Cadillac Records

Darnell Martin’s Cadillac Records, which tells the story of Chess Records and its marquee artists at the birth of Rock ’n’ Roll, achieves greater realism than any other recent biopic about the same era of music by virtue of one four-syllable word that cannot be printed here (it starts with “mother,” its latter two syllables rhyme with “trucker,” and it is subject to a half-dozen different pronunciations and connotations in this film alone). With this one versatile word, and many other verbal fruits of the film’s R-rating, the screenplay and terrific cast of Cadillac Records go where Ray and Walk the Line did not: accurately portraying the language of bluesmen, jazz singers, record executives, and disc jockeys in the 50’s and 60’s. The writer-director’s lavish attention to this and other details, along with excellent musical and dramatic performances, make Cadillac Records required viewing for those who love hearing blue notes bend.

Like the music it profiles, Cadillac Records soars on great performances in spite of sometimes-rickety material. Jeffrey Wright carries the film as Muddy Waters, who partners with would-be mogul Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), to distribute his Blues records to a wider radio audience, eventually ushering in Rock ’n’ Roll. Wright is a fantastic dramatic actor, and when he gets to sing and play guitar as Muddy, he absolutely kills it. Just as Wright brings a new vibrancy to Muddy’s hit songs, Beyoncé Knowles does the same for Etta James – she gives a knockout performance of “All I Could Do Was Cry” in a tense recording studio scene, and does her best dramatic work to date as Etta navigates family strife and heroin abuse. Another exceptional performance comes from Columbus Short as Little Walter, the harmonica virtuoso who played with Muddy Waters on many records before striking out on his own and dying young from alcoholism. Short and Wright have an easy chemistry, and their dramatic performances have the same sense of improvised give--and-take as the music they play together. An early scene of Muddy and Walter crashing another band’s gig and playing them off the stage is especially fun. Eamonn Walker and Mos Def each give excellent dramatic and musical performances, capturing the essences of Howlin’ Wolf and Chuck Berry, respectively – Mos Def’s “duck walk” is reason enough to see the film. Cedric the Entertainer makes the most of his few scenes as Willie Dixon, the bass player and writer of many of Muddy Waters’ hits, and is an inspired choice to narrate the film (Dixon was, in many ways, the consummate “man behind the man,” so it is fitting that Martin tells the Chess Records story in his voice).

Although Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon is an affable narrator, Cadillac Records is more interested in the music than it is in Chess Records or its founder, which makes for an uneven story to carry all the great musicians who pass through it. Without a single strong, central protagonist, the film feels somewhat episodic. Each performer’s subplot follows the same blueprint: the artist rises from obscurity, has a few hit songs, and encounters a significant problem to overcome. Years and major milestones are marked by the new model Cadillacs Leonard purchases for the Chess artists, but one wishes for a stronger sense of narrative progression. Also, entertaining as they are, the film’s interwoven stories do not entirely gel into a single, coherent plot. As a result of this episodic, kaleidoscopic narrative, Leonard Chess – who is the common thread binding all these musician and, therefore, ought to be the film’s center – is overwhelmed by the characters surrounding him. In spite of Adrien Brody’s solid performance, Leonard is written as a supporting character in his own story. It bears mention that Darnell Martin takes some liberties with history – for example, Leonard ran Chess Records with his brother Phil, who does not exist in the film – but conveys with verve and credibility what facts could not: the essence of the music, the artists, and their time period.

The production of Cadillac Records is first-rate. Pitch-perfect costumes, art direction, cinematography, and especially music enable Martin and the film’s performers to immerse the audience in the film’s period and styles. The only regrettable aspect of the film’s execution is Martin’s choice of shots. Because Martin has spent most of her career directing for television – she has received accolades for work on series as varied as Grey’s Anatomy and Oz – she tends toward very close coverage of actors in dialogue scenes. The film’s preponderance of close-ups blunts the dramatic impact of the shot in some of the film’s more intense scenes and gives Cadillac Records a less varied visual palette than it should have. Martin offers a few beautiful landscapes and uses the recording studio’s glass booth for some inspired staging, but wider shots are lacking in many of the film’s musical performances – when we want most to see the actor’s entire body – and dialogue scenes.

One wishes Cadillac Records could be greater than the sum of its parts, but the film is made up of so many excellent performances and music, it seems almost ungrateful to ask for more. Blues fans will find the most to love, and casual music fans will likely enjoy seeing familiar actors sing and play instruments in period costume. The blast of musical goodwill that emanates from Cadillac Records is best summed up in song by Chuck Berry:

You know, my temperature's risin'
And the jukebox blowin’ a fuse
My heart's beatin' rhythm
And my soul keeps on singin' the blues...

                                                          Stuart Weinstock