You don't sing to feel better. You sing 'cause that's a way of understanding life.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom – 3/5

You'll forgive me, but I memorized "Harlem" by Langston Hughes dozens of years ago and I always struggled to figure out what it meant. Ma Rainey helps me get there. "What happens to a dream deferred?" aka, where do you put your rage? You can't aim your anger at the people who deserve it, the ones with the boot on your throat, because they'll just press harder. So you aim it at the people around you; occupants of the same leaky boat. If you put them on the bottom, at least it means you're not there. If you can't be with the ones you hate, hate the ones you're with. I overall didn't really love watching this movie because it's just a play put on film, and Chadwick Boseman is playing to the back row; not allowing for any nuance or subtlety that film might provide. But the anger! The reaching for, the hanging onto what little power is available. "Or does it explode?"