Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Black people remembered their ancestral blues - Ma Rainey and made a film about her, where they mostly argue about how everyone in the band should play, rather than sing and have fun. But three stars are fine. It's so correctly dirty, Viola Davis was great and Chadwick Boseman said goodbye nicely. In addition, the atmosphere of that year 1927 reminded me unbelievably of the legend among computer games - Mafia, which is actually a plus. (01/07/2021)

Something about Ma Rainey's Black Bottom didn't sit right with me during the screening – it felt "unbalanced". The performances of Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman, as well as other members of the band, are undoubtedly noteworthy, but narratively the film struck me as a kind of first-person account of an (un)ordinary day in the life of African-American artists in 1927, which is certainly due to the fact that it is an adaptation of a stage play. The film is full of dialogue and (unsurprisingly) music, and has two or three strong moments, but I still had quite a problem sympathising and empathising with the characters. I really liked the art styling and costumes, I would only have a complaint about Viola Davis' (chubby) costume, which was visible in places. (04/21/2021)