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The Unwound Third => Other Musical Interests => Topic started by: outfidel on November 19, 2008, 03:43:09 PM
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Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon, Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Columbus Short as Little Walter, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, and Beyonc? Knowles as Etta James. Rated R. Opens Dec 5th.
Check out the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QJyAXfG8NM
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WHY, WHY, M@#$%^&*&ING WHY, Don't they just bloody dub the original music in? So STUPID!! AAARRGGGHHH!
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Just don't expect too much historical accuracy, either. The review I read mentioned they wrote out one Chess brother and created a fictitious affair for another one. Well, it's entertainment after all, for the masses that is.
All for now.
John C.
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Review on NPR tonight. Mixed, the expression 'damning with faint praise' came to mind. Howlin' Wolf nowhere to be seen, fuh.
[edit: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97823203 I see Wolf is mentioned on the NPR website review. It didn't come across on the radio version. I was probably concentrating on avoiding pissed-off truckers stuck behind me in the Austin rush hour traffic. Personally I think Wolf was and will always be far and away Chess's biggest star]
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Some of the clips I've seen make it pretty obvious that this is, yet another, case of actors, holding musical instruments and pretending (quite unconvincingly) to play them.
Of course, I realize that they're acting (which is, by definition, pretending) and a certain amount of "suspension of disbelief" is required from the viewer, but how hard could it be to find somebody who's actually played the guitar, at least, somewhat?
It's embarrassing to watch.
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It is HOLLYWOOD. Movies are vehicles for celebrities and geared toward mass appeal.
No it isn't a documentary and it will be bastardized to bring in box office.......
BUT! it will expose a lot of younger folks to some great old music. Remind others of music they listened to a long time ago. For most it will be a couple hours entertainment ...for others I am sure it will open a door to discovering the originals.
Don't all us Guitar Geeks throw out the baby with the bath water. Will it bring a modern day Renaissance to Blues and Rhythm and Blues? I doubt it!
Will it turn a bunch of people into new blues lovers? Will it encourage people to buy some of these classics? I am sure it will and isn't that a good thing?
Isn't it great that millions of young kids who like Beyonce will see her in this and be exposed to Etta James music
"http://www.youtube.com/v/UxqpALfYhtQ&hl=en&fs=1"
Stephen
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Yeah, and for decades there will be forum threads about that affair that Leonard Chess had with... because that's all the research all these new 20 something fans will do. Shades of devils at crossroads.
All for now.
John C.
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http://www.amazon.com/Spinning-Blues-into-Gold-Legendary/dp/0312261330
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Without commenting on a movie I haven't even seen yet I would suggest that any attempt to make profound music more palatable will likely only be a failure for the true appreciation of that music.
This thing can only point people in a deeper direction.
I'm assuming 'Ray' & 'Walk The Line' made this Chess movie a possibility. But Muddy Waters & Howlin' Wolf & Little Walter are a bit harder to sell to the public than the already famous & beloved Ray Charles & Johnny Cash.
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WHY, WHY, M@#$%^&*&ING WHY, Don't they just bloody dub the original music in?
Agreed. I heard an interview with Mos Def on NPR. They cut in a clip of him singing "Nadine" and it was just flat and dull compared to the original. Sadly, the actor didn't seem to know much about Chuck Berry, either, let alone how to hold the guitar convincingly.
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Some of the clips I've seen make it pretty obvious that this is, yet another, case of actors, holding musical instruments and pretending (quite unconvincingly) to play them.
I've always hated this, even as a kid. Did ya all see Sean Penn in that Woody Allen flick 'Sweet Lowdown' er something?? Man, he did not look like he was playing the guitar at all, real bad. Good movie tho'. Probably the best I've ever seen would be Raplh 'Karate Kid' Macchio in the infamously historically innaccurate 'Crossroads'. I've been told Ralph actually plays so there you go. You would think that with all the bozos who play guitar nowadays that they'd make an extra effort to get someone in there to train these actors. Or, hell, watch some videos of guitar players.
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Johnny Depp gets a lot of points for actually playing country blues, with fingerpicks, on an old National, in the French movie Chocolat.
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Yes, I agree, Crossroads has a lot going for it and it stands up well after a few decades.
As for Cadillac Blues and another fairly recent blues-related movie, Honeydripper:
First, if you are interested in blues, and you are if you're reading this, then you have to see them. It's not every day that a major blues-themed movie comes out so go, there are a lot of things you will enjoy. And rent Honeydripper.
But a problem I have with both of them is that they treat blues as the prelude to rock 'n' roll. That is as idiotic as treating Shakespeare as the predecessor to some modern novelist. Of course he influenced the modern novelist, but that is not what is important about him. And despite what these films say, blues is fabulous and important music regardless of what came after it. But you know that. I'll write a longer review of both films. But in the meantime, go see them and enjoy the music and the stories and the settings and all that. Cheers, SC
--
Steve Cheseborough
www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/videos/view/67-Steve-Cheseborough
www.stevecheseborough.com
http://cdbaby.com/cd/cheseborough1
http://cdbaby.com/cd/cheseborough2
www.myspace.com/stevecheseborough
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Yes, yes, yes. Slowly I turned, step by step.....This f**kin' business of Blues being important because it was the progenitor of Shlock & Drool, makes me leap outta my feakin' skin! And Chezz, your Shakespeare analogy is right on the money! But this manner of thinking is endemic in our culture. It has freakin' pervaded every aspect of existence. Nothing has any value at all, it only has TRANSITORY value, value as something that leads to THE NEXT BIG FREAKIN" THING! YOUNG! NEW! BETTER! The three stooges of American thought!
Here's my analysis, and anyone doing their doctorate in cultural history, art history or sociology can give me a footnote:
Culture was INFECTED by rapid advances in early twentieth century technology! Because technology and streamlined production methods created the expectation of a limitless horizon of technological ADVANCES & IMPROVEMENTS the idea that ALL aspects of human experience were subject to advances and improvements took hold at the deepest levels of consciousness. It is not unrelated to other notions of perfectibility that our species has occasionally invented; the idea of Paradise for example. So whereas during the renaissance artists and scientists were looking for that which reconfirmed, restated and reconfigured what they thought of as the eternal verities, at the same time as they introduced radical new discoveries and procedures, in the post technological revolting :P epoch, the old is ASSUMED to be inferior. It is presumed to exist ONLY for the purpose of being supplanted.
The problem is that this line of reasoning falls apart when it comes to matters of art. Stravinsky, great and innovative as he was, was not an Improvement on Bach. Neither is Picasso an improvement on Van Gogh or Masaccio, or Giotto, let alone Michaelangelo.
James Joyce did not produce a better work than Milton (though he's right up there).
And No Rock n' Roll can seriously claim to have surpassed the great Blues players in terms of the music's complexity, intensity, diversity and ability to move the heart and soul and inspire the mind. Its no accident that the greatest artist Rock & Roll produced was the one who naturally gravitated to the renaissance model of thought, and spent as much time looking back as forward. I'm not including obvious links like Chuck, Bo, Ike James Brown , Fats Domino, Little Richard.et al. Next generation...you guess.
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and spent as much time looking back as forward
Elvis impersonators are the greatest artists rock & roll has produced? :P
Seriously, O'Muck, I think renaissance composers thought late medieval composers were thoroughly odl-fashioned, baroque composers thought the same of the renaissance guys, the early classicists thought the baroque guys were old farts, and on and on. Nothing is new under the sun.
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The accepted wisdom among renaissance painters, sculptors and architects was that the greatest achievements had happened during antiquity and that their mission was to try to bring contemporary culture back up to that level through close study and emulation of its forms.
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I don't argue that. But that view means that they saw the late medieval artists that they were replacing in a very unfavorable light. And don't forget that, as much as renaissance musicians thought they were recapturing the greatest achievements of antiquity, early baroque music, especially opera, thought they'd gotten it wrong and set out on a different path to recapture the glories of the ancient world.
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In all cases there was an acknowledgment of an earlier form which set the standards for succeeding generations. At no point did even the greatest artists consider that they'd succeeded in surpassing the work of the ancients. This is certainly the case in the visual arts, the particulars regarding music my be different. Were Corelli, Vivaldi,Buxtihude, Biber, Handel & Bach just a century behind the painters and sculptors in forming an idealized image of the ancients which propelled their inventions?
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It also occurs to me that while Corelli's invention had the most profound consequences and gave birth to a form which produced some of the greatest artistic achievements, his own music was not an improvement in terms of intensity, beauty, ability to convey emotion over someone like Monteverdi.
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I know a thing or two about art history, I lived with an art historian once. I'm not sure the analogy with music holds, in every case.
One word: Kandinski & Expressionism. OK, two words. What The Blue Rider group set in motion changed the art world at a stroke after WW I, when decadent Art Nouveau and the older Impressionism thankfully seemed suddenly passe for a moment. Now Nouveau seems quaint, and Impressionism is always back in fashion since it goes so well with a certain designer look, and much of it is incredible art. The horrors of the trenches triggered the Expressionists to create a revolution. There was no discernible throwback or knee-jerk hat doffing to the past, though I recall from the recesses of my brain Kandinski was a post-Impressionist before whatever lightbulb went off in his head, and Marcel Duchamp was into the whole classical geometry thing, a.k.a. The Golden Section. Or was that someone else.
I suppose what I'm saying is there are evolutions, and there are revolutions, both in visual arts and music. I just torpedoed my original bloated false dichotomy so I'll modify it. Significant changes in art and music always embody elements of evolution and revolution. The seismic shifts are more concerned with revolution.
I can't think of anything as violent in music as the dawn of Expressionism in visual arts. The Sex Pistols on the Bill Grundy Show made a bloody good attempt. Think of decadent tripe being churned out in the mid 70s by the The Eagles etc as overproduced Art Nouveau, and the Sex Pistols as the upstart Expressionists, you get the picture.
Stockhausen and John Cage were the audio equivalent of Expressionism I suppose but sounded like a load of junk falling off a truck and dragged 5 miles, to most ordinary people, including moi.
So, what exactly is my point? That's the same question I asked after reading OMuck and dj's posts, that prompted me to write this in the first place! :D
[edited to tone down the revisionist art history a little after googling]
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My point had to do with the idea of things being assigned value ONLY as evolutionary stepping stones to a another form I.E. Blues to Rn'R in this case.
Wave the expressionists at me will ye matey? >:D The entire Blau Rider group's endeavor was in fact a BACKWARD looking movement based in large part on the BACKWARD looking work of Paul Gauguin. What were they looking backward at? In Gauguin's case primarily Romanesque sculpture and Gothic stained glass, with a pinch of indigenous Oceanic imagery, and a modicum of Javanese, Cambodian and Egyptian spices thrown in for taste. Gauguin also played guitar and mandolin btw. Not content to have produced Bach and Beethoven, Durer and Grunewald, the Germans have always had a bit of an ineriority complex as regards the visual arts, and especially in relation to France (and Italy..and Spain,,,and Holland,,,and Belgium.... you get the picture, well there's always England). Add a sprinkling of post war national identity angst (we all know where that led) and a dash of the then current ideas of their Viennese neighbor Freud and you had a group of committed modernists (Kandinsky's great inspiration was actually Matisse and he was a Russian anyway) who began mining the mythic imagery of Germanic-Nordic legend and culture, particularly the same kind of Romanesque grotesque images that had inspired Gauguin. One need only look to the likes of Bosch, Grunewald, Brueghel, Van Eyck, Van Der Goes and other great pre renaissance and renaissance Northern painters to find the basis for the distortions and grotesquery that became hallmarks of expressionism. There was of course also the seminal expressionist, a Dutchman living in France by name of Vinnie "the Crow" Van Gogh. Matisse, and his Fauve compadres, Picasso and his African inspired distortions, Bonnard, Soutine, The influences were flying thick and fast in those years and coming literally from all over the planet and all over the timescape. Janus's panceras! Its almost January! The time of looking to the past and future simultaneously, from whence all worthy inspiration comes.
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And I thought I was a revisionista... Backward looking? How is chucking riotous globs of paint at a 20 foot high canvas in 1920-something backward looking?
Gauguin??? You mention Gauguin, in the same sentence, neigh, thread, as Kandinski? >:(
I'm talkin' non-representational art here Mr O... Gauguin? I love Gauguin. But not in the same league, neigh, dimension, as K's perfectly balanced squiggles and enigmatic geometries, not to mention the shadings and wilder abstractions. K was free of representational bonds, G painted people on the beach, lot of fruit. K painted on hardboard, cardboard, washing machine cartons... Did Leonardo do that? I don't think so! Even though he did produce the first visionary sketches of today's modern front loading fully automatic washing machine.
I was so lucky to live in Germany in the '80s when a huge Kandinsky show came through Dusseldorf. Blew my head off. Man oh man, the Germans love their art and exhibit it with the respect it deserves. One painting occupies a complete wall of a room, 30 feet long x 20 feet high, natural skylights... I really, really miss the galleries in Deutschland.
BTW, I take your point about things being assigned value ONLY as evolutionary stepping stones to a another form I.E. Blues to Rn'R in this case. People fear radical, revolutionary change but it's good for 'em, in the hands of real artists, not politicians or record company executives. Speaking of which 'Change we can believe in' is a bad sentence, ending in a preposition. 'Change in which we can believe' is a little better but not as catchy. Whatever, I won't hold my breath!
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Paul Gauguin gave birth to the first "officially" non objective painting known to be done in the era of "modern" art called the Talsiman around 1888 in Pont Aven, France. He did not paint it but rather held a pistol to the head of one of his students Paul Serusier, and forced him to. Western artists from the fourteenth century until the present have been fascinated with and frequently depicted the purely abstract patterns of "Oriental" rugs however.
What moved Kandinsky from a Gauguin-esque post impressionist style to his non objective work? It was his girlfriend and former student Olga Meerson a fellow Russian who went to study with Matisse and was Kandinsky's source of information about Matisse's heroic abstract experiments of the first decade of the twentieth century.
As far as Leonardo is concerned; I can't find the quote online, but in his writings he advises painters to gaze in an unfocused manner at rough, crumbling walls, and let the shadows and irregularities suggest movement and compositional ideas.Hmmm.
Of the Blue Rider, only Kandinsky became truly committed to non objective painting. Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabriele M?nter,Lyonel Feininger, all retained aspects of figurative and landscape imagery throughout their careers. Other prominent German Expressionists, like Kirchner, Pechstein and Nolde were likewise involved with figurative and landscape imagery as was the greatest twentieth century German painter, Max Beckmann. They all acknowledged their debt to Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse and the Fauves as well as to their indigenous and medieval sources. :)
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Well you got me there, I can only talk about how the originals affected me up close. Unlike anything I've seen before or since. True originality is pretty obvious when you see it, and the bigger the canvas and more natural the light the better. Flicking back through my memories the Kandinskis hold their ground in that respect. You're very lucky to live in NYC, I'd love to be able to visit the MOMA on a regular basis, and have never been. I'll look you up next time I'm there and we can argue about art!
PS my definition of full-on 'expressionism' is you can't really see anything you recognize as a physical thing in the real world, you see only emotional and intellectual expressions of 'stuff'. By that def Gauguin was not an expressionist, though he was undeniably expressionistic, nor were the Blue Riders who lapsed back into comfy pastoral scenes when K moved on to wherever it was, I forget the story. Van Gogh was something else entirely, a movement unto himself. I think of VG as the Elvis of art, very very good but a tad overrated. But that's just my definition.
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Only over a beer! I'll buy.
One of the things that interests me with regards to all this early twentieth century explosion of creativity, is that it is part and parcel of the whole Weenie continuum, yet da Blues don't get no respect!
I would like to see this music take its deserved place in the cultural pantheon as the serious (and sometimes not so serious ) work that it is. Do Charlie Patton, Gary Davis, Big Bill, Skip James & Geechie Wiley deserve to have their names listed right up there with Picasso, Stravinsky, Joyce and Graham?
Yeah, I think they do. Another fantastic, geographically contained flowering of genius in an unlikely place, but part of the bigger world cultural picture? Yeah, I think so. In fact the development and archiving of early twentieth century African American music is one of THE great stories and legacies of our late great twentieth.
Right up there with Cubism or any other ism.
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PS my definition of full-on 'expressionism' is you can't really see anything you recognize as a physical thing in the real world, you see only emotional and intellectual expressions of 'stuff'. By that def Gauguin was not an expressionist, though he was undeniably expressionistic, nor were the Blue Riders who lapsed back into comfy pastoral scenes when K moved on to wherever it was, I forget the story. Van Gogh was something else entirely, a movement unto himself. I think of VG as the Elvis of art, very very good but a tad overrated. But that's just my definition.
Well, that would be a personal definition, Riv. Expressionism only calls for the distortion of reality to express emotion, not the supplanting of reality, which might define all of abstract art, but that's a much broader spectrum than what you guys are talking about, no? Actually, for me, movement toward abstraction tends to lead away from expressionism, as it becomes too personal.
Geez, how can you discuss expressionism without mentioning Edvard Munch?
VG over rated? In a letter to his sister (not Theo) he said something to the effect, 'when I paint a line, I don't know that I'm really painting a line that I see, but more that I am painting a line that I dreamt.' If that doesn't signal the advent of modern art....
I agree about blues unto itself, Mr. O'M.
All for now.
John C.
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I like a nice landscape with some cows in the middle distance... :o
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Cuyp!
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VG over rated? In a letter to his sister (not Theo) he said something to the effect, 'when I paint a line, I don't know that I'm really painting a line that I see, but more that I am painting a line that I dreamt.' If that doesn't signal the advent of modern art...
Not like Elvis. Like Mohammed Ali, he was the greatest.
So radical that almost nobody gets him even today, and at the time his work really did seem insane to all but about ten people in the world. You have to travel back 300 years to the work of his fellow countryman Rembrandt to find an equally affecting group of portraits. The shock his work caused was not even equalled by Pollock's drip paintings. And btw (sorry 'bout this) if you want to understand Pollock you have to go back to sixteenth century Venice and the work of Tintoretto. Thats what Pollock did.
Final note:
If you are in late middle age (like me) and your batteries need recharging, try a 22 year ol...No sorry don't know what got into me. No seriously read Van Gogh's letters. There's a small paperback collection called Dear Theo, letters to his brother. It is not only profoundly beautiful writing, but a concentrated dose of the best kind of inspiration. A holy text for secularists.
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Final note:
If you are in late middle age (like me) and your batteries need recharging, try a 22 year ol...
Personally, I like a 65 yo...Guitar!
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Also good!
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Wax, you're right. I did say 'full-on expressionism', which is what I like, and to me that means total abstraction. I sometimes see things that might be cows in the paintings I like but they could be also be upside down chickens, or cannons, or more likely nothing that ever lived, was formed, evolved or made. My point is the content of fully abstract art is just that, fully abstract. The best of it is not overtly derivative, unless you're living with a 22 yr old art historian who will find a hundred ways to demonstrate how derivative it actually is, hopefully over a nice bottle of chianti and spaghetti bolognese.
Well that was a pleasant little jaunt... anyone seen the movie yet? :D
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Hi all,
I haven't seen the movie yet, but am interested in the prospect of seeing the performance of Jeffrey Wright, as Muddy Waters. I think Wright is one of the finest young actors out there nowadays. He was great in "Basquiat", "Ride With The Devil", "Syriana", really everything I've seen him in, and he is one of the rare actors who is quite different in different roles. Muddy is a pretty tough guy to capture, though, very striking looking and charismatic, to say nothing of his musicianship. It may be an impossible role, sort of like playing (as opposed to impersonating) Elvis.
All best,
Johnm
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Well that was a pleasant little jaunt... anyone seen the movie yet? :D
Er, um...what movie?
;)
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I've seen "Cadillac Records" twice, and would like to offer my opinions. I hope that nobody gets offended. I feel that Wright did a poor job. He didn't bring to the film the charisma and sexuality that the real Muddy Waters possessed. His vocals and his speech also sounded very flat and certainly not masculine enough to resemble those of Muddy. Perhaps I should say that his vocals also were not bass-oriented. (Perhaps I should also state that I know very little about music, and am hoping that Muddy sang in a bass or false bass voice?). I don't want to make a fool of myself!
On the other hand, the actor who played Little Walter was very, very good, and the one who played Wolf was great, though he was barely in the film at all. The original recordings definitely should have been used. There is certainly no excuse for not having the original recordings on the soundtrack! [Please SKIP to the next paragraph if you don't want to read a potential spoiler!!!!!] In my opinion, the ending of the film was idiotic, as it used a two second flashback to Muddy's days in Mississippi to hammer home the point that Muddy had achieved something. Surely, there was a more subtle way of hammering home this point. Also, the inclusion of Rap music at the end of the film (in order to show that Blues is relevant to today's "music") really stuck out like a sore thumb.
As many have stated, I wish that these Blues-related films and documentaries would appeal more to fans and not to the general public. Perhaps an excellent director would be able to create a film about Chess Records, or the history of Blues in general (as in the botched "The Blues" documentary from a few years ago), that appeals to both younger, Pop fans, and all of us Weenies.
I think that Mr. O'Muck makes a lot of sense. I would like to quote him, and then say something in response to the quote.
"The accepted wisdom among renaissance painters, sculptors and architects was that the greatest achievements had happened during antiquity and that their mission was to try to bring contemporary culture back up to that level through close study and emulation of its forms."
2,500 years ago, in ancient China, Confucius also believed in looking back to antiquity in order to understand how human beings could achieve Benevolence/create a benevolent society. There is a four (Chinese) character proverb which I learned in a Korean religions seminar that translates into "To WARM up the OLD, is to KNOW the NEW". I capitalized the letters in those four words because those are the four characters, respectively. (Warm, Old, Know, New).
Anyway, I think that Mr. O'Muck has a good head on his shoulders!
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Has anyone ever seen a film where the performances by the actors were considered superior to those of the individuals they portrayed?
Re: Confucius--this is referred to as the "idealized concept of the past." (Where are Yao and Shun, King Wen and King Wu when we really need 'em?)
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Nixon!-G-
All for now.
John C.
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Marlon Brando as Marc Anthony
Dereck Jacobi as the Emperor Claudius
Edgar G. Robinson as Paul Erlich
Paul Muni as Louis Pasteur
Anthony Quinn as Quinn the Eskimo
Sohpia Loren as any Roman or Spaniard in a tight bodice
Peter Sellers as a Henry Kissinger, Edward Teller amalgam
George C. Scott as Patton
Jane Fonda as Barbarella (I knew the real Barbarella)
Ed Harris as John Glenn
Boris Karloff as ...anything.
Bela Lugosi as Dracula
and special mention to the damn fine characterizatins Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn turned in as Vincent VanGogh and Paul Gauguin respectivly in John Hustons fine "Lust for Life'
though the originals were too big to top.
Likewise Ed Harris in Pollock.
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Anyway, I think that Mr. O'Muck has a good head on his shoulders!
I thank you sir.
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I was just referring to singers and/or musicians--and it wasn't a rhetorical question. Anyone come to mind?
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Then you should have specified musicians. In that case no. Well there was Bruce Lee as Yehudi Menuin but the critics were split on his performance.
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Then you should have specified musicians.
I didn't want to spoil the fun. :P
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We watched Cadillac Records the other night. I was surprised, actually enjoyed it a lot.
Audiences with a little bit of knowledge of the subject will have to suspend disbelief factually and emotionally. If you can do that you will enjoy it. The film's major accomplishment is conveying the revolutionary nature of Muddy and the early Chicago electric blues scene. If that's not enough you can fixate on the sets and props, more tailfin Cadillacs and vintage mics than you can shake a stick at.
There is some great character acting. Beyonce as Etta James I really enjoyed, nice to see a pop singer doing something worthwhile for a change and, yes, she really can sing. Mos Def as Chuck Berry is superbly droll. The Little Walter and Muddy characters are very good. Leonard Chess, I have no idea what he was like but the actor is believable and absorbing. Willie Dixon, good job.
The guy who played Howlin' Wolf really captured Wolf, though he needed to put on another 50 pounds. The storyline has Muddy and Wolf as big rivals, I think that might have been overdone for dramatic effect, Mud helped Wolf get gigs when he first arrived as I recall.
Go see it. Best heard in DTS-HD 5.1 Master surround sound, rent the Blu-Ray if you have the firepower in your living room.
PS, I forgot to mention, the music is pretty authentic too, within the limitations of a cinema release feature film.
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I saw it over the summer. Beyonce ...I'll watch her do anything. Good job though. The guy that played Wolf was really extraordinary, he stood out from the rest of the cast. Must be the British dramatic training. I wonder what Chuck Berry thinks of the film? Mos Def certainly projects none of Chuck's suave charisma.
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I don't know much about Chuck's real life persona so wasn't really editing Mos Def for authenticity. It worked for me as a stand alone portrayal of somebody or other. Mos Def is on the ACL Festival bill in a couple of weeks, we're going so I'll be checking him out.
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I thought the actors did a good job summoning up the spirit of the originals but the movie just didn't work for me. I thought it was laboured & had no heart.
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I felt that the man who played Wolf did a marvelous job, but didn't have enough screen time. Mos Def did a good job playing Berry, but his vocals were horrible. The actor who played Walter was fantastic.
Perhaps the main weakness of the entire project was that the actor who played Muddy was not nearly as charismatic as Muddy and didn't have a voice that was even in the same register as that of Mr. Waters. Of course, we can't forget the many historical inaccuracies of the film, such as Leonard having a heart attack right after Beyonce/Etta recorded "I'd Rather Go Blind". I believe these two events were years apart. Also, there was no Bo Diddley in the movie!
The ending, with Rap music playing, was quite silly. I understand the need to relate Blues to today's music, but this could have been done via words/brilliant narration, as opposed to playing Rap.