Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

 Here is another great film told in almost real time. 

Ma Rainey (the unrecognizable but brilliant Viola Davis) is a celebrated jazz musician and is in Chicago to record some of her songs but of course, there is plenty of drama, namely between the studio musicians. Levee (Chadwick Boseman) is the trumpet player, talented, cocky and as the film progresses, mentally unhinged, and he has his own arrangement of one of Ma's songs which she hates. He also is a songwriter and wants to start his own band and become just as famous as Ma. Ma is certainly a diva, but she knows that she can act like a bitch because she has something they want and once they have that, they will cut her loose which is basically correct and is what she more or less states halfway through the film.

The film is illuminating to see how the two interact though they have very few scenes together but Levee gets what he wants, he gets fired because he doesn't respect Ma despite being warned by the other musicians and making eyes at Ma's young lover, Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige) who may or may not be lesbian but is rather hungry for fame herself, considering she is fine with almost immediately having sex with Levee. But Mr. Strudyvant (Jonny Coyne) doesn't think that the songs will be hits but buys them off him anyway and then things take a turn for the worse. Levee has known the other musicians for bit by now, but is a different kind of person than they are, he doesn't believe in God and heard his mother be raped when he was just eight years old and when he and Cutler (Colman Domingo) get into a fight, he has no issue pulling out a switchblade and when the wise pianist, Toledo (Glynn Turman) accidentally steps of Levee's shoe (though I failed to see a scuff mark) and doesn't make the proper reparations, Levee stabs him and eventually he fades away, never to be seen in the movies again, while Ma stares into the abyss in the back of her shiny new car, upset that the white man will make more money off her voice than she will. 

While Viola Davis receives top billing, Boseman is certainly the lead and delivers certainly one of the greatest performances of his career, demonstrating a wide range of emotions while Davis is equally as brilliant in a role that is smaller but absolutely just as important. The screenplay is solid too, giving each character a personality that still shines through from page to screen though a couple of cuts are too jarring. Still, you do feel like it is 1927 and that is no small feat. Grade: A-