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Title: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Viola Davis | ... | Ma Rainey | |
| Chadwick Boseman | ... | Levee | |
| Colman Domingo | ... | Cutler | |
| Glynn Turman | ... | Toledo | |
| Michael Potts | ... | Slow Drag | |
| Jeremy Shamos | ... | Irvin | |
| Jonny Coyne | ... | Sturdyvant | |
| Taylour Paige | ... | Dussie Mae | |
| Dusan Brown | ... | Sylvester | |
| Joshua Harto | ... | Policeman | |
| Quinn VanAntwerp | ... | Band Singer | |
 |
Chloe Davis | ... | Ma Rainey's Dancer |
|
|
Mayte Natalio | ... | Ma Rainey's Dancer |
| Johanna Elmina Moise | ... | Ma Rainey's Dancer (as Johanna Moise) | |
|
|
Onyxx Noel | ... | Ma Rainey's Dancer |
Chadwick Boseman is known for his iconic performances in Get on Up, Black Panther, and his final role in the musical drama Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. IMDb takes a celebratory look at his career in film and television.
Tensions and temperatures rise over the course of an afternoon recording session in 1920s Chicago as a band of musicians await trailblazing performer, the legendary "Mother of the Blues," Ma Rainey (Academy Award® winner Viola Davis). Late to the session, the fearless, fiery Ma engages in a battle of wills with her white manager and producer over control of her music. As the band waits in the studio's claustrophobic rehearsal room, ambitious trumpeter Levee (Chadwick Boseman) - who has an eye for Ma's girlfriend and is determined to stake his own claim on the music industry - spurs his fellow musicians into an eruption of stories revealing truths that will forever change the course of their lives. Adapted from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson's play, MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM celebrates the transformative power of the blues and the artists who refuse to let society's prejudices dictate their worth. Directed by George C. Wolfe and adapted for the screen by Ruben ... Written by Netflix
First things first. Chadwick Boseman gives a performance like nothing you've ever seen. The rest of the cast, led by the legend that is Viola Davis, is, as might be expected, tip-top, but Mr Boseman flies ever higher in every scene.
The film is based on a famous play by a great playwright who chose to write with a sense of melodrama that can still work in the theatre but somehow feels dated when transfered to the screen. The camera has to cope with the sheer size of performance necessary to capture set-piece speeches, which go against the grain of image-led cinema. Renowned Broadway director George C Wolfe gets the actors to the right temperature, but then has to find a way to make the project cinematic. The solutions here, apart from minimal opening out from the claustrophobia of the recording studio setting, are some mobile camera work and quite a bit of nimble editing. Curiously, though, these strategies simply emphasise the work's stage origins. What do work are the close-ups. They bring us closer to the characters than can ever happen on a stage. With an ensemble as fine as this one, the more close-ups the better.
So, MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, like the film of Wilson's play FENCES, is not satisfying as a movie, but as a record of a powerful play. Both well worth seeing. MA RAINEY is the greater, because of Chadwick Boseman. What an amazing actor. What a loss. What a legacy.