“But Rainey’s Black Bottom”: Chadwick Boseman’s last time is an Oscar

For many, his name will only ever be associated with that of Black Panther, and that’s a shame, as Chadwick Boseman, the actor who passed away at age 43 last August of colon cancer, was much more than Marvel’s first black superhero. He proved it to us as James Brown in the Tate Taylor biopic Get on Up and it still shows us today, four months after his death, in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, George C. Wolfe’s latest movie released on Netflix in general silence.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play August Wilson and already smelling an Oscar in more than one category, the film stars Boseman as a braggart trumpeter trying to make a name for himself in 1920s Chicago, the one who still looks at blacks with suspicion, treating them with disdain. Waiting for his big break Leeve, this is his name, cuts his teeth in the band of Ma Rainey, “the mother of the blues”, one of the few black women to have achieved what Leeve has dreamed of for himself all his life : respect for whites.

Posing like a diva, with her expensive car and smudged makeup from too hot, Ma Rainey, played by an immense Viola Davis, is busy recording a record before returning to the South. As she tests the patience of her manager, who tries to fulfill his every wish in the hope that he will not change his mind and leave his job halfway, Leeve and bands rehearse the chords in the basement of the building letting themselves go to confessions about dreams of glory, about the future and, above all, about their personal experience. It is there, during the monologue in which he recounts his torn childhood, when at the age of 8 he witnessed the violence of a group of whites on his mother, that Boseman’s talent shines in all its strength: in that gaze so vibrant with pain and hate and in those hands that never stand still and who would sooner or later seek the justice they think they deserve there is all the skill of an actor who has always given everything he could give on the screen and that he continued to work undergoing chemotherapy without ever shirking his commitments.

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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom represents, more than Black Panther, his legacy to the world: the thought of never seeing him act again and of not seeing him give life to such complex and fascinating roles as Leeve’s breaks our hearts, and it seems to have also deeply affected the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which according to the knowledgeable would be considering a posthumous Oscar nomination as happened with Massimo Troisi for The postman and with Heath Ledger for The dark Knight. Regardless of the candidacy, together with the hypothesis of a victory that, especially after a year under the banner of Black Lives Matter, would take on an even stronger meaning, Chadwick Boseman remains a great actor regardless of the awards he has won and that, at this point, he could win again. With his smile and his maximum availability towards the public and professionals – kindness in Hollywood is a rare commodity – the actor managed to carve out a place in the hearts of fans and colleagues with an almost touching naturalness, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that respect pays off, especially when it is supported by a great talent.