MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM: FILM REVIEW

The art of performance is an undeniably volatile one, as it frequently shape-shifts between mediums. The expansive and lighthearted dialogue in film becomes quick paced and speckled with heavy monologue on the stage. As someone who grew up with a playwright as a father, I’ve become quite fond of the unique form that theatre writing takes on in comparison to other dialogue-dependent mediums. My father is very opinionated as well — I have often been told that theatre and film should remain independent. In the end, he has taught me that the ultimate differentiation between the art of film and theatre is the actors’ proximity to their audience. George C. Wolfe, director of Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, acknowledges this separation between film and theatre, and in his on-screen adaptation of August Wilson’s 1982 play of the same name, attempts to condense these two mediums into one.

Straying from what my father had told me, I found this attempt to be entirely successful. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom revolves around the “Mother of the Blues,” Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) and her band (made up of Toledo [Glynn Turman], Cutler [Colman Domingo], Slow Drag [Michael Potts], and Levee [Chadwick Boseman]), who endure the trials and tribulations of recording a studio album under their white producers, Mel Sturdyvant (Jonathan Coyne) and Irvin (Jeremy Shamos). Conflict over superiority persists throughout the film, as Rainey and Levee are two opposing forces who differ in their approach to handling the oppression of their producers. Rainey is portrayed as strong-willed and dominant toward Sturdyvant and Irvin, and Levee the opposite. The story maps Levee’s slow descent into emotional decay, resulting in his murder of Toledo, paralleled by the completion of Rainey’s album and the full payment of the musicians.

Wolfe’s film strays from the original script in subtle ways that provide a context which can not exist on stage. For example, the opening of the film depicts two men running through a foggy wilderness and excitedly entering a line to watch Rainey and her band perform on a Southern tour. As the scene fades to black on Rainey’s face, a sequence of newspaper articles urging citizens to migrate from South to North ensues, with black-and-white depictions of black American life lining the background. While Wilson’s play opens directly in Sturdyvant’s studio, in which the entirety of the story takes place, Wolfe’s film adaptation provides an important glimpse into the black joy derived from blues music absent within the studio setting. This also conveys the context for the historical events which brought Rainey North from her beloved Southern roots.

Wolfe’s film adaptation also provides an open environment. Throughout Wilson’s script, Rainey and her band remain stationary within Sturdyvant’s recording studio. This is the beauty and limitation of theatre, which does not permit much variation in setting. However, Wolfe adapts to such a script. Scenes depicting the outside of the studio as well as the area of Chicago in which the characters stay reduce the suffocation that the sedentary theatre can cause when fit to a screen. Though I felt as though I were sitting in an auditorium, I was an audience bendable to the will of Wolfe, who transported me throughout space and time.

Overall, the film maintains the fast paced dialogue and profuse monologues that give theatre its reputation. While some scenes are repositioned in order to give better context as well as follow each character through their journey of the day, the storyline is almost perfectly maintained. However, what is evident in the film but absent from the script is the constant presence of music.

Throughout the film, the music is thick, not only in the studio but also in the essence of each character. While waiting to begin recording, Rainey speaks of the constant music within her head, saying, “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.” In this, Rainey’s dependence on the blues is clear. The band members are skilled and often quarrel about their views on music, whether that be as a love or job. Levee is a character stuffed with symphony — his distinct, belligerent, and passionate way of speaking is coupled with his confident musical improvisation. Even Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige), Rainey’s girlfriend, must constantly be dragged away from the microphone as she lusts after a life of performance. It seemed to me as if there is not only music in the script, but also in the blood of the characters.

The score of the film constantly plays in the distance, almost as if the band could be heard practicing at all times. Alternatively, silence is utilized during scenes of great tension, such as Levee’s frequent breakdowns. This control of music is extremely effective in creating great feelings of anxiety. Wolfe even ventures to put Wilson’s monologues to music. Take, for example, Toledo’s oration about stew: “The problem ain’t with the white man. The white man knows you just a leftover. ‘Cause he the one who done the eating and he know what he done ate. But we don’t know that we been took and made history out of.” In the film adaptation, Toledo’s hands dance across the keys of the piano as he speaks these lines, and the heartbreaking truth of his words come as smooth as honey.

This emphasis on the auditory aspect of the script opens the audience to the concept of music as storytelling and the importance of oral language as a telling of black history. Many black artists I admire have utilized this same concept in their work–take Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, for example. By setting much of the film to the rhythm of the characters’ theatre-reminiscent speech patterns and the background of distant song, Wolfe emulates the significance of blues in the history of black Americans while maintaining the original intentions of Wilson’s script. Wolfe’s theatre background and genuine appreciation for Wilson’s groundbreaking play is apparent in his adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, as the film’s historical truth and musically driven storyline reveals the raw struggle of black Americans that is all too difficult to ignore.