Netflix Nook: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman, is truly something I believe everyone should attempt to watch this month. This film came out in December of last year and was quickly the most popular streamed movie on Netflix for almost the entire month. The movie takes place one afternoon at a Chicago recording studio in 1927 and follows Ma Rainey and her band. Ma Rainey was a real person in history who was a very popular blues singer. She was well known in the South, but not so much up North. In the movie, when she arrives at the studio, she is met with a rude producer who only cares about the money he can earn by recording Ma’s voice.

Levee, played by Chadwick Boseman, is an extremely complex character. At the beginning of the movie, Levee arrives late at the studio because he spotted a pair of yellow shoes he had to have on his way there. These shoes come to be Levee’s undoing later on, but I don’t want to spoil the event, so I won’t say how. The other band members, Cutler, Toledo, and Slow Drag have been working with Ma for years, whereas Levee is relatively new. This is important because it draws a line between Levee and the rest of them, which also leads to his declining mental state. Levee, however, is young and ambitious. He plans on quitting Ma’s band and starting one up all on his own and with his people. Despite his seemingly positive outlook on life and child-like positivity, internally Levee is a large ball of rage. Levee explodes on his bandmates when they mock him for saying “yes sir” to the white producer. Levee tells his story about when his mother was raped by a group of white men in their own home. He says all his father did at first was sell their house and land to the white men who had raped his mother. But later after they had all moved into their old house, Levee’s father went back onto that land and hunted 4 of them down before they caught him and hung him. “I can smile and say ‘yes, sir’ to whomever I please,” Levee said to his bandmates at the end of his story. “I got my time coming.”

Another chill-bringing monologue from Levee comes when he is yelling at Cutler for his religiosity. He asks Cutler over and over again where is his God when he needs him while chasing Cutler around with a knife. This is the speech that really hit a lot of viewers in the heart, because the things Levee says are things someone might say if they know they are dying. Levee is talking to “Cutler's God”, “Come on. Turn your back on me. Where is you? Come on and turn your back on me. I'll cut your heart out.”

Ma Rainey, played by Viola Davis, was portrayed beautifully. The opening scene of the movie is of Ma performing in the South for a large crowd of freed slaves. This sets up people watching to be able to compare how Ma is treated in the South versus in the North. The next time you meet Ma, she is mad about someone crashing into her new car and trying to blame the whole thing on her. Already in a bad mood, she isn’t made any happier when the producer treats her with disrespect, Levee begins pushing her buttons, and her manager is doing nothing to make things easier for Ma. Ma is very open with her sexuality and mentions so in her songs, “went out last night, with a crowd of my friends. It must have been women, cuz I don’t like no mens.” In the film, Ma brings along with her to the session Bessie May, her latest side piece. Bessie is extremely flirty with everyone around her, but everyone (except Levee) knows better.

Ma has conversations with Cutler where they discuss what the blues mean to black people and how the white folks would never quite understand why or how they sing the blues. Ma tells him, “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 its life's way of talking. You don’t sing to feel better, you sing cause that’s a way of understanding life. The blues help you get out of bed in the morning. You get up knowing you ain't alone. There's something else in the world. Something’s been added by that song.”

If you watch the movie, I recommend watching the behind-the-scenes as well. It is 30 minutes and really helps pull things together and bring details to light that you might have missed. Unfortunately, Chadwick Boseman passed away before the filming of the interviews conducted for the clip, but the other cast members, along with the director and writer, give great insight into Levee and Boseman during filming. One thing that shocked me was that Boseman learned how to play the trumpet for this role.

Once again, I highly recommend this movie and the extra behind-the-scenes. This movie really shows what life was like for successfully freed slaves in America and how they were treated.