Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

dws1982
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by dws1982 »

I watched this last week, and agree with a lot of what's said. The internet as a whole seems to be way overpraising it. The goal of the film (and of Fences before it) seems to be to reproduce, as accurately and as faithfully as possible, the original Wilson play. The problem is not simply that the adaptation is faithful--the Coen have made some very faithful adaptations that mostly recreate novels page-for-page and even word-for-word. For example, there's very little in the film No Country for Old Men that is not taken directly from the novel, although there are a few sections from the novel that are not in the film. But in that adaptation you never got the sense that the Coens were simply giving their entire artistic voice over to Cormac McCarthy; while they definitely deal (very well and very interestingly) with the themes of his novel, it also registers very clearly as a Coen Brothers work and fits within their filmography. The problem here is this film doesn't seem to have any ambition to be anything beyond a faithful adaptation. Wilson's text is treated as sacred, not as something to engage or dialogue with. As a result it feels like there's nothing to the movie beyond what existed in the play. I suspect that audiences who watch the film will have a similar experience and react very similarly to audiences who watched the 1984 Broadway production or the 2003 revival. Sure, we have close-ups and medium shots and things that audiences watching the play wouldn't have had, but those things are never utilized in a way to give us any perspective on the characters or their world beyond what's in the original text, and again, that seems to have been the point. The actors are okay, but I think this type of writing is much more suited for theater than for film--again this is the type of thing that could have, and should have been adjusted if they weren't afraid to do anything with the source material.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by nightwingnova »

I'm not turned off by the thin dramatic structure. It didn't matter to me. There was enough and a linear line tying it all the themes together and leading to the tragic conclusion.

I found the acting a bit stagey and not as naturalistic as befits the screen, notably Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis who ham it up at the start. Boseman tones it down in time for his monologues - which he do stupendously.

The themes excite and have so much to say about today's Black America. The dialogue is intelligent and interesting.
Last edited by nightwingnova on Fri Jan 01, 2021 12:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by Sabin »

Mister Tee wrote
It's a noble idea to put all of Wilson's plays onscreen, but the fact that he's dead is something of a problem -- he's seen as untouchable artist, rather than a collaborator, which is what he'd be if he were around and involved in the project.
I agree. It is a problem. That being said, he is dead. And enough people have decided he is an untouchable artist.

https://www.broadway.com/buzz/199971/de ... no-lesson/
Fresh off the premiere date news and vibrant first look at the film adaptation of August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Denzel Washington has shared that The Piano Lesson is the next Wilson work he hopes to bring to the screen. According to The New York Times, Washington is looking to enlist director Barry Jenkins for the project as well as his son John David Washington and Samuel L. Jackson: “The greatest part of what’s left of my career is making sure that August is taken care of,” Washington said.

Washington has long wanted to executive produce all 10 of the Pulitzer-winning playwrights Century Cycle, something he discussed publicly in back in 2015. In addition to Fences, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The Piano Lesson, Wilson’s cycle consists of Radio Golf, King Hedley II, Jitney, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Gem of the Ocean.
I remember an older quote of Washington's where he said perhaps he missed his calling as a preacher. He's clearly a man who strives for higher purpose. But his bolded statement says it all. He wants to see August taken care of. Not changed. Not altered. They are all going to be produced as is. I'd be surprised if Netflix didn't produce all of them. I'm sure many of them will be as flawed as the two that we've seen, but they're all going to be seen. For many viewers, like myself, they will be a new generation's first experience with August Wilson. Several black actors will get nominated or win Oscars for the part. Many will be nominated for Best Picture. This is likely the part of Denzel Washington's career that he will be proudest of.

So, the question is whether it's a net positive to see them made, as is. The answer is: yeah, probably.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by Mister Tee »

Sabin wrote:I would love it if some of them were expanded a little more in the adaptation to breathe a little more. In this case, I can see how Levee and Ma not really having much of a confrontation could work on-stage, but on-screen it's very disappointing.
This is what irked me. You could feel a central dramatic confrontation built into the material, involving Ma and Levee and their divergent world views, but it was continually kept at ten paces; left unengaged (the two have only glancing contact over the 90 minutes). This kind of unspoken conflict can work better on-stage (as Chekhov could educate you), but movies are more narrative-dominant. I'm not saying literalize all the conflicts -- that would make it banal -- but successful screenwriters know how to find the happy medium. We needed more than a cutaway to Ma being driven home after Levee has committed his rash act to make the connection between them.

It's a noble idea to put all of Wilson's plays onscreen, but the fact that he's dead is something of a problem -- he's seen as untouchable artist, rather than a collaborator, which is what he'd be if he were around and involved in the project. Plays are routinely re-worked when adapted for the screen -- Tennessee Williams' plays were mostly narrative to start, and didn't require that much revision (though his most theatrical, The Glass Menagerie, made the worst movie). But, for example, Robert Bolt eliminated a central character for his adaptation of A Man for All Seasons. Peter Shaffer -- nowhere the writer Wilson is -- saw what a botch had been made of The Royal Hunt of the Sun and Equus, and obviously sat down with Milos Forman and reconceived Amadeus for the screen; as if they said, Okay, that's how you treated this material for the stage; now, how would you put it on-screen? Anyone who's worked in both forms (raises hand) knows it requires a very different approach. If you view the plays as sacred text, you're hobbling yourself at the start.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by danfrank »

I was okay with this as a fairly plotless theatrical piece (with some nice cinematic flourishes, though some of the shadows in that rehearsal room were problematic) until the sudden and jarring plot development emerged almost out of nowhere at the end. It fairly ruined it for me. Viola Davis was outstanding playing against type (no snotty crying from THIS character). As for Boseman’s “hammy” acting, I thought it mostly worked in a character that was all bravado. I thought his emotionality fit with someone who had experienced the type of extreme trauma that Levy had. It’s difficult not to think about the fact that Boseman, who looked quite thin here, was actively dying as he made this film. The fact that he imbued his character with so much life was moving to watch. Although he engaged in mostly “big” acting, he had some beautifully nuanced moments as well. I think he was pretty clearly lead, and I have no problem with him winning awards.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by Mister Tee »

Okri wrote:Fences to me makes sense as the first. Washington did it on Broadway, it had the longest run in New York and it's the biggest awards getter of them all (beyond the New York Drama Critics, who basically made history when they didn't go for a Wilson play). FilmFan, I didn't realize that Ma Rainey was as highly respected as some others.
For anyone who lived in NY, Ma Rainey was the beginning -- the first most of us had ever heard of Wilson. It was also the beginning of Frank Rich's love affair with him. Wilson owes a debt first to Lloyd Richards, who discovered him through the O'Neill Center, but second to Rich, then the Times' chief drama critic, who swooned over Ma Rainey and everything subsequent. (Times critics had not yet been banned from voting on NY critics' awards, so Rich was definitely part of that astounding run Wilson had with season-end prizes.)

Fences was certainly Wilson's zenith with critics -- it won every award short of the Nobel -- and it had the most discernible plot of any Wilson play. (I've always considered it a hackneyed/borrowed plot, but a plot nonetheless.). So, it makes sense as the first of his plays to become a feature.

The Piano Lesson is my favorite of what I've seen, but I've never watched the TV version.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by Sabin »

Mister Tee wrote
There's nothing wrong with the movie Ma Rainey that wasn't a problem with the play -- namely, that it doesn't really have a story to tell. It has a setting, and context; it has characters, who have backstories; and it has a few small incidents. But these don't cohere into anything resembling a dramatic whole -- to get some sort of climax, Wilson has to escalate a situation (heretofore percolating at around 5), up to 10 inside a few beats, and it doesn't feel remotely genuine, or a worthy finish to what we've been watching. (The cutaway to Ma being driven home in her car seemed to want to mean something, but what?) You can get away with something like this better in the theatre, because the audience can so enjoy watching the actors tear into the (very well-crafted) monologues that they don't care the evening isn't going anywhere much. But, on-screen, the absence of some center -- a lack of body, really -- is palpable, and nagging. As I watched the end credits, I felt like I hadn't exactly seen a movie.
Co-sign.

Ultimately, it's beyond a net benefit that we're going to see every August Wilson play translated to the screen with this kind of treatment. I would love it if some of them were expanded a little more in the adaptation to breathe a little more. In this case, I can see how Levee and Ma not really having much of a confrontation could work on-stage, but on-screen it's very disappointing.
Last edited by Sabin on Mon Dec 21, 2020 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by Big Magilla »

The Piano Lesson, the 1995 Hallmark Hall of Fame production for which Alfre Woodard won a SAG award, is still available on DVD. She and Charles S. Dutton's performances were among the production's ten Emmy nominations, none of which it won. Dutton lost to Raul Julia in The Burning Season, Woodard to Glenn Close in Serving in Silence, and the production to Indictment: The McMartin Trial. In another tie-in to the current Oscar season, Candice Bergen won her seventh and final Emmy for Murphy Brown.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by Okri »

Fences to me makes sense as the first. Washington did it on Broadway, it had the longest run in New York and it's the biggest awards getter of them all (beyond the New York Drama Critics, who basically made history when they didn't go for a Wilson play). FilmFan, I didn't realize that Ma Rainey was as highly respected as some others.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by FilmFan720 »

My guess is name recognition and prestige. These are the two to get major Broadway revivals and proven to be more in the public arena than some of the others. They are also the two that I read in Theatre history classes in undergrad...and along with Piano Lesson probably his most respected plays.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by OscarGuy »

I believe they are adapting Wilson's Pittsburg Cycle. Here's the order of release. I'm not sure why Fences was first and Ma Rainey was second.

1982 - Jitney
1984 - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
1985 - Fences
1986 - Joe Turner's Come and Gone
1987 - The Piano Lesson
1990 - Two Trains Running
1995 - Seven Guitars
1999 - King Hedley II
2003 - Gem of the Ocean
2005 - Radio Golf
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by Okri »

Denzel Washington wants to produce adaptations of all of Wilson's plays (originally for HBO, but Netflix seems to be the home now). I'm intrigued but I have to admit I don't quite get why this was the second one (though I really adore Wilson as a playwright).
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

Post by OscarGuy »

Leave Boseman in lead opposite Viola Davis. His story arc is like that of Ma's except the Ma of decades earlier, the unspoken element of the film that most resonates with though. Both characters rose from the ashes of life while Ma has spent more time in the company of white men than Levee, his opinion that he can read them is the perfect embodiment of the young man thinking he knows more about white desire than those who are older and have more experience. Youthful cockiness versus aged wisdom flows between the two characters and we soon learn that one has the read right and the other wrong.

Boseman is the only character that grows from the film's beginning to its end, even if it's only slightly. All of the other characters are relatively stagnant, including Ma. If anything, Davis belongs in support more so than Boseman does. I also want Boseman in support because maybe Glynn Turman can pick up a supporting nod for a traditional supporting performance.

I think the environment in which the play was written and the trajectory August Wilson takes speaks more to the rise in youth violence of the early 1980s than it does in a modern context, which might be its biggest flaw.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

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I agree with most of what Tee wrote, but I would say that it doesn't add up to the pre-release hype rather than the critical enthusiasm which has been mixed, albeit mixed positive.

I come back to the lead vs. support argument for Chadwick Boseman. I think it can go either way. Although he has the largest role of the actors playing musicians, he is playing a member of an ensemble whereas Viola Davis clearly dominates all her scenes and is to me a clear lead. If I were running his Oscar campaign, I would push for supporting actor where he could win solely on merit. I think a win for lead would be based primarily on sentiment. There is no way that I'd say his performance was better than those of Riz Ahmed and Delroy Lindo, which I've seen, or Anthony Hopkins, at least from the trailer, and possibly others. I think that's the reason we're seeing him win default awards from critics groups for Da 5 Bloods in support.
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Re: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom reviews

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There's nothing wrong with the movie Ma Rainey that wasn't a problem with the play -- namely, that it doesn't really have a story to tell. It has a setting, and context; it has characters, who have backstories; and it has a few small incidents. But these don't cohere into anything resembling a dramatic whole -- to get some sort of climax, Wilson has to escalate a situation (heretofore percolating at around 5), up to 10 inside a few beats, and it doesn't feel remotely genuine, or a worthy finish to what we've been watching. (The cutaway to Ma being driven home in her car seemed to want to mean something, but what?) You can get away with something like this better in the theatre, because the audience can so enjoy watching the actors tear into the (very well-crafted) monologues that they don't care the evening isn't going anywhere much. But, on-screen, the absence of some center -- a lack of body, really -- is palpable, and nagging. As I watched the end credits, I felt like I hadn't exactly seen a movie.

This despite a very strong ensemble having a good time with some enjoyable dialogue. The non-star members of the back-up band offer relaxed banter that feels in the realm of believable even when it's obviously heightened -- long-time veteran Glynn Turman has as good a screen role as he's ever had, and Colman Domingo is also very good. I see by comments elsewhere that not everyone is on board with the two-above-title stars. Viola Davis certainly plays against type: her Ma Rainey is a pain in the ass, even over and above the clear mistreatment she's had to deal with her whole life. I found her performance interestingly contained, though to some that will register as one-note. How you view Chadwick Boseman's Levee is probably inseparable from Wilson's conception of the character: he's written to be overly brash/in-your-face/cock of the walk. I was happy to see Boseman let the charisma flow -- it's closer to the energy of his James Brown than any of his more noble characters -- but I can't argue with people who view it as on the hammy side. Such bigness is pretty much written into the role -- given the lack of plot propulsion, Levee's energy is pretty much all the play/film has going for it, and I don't think any actor could play it much different. (It was close to exhausting watching Charles S. Dutton, a good actor, move through the role onstage.)

The opening montage -- shots of The Great Migration, setting the context of country-raised blacks trying to adapt to city life -- was interesting, though too lightly dealt with to really register. But I found the closing bit -- bland white orchestras taking over Ma's music -- a bit of a thud: it's a point well-covered in many other works, dramatic or documentary, and here registers as cheapish irony.

There's the usual "maybe I'd have liked this better if I saw it in a theatre" caveat, but I don't think so. Ma Rainey joins the list of Netflix efforts this year that, for me, fail to live up to the critical enthusiasm.
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