Netflix previews ‘Ma Rainey,’ Boseman’s final performance
NEWYORK » Netflix onMonday previewed George C. Wolfe’s August Wilson adaptation “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” showcasing Chadwick Boseman’s final performance opposite Viola Davis’ powerhouse blues singer.
The film, shot last year, was already one of the year’s most anticipated, coming as the next chapter in Denzel Washington’s ongoing project to turn Wilson’s plays into films, following 2016’s Oscar-winning “Fences.” But since the unexpected death in August of 43-yearold Boseman from colon cancer, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” has taken on a elegiac aura.
Boseman’s performance has been said to be among the finest of his career, and the scenes previewed Monday only reinforced that notion.
Set in Chicago 1927, Davis stars as Ma Rainey, a fiery singer known as the “Mother of theBlues.” Boseman plays Levee, an ambitious trumpeter aiming to launch himself with his own updated versions of
Ma Rainey’s songs.
“Levee got to be Levee!” exclaims Boseman, as Levee, in a passionate monologue. “And he don’t need nobody messing with him about the whiteman, ‘cause you don’t know nothing about me. You don’t know Levee. You don’t knownothing about what blood I got! What kind of heart I got beating here!”
The event Monday, presented by video conference, included a band, in masks, performing music from the film scored by Branford Marsalis. Netflix, which will debut it Dec. 18 on the streaming service, is expected to push “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” for Academy Awards consideration, particularly Davis and Boseman. ( Wilson, himself, was the last person to receive a posthumous Oscar nomination in 2016, 11 year after his death, for the “Fences” script.)
Wolfe said Boseman “put his entire being into the part.” Davis described Boseman as unusually egoless. At the time of filming, Boseman was coming off the massive success of “Avengers: Endgame” and “Black Panther.”