osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2019-02-19 09:42 am
osprey_archer) wrote2019-02-19 09:42 am
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Bessie
I felt lukewarm about Dee Rees’ Mudbound (although the critics loved that movie, so you shouldn’t take my word for it), but I decided to give her earlier film Bessie a chance, which turned out to be a good choice because I loved it.
Bessie is about Bessie Smith, one of the most famous blues singers in the 1920s and 30s, and the movie is chock full of 1920s glamour: ostrich feather plumes, sparkly dresses, a shiny car, a great big house. Bessie grew up poor and now that she’s sung her way to riches she’s eager to spend it, not just on herself, but on everyone else too. A little girl runs after Bessie’s car (which has a sign saying BESSIE SMITH hung right off the side) and sings one of Bessie’s songs when the car finally stops; and Bessie hands her a wad of bills and a word of encouragement. Keep on singing.
Generous, fiercely determined, warm-hearted, hot-tempered: this movie is a character study of Bessie Smith, and her personality shines through in every scene. (This may sound like it should be a given in a biopic, but you’d be surprised how many biopics never quite come to grips with their central character.) All of her character traits are powerful - and one of the best parts of the movie is that it doesn’t try to separate them into good and bad traits, but rather sees each trait as having good and bad aspects.
Bessie’s fierce determination enables her rise to the top - but it also leads her to alienate friends along the way, like Ma Rainey, the legendary blues singer who gives Bessie her first big break. (But later on, when Bessie hits hard times, her brother takes her to stay with Ma Rainey: he knows that no one else understands his sister well enough to help her through.)
And her hot temper makes her relationship with her man, Jack Gee, continually rocky: they love each other when things are going well, but when their tempers flare they’re apt to fight, viciously, sometimes physically. They’re both tempestuous people, and in the end that tempestuousness pulls them apart.
But that temper also enables Bessie to stand up to the Klan when they try to shut down one of her shows. She’s singing in a tent, like a revival preacher, when the Klan drives up with their pick-ups trucks and torches, and the crowd’s on the verge of running - but instead Bessie strides down the aisle, right out the tent flaps, standing in the twilight in the light of those flaming torches, and she roars at the Klan to go.
And they leave.
And then she goes back inside, past the awed audience; and as she begins to sing they just about explode with joy, because she just spit in the devil’s face, and won.
Bessie is about Bessie Smith, one of the most famous blues singers in the 1920s and 30s, and the movie is chock full of 1920s glamour: ostrich feather plumes, sparkly dresses, a shiny car, a great big house. Bessie grew up poor and now that she’s sung her way to riches she’s eager to spend it, not just on herself, but on everyone else too. A little girl runs after Bessie’s car (which has a sign saying BESSIE SMITH hung right off the side) and sings one of Bessie’s songs when the car finally stops; and Bessie hands her a wad of bills and a word of encouragement. Keep on singing.
Generous, fiercely determined, warm-hearted, hot-tempered: this movie is a character study of Bessie Smith, and her personality shines through in every scene. (This may sound like it should be a given in a biopic, but you’d be surprised how many biopics never quite come to grips with their central character.) All of her character traits are powerful - and one of the best parts of the movie is that it doesn’t try to separate them into good and bad traits, but rather sees each trait as having good and bad aspects.
Bessie’s fierce determination enables her rise to the top - but it also leads her to alienate friends along the way, like Ma Rainey, the legendary blues singer who gives Bessie her first big break. (But later on, when Bessie hits hard times, her brother takes her to stay with Ma Rainey: he knows that no one else understands his sister well enough to help her through.)
And her hot temper makes her relationship with her man, Jack Gee, continually rocky: they love each other when things are going well, but when their tempers flare they’re apt to fight, viciously, sometimes physically. They’re both tempestuous people, and in the end that tempestuousness pulls them apart.
But that temper also enables Bessie to stand up to the Klan when they try to shut down one of her shows. She’s singing in a tent, like a revival preacher, when the Klan drives up with their pick-ups trucks and torches, and the crowd’s on the verge of running - but instead Bessie strides down the aisle, right out the tent flaps, standing in the twilight in the light of those flaming torches, and she roars at the Klan to go.
And they leave.
And then she goes back inside, past the awed audience; and as she begins to sing they just about explode with joy, because she just spit in the devil’s face, and won.
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Also, did you see Queen Latifah in a gorgeous period costume burning up the screen "If You're Good To Mama": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoDS1lWdpjw
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