Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Cadillac Records


In Cadillac Records, there is some great music, some fine acting, and some amazing details in depicting the time and culture of the 1950s. But these fine attributes somehow don't come together and I believe the main problem comes down to focus. Is this a biopic of Leonard Chess, the founder of Chess Records? And/or Muddy Waters? Or is it first time feature director Darnell Martin's (who also wrote the film) attempt to recreate the pastiche of this important historical era for both music and culture of mid-century America?

And to that end the audience is introduced to lots and lots of intriguing characters, many of which are well known to fans of the blues and early rock n' roll: Chess and Waters, of course, but also Little Walter, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James, Chuck Berry, Alan Freed, but also folks like Geneva and Revetta, the wives of Waters and Chess, who appreciated the rewards, but suffered the hedonism of their husbands.

Anecdotes come and go during this mostly fast paced film without the viewer having time to take stock in it all. Gun happy Little Walter shoots another bluesman traveling with the same name by the side of road and one doesn't know if it is added as a kind of character aside or a weird kind of not-so comic relief. There is another aside involving Leonard Chess arranging for the meeting between Etta James and Minnesota Fats who allegedly was her father that also feels squeezed into the film.

Like Idlewild, the ambitious musical staring Outkast a few years back, Cadillac Records is obviously a vehicle for some of the biggest name African American stars in pop music to cross over into the movies. Mos Def makes a pretty fine Chuck Berry. He has the swagger and the style that could be in the same zone of the rock 'n roll icon. And I also must mention that Cedric the Entertainer is quite fine as Willie Dixon, the formidable bass playing songwriter and flamekeeper of the Chess tradition

But Beyonce Knowles is no more convincing an Etta James than Diana Ross was as Billie Holiday thirty years ago in Lady Sings the Blues. And unlike Billie, Etta has had to endure Beoyonce becoming the contemporary link to her music. Etta was gracious about her performance when the movie came out in the Fall, but has since been on stage saying she is going to kick her butt. I love it when old legends go off, it's their right. Maybe she has been hanging out with Lou Donaldson lately.

But there are also real actors doing some amazing work in this film as well. Jeffery Wright is like Philip Seymour Hoffman, great to watch in anything. I have admired his work greatly ever since Angels in America. Here he plays Muddy Waters quite convincingly demonstrating as complicated a range of emotions as this overstuffed film will allow. One of Wright's best scenes is when he becomes fearful of Howlin' Wolf (also in an amazing depiction by Eamonn Walker) as he simultaneously taunts him during a recording session while singing Spoonful and seduces a woman who was formerly behind the glass in the booth with Waters.

Director Darnell Martin's primary credits are in episodic television. One could easily surmise that maybe she wasn't ready yet for a project this ambitious. Martin's dialog seems to use the f bomb as a crutch and could probably have used another hand at the structure of the film. I wonder what another director like Craig Brewer who showed he has a great sense of incorporating music and story with Hustle and Flow, or Taylor Hackford, who did a solid job in Ray, could have done with the tale of the Chess legacy. Marshall Chess produced the film as well as Who Do You Love? which focuses in on more of the Bo Diddly and Rock 'n Roll aspects of the Chess records legacy, so there is a kind of sense of self-aggrandizing despite the warts and all approach to its its subject. (It reminds me of the Sinatra authorized TV movie biopic from 1992) Yet, Cadillac Records, filled with its imperfect charms, will stand as a noble effort to try to capture a historical moment and a rich, transitional American music legacy.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:04 PM
Comments: Post a Comment