Character description, analysis and casting breakdown for Levee from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom . … One can’t help but feel sorry for Levee, who more than anything is a victim of regular, systemic oppression because of the color of his skin.”, And Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang calls the climax “haunting beyond words” in an interview with NPR. My main job was creating a space that would be so safe as to allow Chad to go to his most vulnerable, unguarded place that he possibly could, so there would be nothing to stand between him and the depth of his own emotional skills.”, Was Ma Rainey a Real Person? However, the other characters in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—Levee, Toledo, Cutler, Slow Drag, etc—are all fictional. Viola Davis also stars as the titular Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, an icon remembered for her pioneering role in the world of blues. If at all." “We know that this happens — ‘Hound Dog’ is considered an Elvis Presley song, not a Big Mama Thornton song — so this is a chance to actually see that violation play out, after getting so invested in the journey of an incredibly gifted artist who had such command of that sound,” George says. Join StageAgent today and unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. Here's What They Don't Show You on Netflix's 'The Circle', "Pops" Actor George Segal Won't Be Replaced on 'The Goldbergs', Here Are All of the Celebs Who Have Been Unmasked on ‘The Masked Singer’ Season 5, The Orca on 'The Masked Singer' Is This Rock Band Frontman (SPOILERS). The levee repair is hardly a patch. Viola Davis is just as good. Toledo has lost his wife and children to divorce, telling band members that his wife left him for the church. Turman’s Toledo is particularly put off by Levee’s bravado and lack of concern for the task at hand. All Rights Reserved. Slow Drag. Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. Bring your soul. August Wilson's shocking coda gets a thoughtful update in Netflix's new adaptation, This article contains spoilers for 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'. This is what we try to get to as actors. Like this article? Levee doesn’t know contracts like Ma does, or the record business. If you haven’t seen Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, go watch it before reading this spoilery article! Levee is so devastated he doesn’t notice the change in his pocket or ask for his music back. Indeed, in Wilson’s play, the speech emerges from a lighter moment and plays as yet another of Toledo’s unsolicited, even unwelcome pontifications about life. The former “Bachelor” star, who for the first time on Wednesday publicly revealed he is gay, is currently in production on an unscripted series for the streaming service, according to a source with knowledge of the project. It's his best performance. 'WandaVision' Finale: No Hugging, No Learning, The Ending Of 'The Devil All The Time', Explained, The "Surefire Kill" Ending Of 'Parasite' Explained, The Shock Ending of ‘The Midnight Sky': Explained, Chadwick Boseman's "Ferocious" Final Role. We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article. “It’s a very slippery little slope: When does sharing become cultural appropriation become theft?”, Or as August told the newspaper in 1987, “Ma Rainey isn’t about ‘This is what you took from us,’ but, ‘This is so valuable what you’ve taken from us,’ and discovering that value.”, Earlier in the movie, Levee tells his bandmates that his mother was raped by white men when he was 8 years old. Save this article until after you’ve watched the film. Don't leave it. Chadwick Boseman as Levee, Colman Domingo as Cutler, Viola Davis as Ma Rainey, Michael Potts as Slow Drag and Glynn Turman as Toledo in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. “We’re seeing a man peering into an abyss played by an actor who knew his own life was slipping away. Let both of them come roaring out of you." Show Guides. Policeman The policeman is the third white man in the play. ", The idea of taking music made by Black people and having it almost taped over by white artists came to Wolfe when he was thinking about the celebrated American bandleader, Paul Samuel 'Pops' Whiteman. Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox, Need some positivity right now? "Ellington was a genius performer," Wolfe said. Subscribe to Esquire now for a hit of style, fitness, culture and advice from the experts, This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. Distractify is a registered trademark. "But a number of songs from the beginning of his career said they were written by 'Duke Ellington and his manager'", underscoring the same white 'acceptable' face which is put on the work of a Black artist. Read this latest news here. As Wolfe said, "To me at the end there are two crimes that take place: one of the crimes is Levee and what he does to Toledo, and the other is what happens to his art, and that’s what I wanted to embody. We discussed the contrast between Levee and Toledo, specifically how Toledo has accepted his life and the way it is while Levee has not and is most definitely … And he did it. It will be 650 feet long 40 feet wide and 12 feet high. Chadwick Boseman as Levee, Colman Domingo as Cutler, Viola Davis as Ma Rainey, Michael Potts as Slow Drag and Glynn Turman as Toledo. Chicago releases video of 13-year-old Adam Toledo putting his hands up before cop shoots him dead: Police say they recovered the boy's gun … It’s the story of “a woman who was known for her autonomy, who did not barter for her worth, and the men who were around her,” Davis said. 0. Does Anyone Care About the Oscars Anymore? Offers may be subject to change without notice. Colton Underwood is returning to reality TV – but this time on Netflix. Who Should (and Will) Win the 2021 Oscars, Youn Yuh-Jung's BAFTA Speech Was a Night Highlight, Bukky Bakray on 'Rocks' and the Next Step, The Best Movies To Watch While Very, Very Stoned, The Best Courtroom Dramas Ever Made, Your Honour, ESQUIRE, PART OF THE HEARST UK FASHION & BEAUTY NETWORK. But if you have seen the new Netflix film, you may be wondering about the film’s final plot twist — and whether Levee killed Toledo in real life, since the story is inspired by the career of the real-life “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey, played by Viola Davis. There's a certain … Having been fired by Ma Rainey he is in a desperate state which leads to him taking a knife and stabbing Toledo, the kindly father figure of the band whose last moments are a haunting mixture of wide-eyed horror and forlorn acceptance of his fate. The need to address both the violence and the erasing of Black people and their voices from the past is a message which lingers in the film's final moments. Levee gives the work to him without a receipt. While in class the discussion of the play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, swiftly moved to the question of, why Levee had murdered Toledo? Of course, the real reason Levee is lashing out is because of the violence he witnessed as a boy, in seeing his mother's rape and his father's murder at the hands of white men. Show Guides. Chadwick Boseman’s last moments on the screen are among his darkest and also his finest.”. “Levee doesn’t have Ma Rainey’s experience or her knack for self-preservation, and the weight of his past trauma ultimately proves too much to overcome,” he adds. ... Toledo. How Chadwick Boseman embraced life and his 'Ma Rainey' castmates. The story is met with a bit of skepticism by the band, but Levee says that he’d happily sell his soul to the devil and even sign up others. TOLEDO, Ohio — When Officer Anthony Dia died after being shot in west Toledo on July 4, he became the 30th Toledo Police officer to be killed in the line of duty. In presenting these two moments next to each other Wolfe is making a statement about the legacy of Black people, and how the trauma against them continues to be passed down while their music is taken from them and turned into something which does not bear their name. This is the final shot in August Wilson's play, but in the Netflix version of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, director George C. Wolfe adds one final thought before the credits roll. It is a powerful final moment and a thoughtful update to Wilson's work, a play which wrestles with the nature of creative ownership and Black artistry at its heart. Warning: This interview contains spoilers for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Netflix. Levee (Chadwick Boseman) and the other members of Ma Rainey’s backing band, Toledo (Glynn Turman), Slow Drag (Michael Potts) and Cutler (Colman Domingo) have some time to kill … Wolfe: What's really interesting to me is that the other band members, Toledo, Cutler, and Slow Drag, are, in many respects, very content, to, in many respects, live in Ma's shadow because there is money to be made living in that shadow. Search all shows. Levee (Played by Chadwick Boseman) Aside from Ma Rainey, the other characters in the film are fictional; although, of course, Rainey did have a band in real life. “The subtext is clear, however: frustrated and broken from a system of racial inequality, Levee desperately lashes out at someone more vulnerable than himself,” observes ScreenRant’s Sarah Bea Milner. The first, and more explicit, of the two is Levee (Chadwick Boseman) dramatically stabbing Toledo (Glynn Turman) for standing on his shoe. As it turns out, Toledo and Levee are both fictional; they were created for the stage by playwright August Wilson and portrayed on screen by Glynn Turman and the late Chadwick Boseman, respectively. Levee’s anger reaches a fevered pitch at the end of the play, when Sturdyvant won’t let him record the songs he previously told him he could. "Paul Whiteman who did a concert at Carnegie Hall which was billed as, ‘the concert that made a lady out of jazz’, and so at a time when Black artists were making all this really interesting work, it was somehow him that legitimised jazz," Wolfe said. At the end of the play and the film, Levee, an ambitious trumpeter in Ma’s band, gets a lowball offer for his songs from the same white producer who promised to help his career. (Chadwick Boseman's character, a trumpet player named Levee, is also trying to steal Dussie Mae away from Ma.) The Legacy of 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom', Viola Davis Technically Does Sing IRL in One Scene in 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom', The Real Ma Rainey Was a Trailblazing Bisexual Blues Singer. Chadwick Boseman's last movie is 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,' streaming on Netflix in December. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the film’s director, George C. Wolfe, explains how Black talent like that of the fictional Levee is so often co-opted and stolen by white people. 'Yet one more!' Toledo (Glynn Turman), a piano player who at one point in the story reflects on the nature of the African American collective memory, accidentally steps on the pricey pair of shoes Levee … “That’s really George’s concoction, the way he placed it,” Turman said, referring to director George C. Wolfe (the screen adaptation is credited to Ruben Santiago-Hudson). © Copyright 2021 Distractify. ", Discussing how the film could be read as a metaphor for where America is right now, Wolfe talked about the need to address the wrongs committed against Black people, saying, "It’s very important that people and countries go on a journey of healing in which they confront the pain, the horror and the sins of the past, otherwise you can’t go forward.". “God don’t mean nothing to me,” he says. Wolfe also spoke of how the ending plays with the image of what an artist has to do to get his work seen and heard, referencing the work of Black American composer Duke Ellington. "So the character in the film is loosely patterned on Paul Whiteman.". THEMES Power When he was called up on a murder charge, the judge acquitted him and gave the guy a bottle of whiskey, too. Later, Mel has a white singer record Levee’s … Levee winds up stabbing Toledo, killing him, after Toledo steps on his shoe. George tells the Times that Levee was “starting the story from a place of defiance, and then moving to a place of extraordinary intimacy and unbelievable frailty, compared to the laughter and buoyancy that was just in that room.”, The filmmaker goes on: “It is a monster of a monologue. "Big Mama Thornton sang 'Hound Dog', but we don’t know that version, we know the Elvis Presley version. By weaving the erasure of Black music into the story, we see Levee die in a sense as his music is recorded by white men, the very people who started the cycle of his trauma. "There’s all these incredible stories in popular culture where a Black musician or artist comes along and their work or compositions are usurped by a more mainstream white artist," he added. The last act of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a coda that puts the whole film into perspective, with two moments of violence laid side-by-side in the closing moments of the film. Netflix Insider spoke with actor Colman Domingo, who played Cutler, the band leader, in Netflix's Oscar-buzzing adapation, "Ma … And when Toledo, the band’s pianist, accidentally steps on his new yellow shoes, the broken-down Levee flies into a rage and fatally stabs Toledo. Learn. There’s plenty of dirt and sand but a shortage of rip rap may cause a delay. He did not deserve to die the way he did,” the Toledo family said in a Friday statement.Cops Now Say UVA Grad Slain by Police Was ‘Brandishing a Handgun’The family said Adam was killed “due to the unreasonable conduct of a Chicago Police Officer” and they would “seek justice for this reprehensible crime.” 6 (El Camino Real) This photo looks like it was taken from the Louisiana side of the Sabine River. Be Chad too. People may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. I just started yelling, "Tell me, tell me, tell me" because I didn't want the scene to stop because it does feel like God was in the room and you're like, "This is the good stuff. The first, and more explicit, of the two is Levee (Chadwick Boseman) dramatically stabbing Toledo (Glynn Turman) for standing on his shoe. Toledo steps on Levee’s shoe, and Levee becomes irate even after Toledo has apologized. The band looks on in horror as Levee rocks Toledo’s body and tells him not to look at him like that. In this scene we see a white singer and a group of white jazz musicians in a newer looking studio recording the song that Levee had written and given to Sturdyvant earlier in the film. Don't just be Levee. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom - Play. Sturdyvant tells Levee later on the studio can’t use the work, stuffing a few dollars in the young man’s pocket as he walks away. Toledo Bend Lake today and the Pendleton Bridge which crosses it. "I was thinking about how Sturdyvant takes that song, he doesn’t put it in a file, no, he goes ahead and records that song," George C. Wolfe told Esquire of his decision to add in the symbolic afterthought. At the end of the play, Levee kills Toledo instead of Sturdyvant, the person who had wronged him the most. It's about race issues, sexuality, and … Boseman and Davis head the cast of the new drama. “Because the young trumpet player is powerless to direct his anger at those who deserve it, the white men who persecute and exploit Black Americans. In an exchange about “just having a good time,” Toledo lectures that more Black people “got killed having a good time than God’s got ways to count.” He killed four of the men before being killed himself. The stabbing of Toledo had happened so quickly and so surprisingly that there was certainly much to talk about. Of course, the real reason Levee is lashing out is … Levee takes his knife and stabs Toledo in the back, killing him. He added, "That is the American dilemma: how do you go forward into the future when you have a haunted past that you cautiously recognise? Levee spends much of the story flailing and fighting with anyone he comes into contact with, until there is nobody else left to turn to. The late Chadwick Boseman co-stars in Netflix's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom as Levee, a character who represents the history of Black music appropriation in America — and is inspired by real musicians. https://www.distractify.com/p/did-levee-kill-toledo-in-real-life Closeup of construction of the new Pendleton Bridge in or about 1966 I believe this is on the Louisiana side, looking west into Sabine Parish on Hwy. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io, The 71 Best Films on Netflix UK Right Now, Who is Tech Bro Adam Neumann in the New Hulu Doc. , but we don ’ t notice the change in his pocket or ask for his music.... 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