Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Gertrude ‘’Ma’’ Rainey was an influential American blues singer during the 1920s who started off her career in black minstrel shows, married a man known as Will ‘’Pa’’ Rainey (hence the nickname), was a liberated bisexual, recorded with other popular black artists like Thomas Dorsey, Tampa Red, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstrong, and was infamous for her powerful voice and energized disposition. Essentially laying the foundation for other impactful black artists to continue after her, Ma Rainey seemed like an interesting figure who warranted a biopic surrounding her life, and while the 2020 Netflix film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, seemed like it could offer something worthwhile and informative, all it really managed to do was waste everyone’s time.

In 1927, Ma Rainey (played by Viola Davis) is scheduled for a recording session with her manager Irvin (played by Jeremy Shamos), but hasn’t shown up at the studio yet, leaving her accompanying band, the Georgia Jazz Band, to prepare alone. This band consist of veterans Toledo (played by Glynn Turman), Slow Drag (played by Michael Potts) and Cutter (played by Colman Domingo), as well as newcomer Levee (played by the late Chadwick Boseman) whose overconfident and abrasive attitude causes him to clash with the other members, as he hopes to leave the band and produce his own music after this recording session. When Ma arrives, progress still isn’t made, with constant demands from Ma halting the production, her insistence that her nephew, Sylvester (played by Dusan Brown) introduce the song despite suffering from a stutter, and Levee’s constant jabs and cracks at the other members thoughts, lifestyles and beliefs causing tight friction between everyone. With patience running thin on both sides, this recording session needs to be completed before something, or someone, snaps.

Based on the 1982 play written by August Wilson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was met with critical appraisal but wasn’t really acknowledged outside of the Academy Awards (where it did manage to secure two wins for Costume Design and Makeup and Hairstyling, after five nominations, which included a posthumous nom for Chadwick Boseman for Best Actor) and this isn’t surprising as the movie suffers a lot of key flaws that results in a drab, unpleasant, and laborious watching experience.

If someone were to gage the film from the first few minutes, they’d be fooled into thinking it’d be pretty good but upon closer inspection, it also demonstrates the major flaw this film struggles with. Being a smaller story about a famous black artist from the blues musical era of the 1920s with very authentic production design, visuals, and dialect that only lasts 90 mins, all the pieces seem sound and smart, but the second the band starts prepping and interacting, the style and pace doesn’t feel like that of a film, but rather a play, especially in terms of script, directing and acting. While this isn’t surprising given it started as a play from a very famous playwright, it needed a proper update to flourish as a movie as, like most other August Wilson stories that were adapted into films, they don’t translate very smoothly. The pacing is awfully inconsistent, brushing past a lot of dialogue with no respite in the first act, leading to a very stagnant intro that offers little of worth or intrigue, and it doesn’t get better as it keeps going.

There are a plentiful number of drawn-out monologues that are even paced and directed like they would be on a stage, and while this script and storyline could’ve been effective on stage during the time of its release, it doesn’t feel that new or do anything innovative with its subject matter even with Ruben Santiago-Hudson providing some adjustments to the film’s screenplay. Despite having an opportunity to bring light to an important topic about black singers in the early 20th century and how they could be exploited by white producers, the movie fails to dissect or even inspect it in an interesting way, rather choosing to tap-dances around it in exchange for the all-too-familiar angle of ‘’racism sucks and happened back in the day’’, which isn’t surprising and fails in bringing something fresh to the table (the ending shot speaks a lot more than any piece of dialogue in this film). The director for this film, George C. Wolfe, is himself an American playwright and a director of theatre, so his involvement definitely fuelled the uncinematic identity, even if the direction itself isn’t necessarily bad, just wrong for what this movie required.

The cast needs to be good to suck the audience in as its singular nature, cramped setting and small roster of reoccurring faces means it doesn’t have other areas to distract with if the characters aren’t engaging, and unfortunately these characters are not worth watching (at least for this length of time without a break). They are undeveloped, fit into these basic cartoonish archetypes, and are presented with dialogue that is very theatrically worded and not the least bit real. They either speak in rambling aggressive tones, or sappy lengthy speeches that disrupt the plot and come right out of nowhere. It also calls into question the legitimacy of how it’s being portrayed as even the band members are fabricated (which is bizarre considering the real-life band could’ve had their names included without issue) this is especially problematic for Ma Rainey, as the film doesn’t give any indication about Ma Rainey’s career, lifestyle or even personality before she became a star. While it isn’t obligated to do so since it’s not technically a biopic, because of how little is known about her history, it makes her persona and attitude in this film come across as bratty, irritating and incredibly unlikeable. The movie gives no insight into why she acts the way she does outside of ‘’people were racist’’ and that’s not a good enough excuse to portray her as such a one-note cartoonish individual, and it’s hard to determine whether or not this is what she was like as a person because very few sources actually give a detailed account into her life.

Even an actress like Viola Davis can’t save this portrayal, as while doing a fine job, her limited screen-time and minimal dialogue means that anyone could have really portrayed this role. The rest of the cast isn’t portrayed that much better but has the benefit of longer screen-time as well as just better all-around performances. Glynn Turman, Michael Potts and Colman Domingo are veteran performers both on and off the stage, so they naturally are able to say these lines very well and very authentically, but the characters they play are extremely uninteresting. Considering this was Chadwick Boseman’s last film, he is thankfully the strongest in terms of performance and even to some extent in character. He’s the only one with a distinct goal in the film, and his ending and how it ties into the message isn’t too bad, but his character is so horrifically unlikeable and his actions so drastic, that it’s hard not to just outright hate him, it’s a waste of a great last performance.

From a technical aspect, the movie isn’t going to have a lot of interesting visuals because it’s set within this one uninteresting looking recording studio (which would’ve been a holdover from the stage play), and a movie could’ve fix this and added more locations yet refused to do so. Even the nice production value isn’t able to be shown off as effectively because of the boring location the movie decides to stick with, and a lot of the shots by cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler get repetitive and overused very quickly.

The clothing and costume design by Ann Roth is pretty cool looking, the make-up by Sergio López-Rivera ,Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson does transform some of these people in a pretty effective way, and even the environment, lighting, and production design by Mark Rickler whenever they’re outside gives off an unrealistic, but stylish feel that could really work for a movie of this era about music specifically, but its barely shown off and never gets the opportunity to help the film build a unique visual identity. Even the music composed by Branford Marsalis along with the songs are nothing special. For a movie about early 20th century blues music from the black perspective, the songs that Ma Rainey is shown singing (and it clearly not being Viola Davis) aren’t very memorable and clearly doesn’t showcase her music as strongly as they could’ve.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom only had a limited release in theatres, and it’s clear that it isn’t strong enough to survive in the cinemas for that long. Ma Rainey as a person sounds pretty interesting, and a movie solely about her could be fascinating, showcasing both her good and bad attributes, and giving a proper insight into how black artists were treated during that era. Instead, what was given wasn’t anything worth searching out. The performances aren’t weak by any means (mainly Boseman) and the film on its own from a basic standpoint isn’t even awfully made, it’s just dull, wastes a lot of good ideas, has incredibly bland unlikeable characters, and feels way too much like a play stretched past the curtain call rather than an actual film. Decide for yourself whether or not you’d be into this or if watching four men talk in a basement for roughly an hour isn’t what you call entertaining.