EXCLUSIVE: Following SAG’s victories for Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman for their main performances in August Wilson’s film adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a short documentary about the life of the genuine Ma Rainey airs at 7pm on Monday, April 12. After its premiere, My Rainey: Mother of the Blues will be available not only on netflix FYC, but also on Collection: Live, the official broadcast site of the Grammy Museum. Netflix and the Grammy Museum of the Recording Academy.
The film, now broadcast on Netflix, is nominated for five Academy Awards, adding Davis and Boseman, in terms of hairstyle and makeup, costumes and production design.
An inspiring tribute to the artist hem, Ma Rainey: Mother of the Blues takes a deeper look at the genuine Ma Rainey, an incredible and pioneering music, a way forward in her time, which overcavised the barriers of her rights to her music, sexuality and courage as a woman she suffered to keep her band in combination in the 1920s. The special follows Ma Rainey’s story, from her traveling exhibits to the adaptation of one of the toughest women of her time. Davis appears in the exhibition; manufacturers Denzel Washington and Todd Black; Director George C. Wolfe; music legends Bonnie Raitt (who included Ma Rainey in the Grammy Hall of Fame), Branford Marsalis, Melissa Etheridge and Jimmy Jam; The Oscar-nominated hairstyle, makeup and clothing team, tasked with creating Ma’s unique look; and cast members of the acclaimed film appear on the screen.
Makeup artists
Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning work to August Wilson, the film celebrates the transformative force of blues and artists who refuse to let society’s prejudices dictate their value. Directed through Wolfe and for the screen through Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the film is produced through The Oscar Nominees Fences Washington and Black. Colman Domingo, Glynn Turman, Michael Potts, Taylour Paige and Dusan Brown co-starred alongside Grammy winner Marsalis.
In addition to broadcasting the program from April 13 to May 1, the Grammy Museum will provide educators with their appointments with the Los Angeles-based Recording Academy Museum with full access to a treasure trove of Ma Rainey documents and the opportunity to present “Blues Workshop History,” which will be presented to students during the school year.
Madelyn Hammond and Javier Infante produced the special. Look at a clip in the link above.
George C. Wolfe, director of Chadwick Boseman’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, about Chadwick Boseman’s “Brilliance” and “Coming Up with Something Hope New And Surprising”