Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Rumours of Chadwick Boseman's superb final act are bittersweetly true

By Karen Gordon

Rating: A-minus

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom has the unfortunate distinction of featuring the final performance of actor Chadwick Boseman, who died in late August at the age of 43.  The early word was that his performance was superb, and it is indeed. 

In fact, one of the best things about this film, adapted from August Wilson’s stage play, are the performances. Boseman, and the formidable Viola Davis, as the legendary “Mother of the Blues,” lead a superb cast. 

Chadwick Boseman, Viola Davis and Colman Domingo in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

The film is set on a hot summer day in a Chicago recording studio in the 1920’s. Ma’s manager (Jeremy Shamos) has arranged for her to record a few sides before she heads south and home again.  

Ma’s band shows up first. Well, at least three quarters of them - Cutler (Colman Domingo), Toledo (Glynn Turman) and Slow Drag (Michael Potts). They’re old hands, accomplished musicians who show up on time. They know the ropes, and make easy banter with each other while they warm up.

Trumpeter Levee (Boseman), the new member of the combo, arrives late and full of attitude.  Levee has a batch of songs he’s sent to Ma’s producers, and he’s betting that he’ll get his own deal and become a star in his own right. From the get-go he rubs everyone the wrong way. 

Ma, of course, also shows up late, with her girlfriend in tow, and puts up all kinds of obstructions to getting the session going. She’s tough, intimidating by design, and full of demands, forcing her manager to do some running around to appease her. And while Ma is pulling the strings on the session, tensions increase all around.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the second adaptation of one of the plays in Wilson’s acclaimed Pittsburgh Cycle, brought to the screen by Denzel Washington and his production partner (The first was the multi-Oscar nominated Fences).  There are 10 plays in the series that looks at the lives of African Americans through the 20th Century.

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And so, even though Ma Rainey is built around a musical icon, a woman known as the “Mother of the Blues,”  it is also more subtly about the dynamics of race and class, and how those things mark the human beings forced to negotiate their lives around raw racism.  

The play was adapted for the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and directed by George C. Wolfe, a veteran of both stage and film productions. But clearly the goal was to be as true to Wilson’s play as possible, which is both the strength and the weakness here. 

Plays, necessarily, have a different story telling style and trajectory than a movie. And, in honouring Wilson’s original vision, the movie, at times, feel stagey, and slightly artificial. 

To compensate, Wolfe keeps the camera moving, and the tone light and playful for much of the film, focusing on the various relationships and tensions and human politics, as windy and complex as they become through the recording session.  

Wilson created rich, wonderful characters full of life, wit and experience. And Wolfe concentrates on emphasizing that effortless banter, which is  part of the joy of the film. 

The other joy comes from the performances. There isn’t a role in this that doesn’t contribute in some way to the greater story.  Domingo, Turman and Potts, the men in the band, each subtly bring something important to the whole. 

Viola Davis is an actor apparently incapable of a false note. She’s a force of nature, playing a force of nature. She is perfection.

And even though Ma is the center of the story, Boseman’s Levee goes through the most changes through the film, and covers the most emotional territory. It is a masterful and powerful performance - a beautiful take on a difficult and tragic character. 

Boseman’s final performance is a painful reminder of how big a loss he is to American cinema. In his too short career, he played a series of African-American icons,  Jackie Robinson (42), James Brown (Get on Up),  Thurgood Marshall (Marshall). And with T’Challa in Black Panther, he created one for the screen that had massive cultural significance. 

While Levee is not a leader, a star or a king, he represents a difficult and important archetype in the American story.  But, perhaps in that way, it’s a fitting final role for this talented actor. 

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson from the play by August Wilson. Directed by George C. Wolfe. Starring Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman and Colman Domingo.  Debuts on Netflix Friday, December 18.