Following his 2015 announcement that he would be bringing each play in August Wilson’s “centenary cycle” to the screen (big or small), Denzel Washington brings us his second effort following his film directorial debut Fences. A film that I saw as being hugely successful, even if it didn’t wholly make the most of its film medium. Washington only produces this time, despite starring and directing in Fences. Washington has brought to the screen a tremendous amount of talent to serve one of Wilson’s most singular pieces, a piece filled with humour, pain, glorious music and ultimately tragedy, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is to put it plainly, a marvellous adaptation of one of Wilson’s best, but can never shake off the nature of its beast, that it is a film based on a play. This is no curse, many films have adapted plays successfully, this is one of them infact. However many have done it better, this does not mean that this film is a failure, as a matter of fact it’s far from that, as I will now go on to explain. This is one of Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning plays and so the power of the writing in the piece cannot be written about enough, the script is perfect and packs in as much heart, truth, pain, humour and horror as a script just about can in ninety minutes. The adaptation to the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson brings every ounce of the joy and pain of that original play to the screen. Wilson’s words are beautiful, elegant, prophetic and deeply felt. The film’s marketing posits Wilson’s key statement as its tagline, “Everything comes out of blues”. This is the riding sentence that leads us through this story of great historical trouble and tragedy. Wilson weaves a tale of multiple characters, each given their own time to soliloquise about the state of the African-American life in the 1920s. The power of Wilson’s writing and in turn Santiago-Hudson’s adaptation is that these multiple monologues bleed into the narrative and never once feel out of place and is we we are pausing to give our characters their spotlight moment. Perhaps it may seem an irrelevant point to make with the reputation of Wilson, but the writing is nothing short of sublime. The film is directed by George C. Wolfe, a remarkably skilled theatre director returning to his less skilled and infrequent ventures into screen work. This is certainly the best work that Wolfe has done for the screen, helped along by the tremendous, if a little on the nose and hyper-kinetic, editing of Andrew Mondshein. As well as a further helping hand from the cinematography of Tobias A. Schliessler, who manages to make the film ooze with heat and sweat, until it’s practically unbearable to sit still whilst watching.

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Viola Davis is our titular Ma Rainey, in her second turn in a Wilson film following Fences which garnered her her first academy award. Here she is virtuosic as the real life mother of blues, as we follow a day in the recording studio as tensions rise between herself and an enterprising and perhaps naïve young trumpet player, played with great fun and in the end great terror by Chadwick Boseman. There is the unfortunate looming of real life bitter tragedy about the film, with this being the final on-screen role from the emerging star and it is with unparalleled lament that I can comment that this really would have been the role that made him a super-star. Although his previous roles may have received a rather collective audience appeal, this is a performance worthy of every accolade going and depending on how he is campaigned, he’s a shoe in for the third posthumous acting Oscar given in history. I hope and pray that people do not begin to comment that any awards are purely due to Boseman's death. This is not the case. This performance really is that good, it's certainly the best work I've ever seen him do and will unfortunately ever see him do. Davis is magnificent and delivers her scenes with a truth, power and realism that lends to the film’s brevity and levity, whilst never letting go of the deep pain that remains firmly rooted in the piece. The rest of our cast here is similarly exceptional, with Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman and Michael Potts making up the rest of our band for the day. Domingo is taut and feverish, but calmly charismatic as Cutler, with his counterpart often being Potts, subtler and quieter, but no less great. Turman is the private triumph of the film, with no great shouting or screaming scene, but all of the most effecting and devastating lines and moments. Jeremy Shamos and Jonny Coyne are our oppressing studio managers, bringing the brutality of the outside word in with Coyne and highlighting the perverted fetishisation of black artists under white managers with Shamos. Both are further great additions to the collation of talent on display here. Taylour Paige is our other female lead and is skillful in the deploying of her incredible seductive nature and sexiness, as well as playful in her bouts of whimsy, another lovely turn in the film. When people comment on films being like plays, I think they are referring to heavily dialogue based films set in few settings. This is indeed that, but when the writing and acting is this good, then why the hell complain about where it came from and the amount of damn settings?

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A glorious adrenaline fuelled 7/10, which moves at an epic pace bringing Wilson’s timeless words to the screen with great verve and energy. Wolfe has created a playing ground for some great talent to do their best work and that is never not fun to watch. The film is a turbulent beast with some serious left turns that may seem to come out of nowhere, however if one pays attention to the smaller details and notes the grand scheme of things, and frankly lets this world suck you in, then the ultimate tragedy of this piece and the history surrounding it will take you for an immensely entertaining and deeply affecting ride.

P.S. If I were a producer beside Denzel Washington in the film process. Which I am not. I would lean more to the small screen for these sorts of features. For I know that if Washington continues this cycle project, which I desperately hope he does if they continue at this level of quality, they will still remain unnaturally stagey. A veer towards the less cinematic may suit them better, rather than aiming for something that isn’t necessarily reachable with the nature of the mediums and translation. 

P.P.S It made Obama’s best films of 2020 list, so it’s got that going for it too.

P.P.P.S One of the great final scenes of the year. Unfortunately, buttoned with one of the worst final frames of the year. Jesus, lose that god damn freeze frame.

-Thomas Carruthers