After gaining some traction with August Wilson’s words with Fences, Denzel Washington continues down that road with his latest production credit. And honestly, after seeing how this turned out, I can only see him stepping out of the director’s chair to be a good move. Don’t get me wrong, Fences was a solid production, but as a theatre adaptation, it felt a little too close to its origins to make full use of what cinema could offer such a story. Now, George C. Wolfe, on the other hand, hits the ground running on this one, and he’s not the only one doing so.
The framing of the narrative itself is quite theatrical, largely taking place in a two-story recording studio, but Tobias A. Schliessler’s cinematography and Andrew Mondshein’s editing elevate it to true film standard. The perspective work to isolate characters in the foreground and background, the close-ups for the really emotional moments so you can see the actors’ eyes twitch as they get through their monologues, even the use of Branford Marsalis’ percussion to back the more heated moments; it all harmonises and gives the actors a steady foundation to work from. And holy hell, do they give this material its due.
While I find myself mildly disappointed that Viola Davis (mostly) isn’t doing her own singing as the titular Ma Rainey, much like with I Am Woman, her sheer physical charisma more than makes up for that. As the saucy Mother Of The Blues, the way she exudes authority with every word she speaks and every step she takes is quite invigorating. Doubly so because it’s all in service to a character who categorically refuses to take shit from anyone, something that factors heavily into the overall story.
And then there’s Chadwick Boseman as trumpet player Levee. Fucking hell, if you thought you missed this guy before, just wait ‘til you see him tear the roof off with his performance here. The energy, the sleekness of movement, the finely-honed delivery of the film’s weightiest words, not to mention putting the work in to learn his instrument IRL; for a final performance in a career full of fantastic work, it’s a major highlight and makes the film worth checking out all on his own.
Not that he, or Davis for that matter, need to elevate the material around them to make it work or anything like that. Far from it, as when Ma’s backing band get to talking between sessions, they cover a large amount of talking points about the contemporaneous Black experience. Life, death, society, trauma, sexuality, the highest one vs. the fallen one; it reads like the kind of acting exercise most actors would sell their livers to get their hands on, and everyone here from Boseman to Glynn Turman to Colman Domingo to Michael Potts sells it at every turn.
It even adds a bit of tragedy to the proceedings when it puts their work in the studio into a larger cultural and temporal context, highlighting an industry that was (and in many ways still is) built on Black artistic expression but is fiscally and creatively controlled by white men. And when put in conjunction with Ma and Levee, who are both trying to exert some level of creative control over their work in their own ways, it makes for what feels like an honest examination of their experiences, both within the industry and in life overall.
While it’s really damn easy to just point at Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman and go “There’s all the reason you need to see this right the hell now”, everything here from the film craft to the glorious soundtrack to the sharp writing to the genuine emotionality on display sells it just as well as they do. Denzel is apparently going to be producing adaptations for the rest of August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, and going by this and Fences, the man is definitely onto something with all this.
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