Damn Right I Got the Blues

MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM (A-minus) - Viola Davis is a force of nature around which everything swirls in this blues allegory from Roaring '20s Chicago, focused on one day in the recording life of Ma Rainey and her swingin' band. Playwright August Wilson's dialogue shakes, rattles and rolls, from snappy one-liners to gut-wrenching monologues.

Wilson ("Fences," also starring Davis) presents a stark dichotomy in the ways southern blacks of the era handled the white men looking to keep them down. For Ma, she's all swagger and threats, knowing she has a unique talent that translates into money for the record labels and recording studios, and she wields that (temporary) power like a cudgel, whether it's driving a hard bargain over a day's pay or demanding the perk of ice-cold Coca-Colas for her refreshment. She treats her manager and the studio owner like trash, makin' 'em wait just to make 'em wait, as if they are beneath her -- and they put up with it.

On the other hand, we have hornman Levee (Chadwick Boseman), an aspiring songwriter/bandleader, who goes the deferential route, hoping to shmooze his way into a position of power or influence. With his $11 shoes and his smooth talk, he is convinced that he can rise to the level of equal, but you can sense his downfall coming early in the proceedings.

Director George C. Wolfe shows a sure hand visualizing the screenplay as adapted by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. The 94-minute production speeds by like a locomotive, with a crackling supporting cast tossing in fills with the cadence of an experienced jazz combo. Taylour Paige is especially arresting as Ma's kittenish girlfriend, whose flirtations threaten to get a few people in big trouble. While Boseman (looking gaunt a year or so before his death from cancer) has the flash and the passion here, it is Davis who just smolders with resentment, spitting out Ma's grievances and philosophies. Here's her take on the blues:

White folks don't understand about the blues. They hear it come out, but they don't know how it got there. They don't understand that's life's way of talking. ... The blues help you get out of bed in the morning. You get up knowing you ain't alone. There's something else in the world. Something's been added by that song.

And Wilson's dialogue -- crafted in the 1980s and looking back a half century -- resonates to this day, offering insight into our modern shallowness and ignorance. The piano player Toledo (a pitch-perfect Glynn Turman), an advocate of pride and self-determination for African-Americans, explains the ways of denial and idiocy: 

"Some mens is excited to be fools. That excitement is something else. I know about it. I done experienced it. It makes you feel good to be a fool. But it don't last long. It's over in a minute. Then you got to tend with the consequences. You got to tend with what comes after. That's when you wish you had learned something about it."

Who is the delusional one in this stage play? Ma knows that her leverage ends the second her voice is recorded on vinyl, and that she'll have to ramp it back up the next time. Meantime, she has a backup option, knowing that she can fill seats throughout the South at her live shows. But with Levee, there's a sadness and fatalism about his aspirations (and his backstory explains why this is so), and you detect that in Boseman's desperate eyes and empty boasts. Those are just two of the ways for these two souls to get by in the world. Wilson knew it all too well 40 years ago, and we live it still.

GIVING VOICE (B+) - This companion Netflix documentary studies the students taking part in a national competition involving monologues from August Wilson plays. These kids are so full of passion and good cheer that it can't help but radiate off the screen and into your heart.

Viola Davis and John Legend are among the executive producers, and Davis' "Fences" co-star Denzel Washington sits in as a talking head, but it is the high school students who steal the show. We meet bright youngsters from Chicago's inner city as well as from Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta and elsewhere. They are Juilliard-bound phenoms whose names are likely to become familiar a few years hence.

But for now, they are wide-eyed theater geeks who make their way from local competitions to the big stage in Broadway for a final showdown in 2018. This breezy reality-show feature celebrates Wilson's work and plumbs the depths of his exploration of black America in the 20th century. And it's a perfect distillation of how timeless that work is. These kids give you hope for the future, and the film is a welcome break from the doom and gloom of the day, with a refreshingly analog diversion for the next generation.

BONUS TRACK

The title track from "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom": 

"Ma Rainey" was our traditional Christmas Day Mainstream Movie. It sneaks into the top five among the 16 films we've scored at our annual holiday outing:

  1. Up in the Air (2009)

  2. Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)

  3. Dreamgirls (2006)

  4. Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

  5. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

  6. Little Women (2019)

  7. The Fighter (2010)

  8. American Hustle (2013)

  9. The Shape of Water (2017)

10. La La Land (2016)

11. The Wrestler (2008)

12. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

13. Young Adult (2011)

14. This Is 40 (2012)

15. Holmes & Watson (2018)

16. Into the Woods (2014)