn’t be the same man who played the Black Panther, could it? This was a marvel of acting prowess, and the tragedy of Boseman’s untimely demise is made even more cutting by the quality of his final work.
Boseman may not have been given the accolades he deserved by the Academy of Motion Pictures (full disclosure: I didn’t see the Father so don’t know how good Anthony Hopkins actually is in that movie). It did, however, win two Academy Awards (Costume Design and Makeup & Hairstyling)—not the acting recognition it should have gotten, but certainly better than nothing. Still, with a role as amazing as Levee Green in a film as high quality as Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, one would certainly have hoped the Academy could have given a little more credit where credit was due.
I’ll be the first to admit, a great number of these Academy Award-nominated movies almost magically seem to lose their appeal to me once the ceremony is over. But Chadwick Boseman’s final performance is a fantastic one, and definitely deserves to be seen. In memoriam or otherwise.
Rest in peace…
9.5 / 10.0
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Black King, White Knight 3
In silence did she disappear,
The silent knight in white,
Beyond the gate that filled with fear
All those within its sight.
And as it swift behind her closed,
They lost their appetite,
The kids who all around had posed
As if to watch a fight.
But if, however, they could see
Straight through the walls of stone,
The children would have watched as she
Strode through the dark alone.
She kept her visage high and proud
In spite of the unknown.
The knight rent darkness like a shroud
As she approached the throne.
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Written while listening to the soundtrack to Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (2011) by Masashi Hamauzu and Junya Nakano.
The Artist and the Engineer 