THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"Cadillac Records"
Rock And Roll Architects And A Father
Figure To Promote And Protect Them
By
Omar P.L. Moore/December
5, 2008
"Cadillac Records" is an impressive tale of the rise, suppression, appropriation
and triumph of the blues, America's quintessential music art form. It
isn't easy to make a film that educates and entertains, but "Cadillac" film
director Darnell Martin makes it work, and very well at that. Based on the
true story of Leonard Hess, the record producer who helped give a home to
legends of the blues and rock 'n' roll like Muddy "Mississippi" Waters, Little
Walter, Chuck Berry and Etta James. The film modulates its occasional
melodrama with an essential truth: the tribulations of the artists who lived
what they sang and played; and an America that felt the pains and fissures of
racial hatred that a volatile segregated society allowed. The film
illustrates the parallel between the turmoil in their lives behind their music
and the society's destructive nature and does so without having an excuse to,
which means that the director, who also wrote the screenplay, has found the
right track.
The film's main outlay is the relationship between manager and artist, chiefly
Mr. Hess (played by Adrien Brody) and Mr. Waters (a top-notch Jeffrey Wright)
and the sibling-like bond they share throughout the 30-odd years they worked
together under Chess Records. "Cadillac Records" is narrated by Cedric The
Entertainer, who plays a pivotal character in the film. His work here is
more subtle than we're used to: histrionics are banished, with a pure
performance flowing through. Mr. Wright finds the essence of Mr. Waters,
which means that as an actor he conveys the Mud Man to near perfection.
While Mr. Wright finds comfort in small roles, when he's been given a large
stage (whether as the New York City artist Basquiat in the film of the same
name, or as Martin Luther King, Jr. in the film "Boycott",) he reminds us that
he's not only a great actor, but he, like the music great he portrays here, gets
little credit for his industry.
The best and most entertaining performances come from Beyonce as Etta James and
Mos Def as Chuck Berry. Beyonce's work here in a supporting role is
deeper, better and more immediate than it was in "Dreamgirls". She gives
Ms. James a backbone, heart and a sense of tragedy as she seeks to find the man
who gives her meaning in her life. Mos Def gives energy and comedy to the
extroverted Mr. Berry, the original king of rock and roll. The actor
delights not only in the power he has over music -- the same music that The
Beach Boys and many others copied and The Rolling Stones admired and emulated --
but Mr. Def's Berry is enthralled and emboldened by the power he has over the
many white female fans who wanted to tell him a bedtime story or two. Both
actors breakthrough in brief but pivotal moments in "Cadillac Records", whose
lessons about the way the Blues had been co-opted and stolen by many of the
white bands that thrive today is portrayed in an effective, unobtrusive manner.
The importance of the lesson isn't lost on Ms. Martin, who notes Elvis Presley's
emergence as he mimicked Mr. Berry, and like many white artists, excelled and
profited from Mr. Berry's style and sound.
Spike Lee's "Mo' Better Blues" addressed the appropriation of black music and
artists in Gangstarr's "Jazz Thing", the closing credits song for Mr. Lee's
film, and that song encapsulates the kind of theft and profit off the back of
jazz originals that Ms. Martin's film spends more time on, though specifically
in the realm of the Blues. Mr. Wright's character says a line that
epitomizes what the legacy of the Blues is about. It's a funny line, but
it has more than a grain of painful truth. The film also has contemporary
implications, stretching its reach to today's musicians. While "Cadillac
Records" talks about black musicians getting short shrift from white musicians
and record companies, the subject isn't necessarily the film's central focus.
(For example in the 1990's, the notorious legal battle between Prince and Warner
Brothers Records, where the Artist and the company tussled over artistic and
financial control of his records, during which he wrote "SLAVE" on his face.
He would later leave Warner and exclusively distribute on his own record label,
including some of his CDs solely on the Internet and as part of the ticket fee
for a seat at his concerts.)
"Cadillac Records" is a series of episodes about one rock and roll legend after
another. The film stays fresh and lively throughout traveling through the
late 1930's and the sharecropping South through to the dawn of the late 1960's,
when Muddy Waters was touring in England. The film is consistent, with a
script that spends more time trying to get to know some of the eccentric people
who gave birth to American music, and not without some rivalries (such as
between Mr. Waters and Howlin' Wolf and the tensions between Mr. Waters and
Little Walter) but these competitive battles produced even better music.
With "Cadillac Records" everything is in its right place -- music, motion and
performance -- and the lessons of history stay intact, too. This is a
surprising film, a colorful heartbeat of style and substance. Ms. Martin
gets the best out of everyone, including Columbus Short as Little Walter, who
never sells his character short with his unpredictable nature.
With Gabrielle Union, Eamonn Walker, Emmanuelle Chiriqui and Eric Bogosian.
Music score by Terence Blanchard.
"Cadillac Records" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America
for pervasive language and some sexuality. The film's duration is one hour
and 49 minutes.
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