Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Review

It’s a far trickier thing than one might assume to adapt a stage play to film. After all, a play is written to be performed in the intimate medium of the theatre, with an audience sitting mere feet from the performers and the actors feeding off the energy through the immediate feedback provided by their paying public. The story is confined to the limits of the stage as well, and nearly all adaptations for film expand the setting, script, and stage directions to allow for the expansive palette provided by film. The trick in this process is not to lose the spark at the heart of the original script that made the story so compelling in the first place. More often than not, stage to film adaptations fail to grasp the element (or elements) that made the show work so well on stage, turning in a bland facsimile of the show. That’s not the case with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, an adaptation of August Wilson’s famous play that retains the heart and soul of the original piece, even if I wish Ruben Santiago-Hudson hadn’t been quite so heavy handed with his edits to the script.

Set in Chicago in 1927, the film follows a recording session of the famous blues singer Ma Rainey (an excellent Viola Davis, commanding the screen in every scene she’s in), as she spars with the white record label owner, her white manager, and her all Black band – namely her new upstart trumpeter Levee (the late Chadwick Boseman, sensational in his final onscreen role), who is cocksure, overconfident, and unwilling to compromise his own vision for the sound of the record. The brash confidence of Ma is backed up by her years of success, which allows her to get away with far more than one would expect from anyone, particularly when you take into account the historical moment of the film – a Black woman demanding her needs be met and refusing to work until they are is something that would still be seen as rare today, much less nearly one hundred years ago. On the other side of things is Levee, whose brashness is backed up solely by raw talent – something that can only get you so far in life, especially when you are a Black man with no clear track record of success on which to hang your hat.

And that’s exactly the point of so much of the conflict within the film – this is a period piece (in two senses, from its setting and as a story originally written by August Wilson in 1982) that still rings far too true today. Ma is a star, albeit a fading one as the tastes of the country begin to turn away from her brand of music, and her request for a Coke is met with inaction by the white men in charge of the recording session (thus forcing the Black men to go out and buy her one). But her status still gets her what she wants, even if it’s not coming from those with more power than her in the world at large. She has to rely on her people to get it done. We hear stories from Levee and Colman Domingo’s Cutler that highlight the racism and violence they and those around them have experienced. And we see a Black man full of hope and promise watch his dream destroyed with callous indifference.

It’s said that film is the director’s medium and the stage is the actor’s (and, for those wondering, television is heralded as the medium for writers), but what most impressed me about Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is how George C. Wolfe’s minimalist direction allows the performances to become the star of the film. The close-ups on Davis and Boseman tell you as much about their characters as the dialogue, allowing the actors to do the work of telling this story. And when they are playing off some of the best in the business (Coleman is joined by Michael Potts and Glynn Turman – a man who is having a hell of a year – in rounding out Ma’s band), well, there really isn’t all that much Wolfe is called on to do other than point the camera and capture the magic.

Now, as I mentioned, my one complaint is that I wish the film had kept more of Wilson’s original script, if only to allow the quartet of Boseman, Domingo, Potts, and Turman the chance to interact a bit more, fleshing out the supporting characters so that the final moments of the story would hit a bit harder than they do. The more we care about all the characters we are watching, the more we can be impacted by their ultimate fate. But, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a small complaint. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a showcase for Davis and Boseman (who is largely expected to win his first Oscar for the performance, and it would be well-deserved if it happens), but both actors are sure to allow others the spotlight when required. Stage may indeed be the actor’s medium, but this is one film that makes sure its cast sings.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is currently streaming on Netflix.