Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is only partially a movie about music, but the music is excellent (Branford Marsalis composed/arranged most of it), and the blues really speak to me, though I'm about as white, racially and culturally, as you can get (well, not quite, since some people don't think Jews are white). It's based on a play by August Wilson, and was probably better on the stage than on screen. On the stage you expect scenes and dialogue to be artificial, but in film you expect less talk and more natural situations. Despite its artificiality, I'm very glad I saw the movie.
The actor who played Ma Rainey, Viola Davis, was extraordinary both as a singer (I assume she really sang, but maybe I was fooled) and an actor, completely convincing. After the movie, Netflix screened a trailer with the actors and production staff speaking about the movie and what it meant to them, and that was more interesting than the film. It was a pleasure to hear intelligent, articulate African-Americans talk about what the music meant to them. I have to admit I was surprised to hear Taylour Paige, a beautiful young woman, who plays a nutty slut in the movie, speak with cogency when she was interviewed for the trailer. She played the role so convincingly, I forgot she was an actor!
I intend to listen to more of Ma Rainey. I am, of course, familiar with Bessie Smith, her successor as queen of the blues, and I've listened a lot to the Louis Armstrong performances recorded in the late 1920s. I have always marveled that oppressed and exploited people managed to find and express so much joy in music,
No comments:
Post a Comment