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Thread: Taylor Hackford: Ray (2004)

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    Taylor Hackford: Ray (2004)

    Taylor Hackford: Ray (2004)

    by Chris Knipp

    Perfect mimicry, at the right time

    "Biopics Set to Rule the Oscars," a headline reads. But are any of them great movies? That's a tough one. We've got J.M.Barrie in Marc Foster's touching Finding Neverland, Bobby Darren in Kevin Spacey's astonishing (and intermittently successful) ego-fest Beyond the Sea, Scorsese's dashing, high-rolling neurotic epic about Howard Hughes The Aviator, and we've got Taylor Hackford's Ray. Why is it that Ray seems the most significant as a biography? There are a number of reasons. Ray Charles died this year, for some of us far eclipsing Ronald Reagan and reminding us how great he was and will remain as a figure of American and world-wide music. He's the most endearing figure (artistically) of the lot, currently the most universally important American musical artist to be memorialized. And the movie is an unmitigated celebration of the man and his art. We can't question his importance to us or the enduring power of his recordings.

    Jamie Foxx, who plays Ray Charles in the movie, has had a breakout year with three big roles in the superb Michael Mann noir Collateral, in Ray, and in the slim but winning entertainment, Breakin' All the Rules. Foxx is now a certifiable movie star. Is he going to be a great actor? We'll see. But he has the power to dominate a movie screen. His Ray rarely reveals true emotion: even when he's being bitter and combative with business associates his face is a grinning mask. Foxx's performance doesn't scream and beg for our attention the way Kevin Spacey's does or sport the flash and grandeur of diCaprio's, but it has presence. It's remarkably assured and skillful, at once forthright and self-effacing. (In the context of Spacey's Darren, you notice that.) Foxx's immitation of Ray Charles Robinson (and it is an act of mimicry, like Will Smith's Ali) -- of his voice, movements, and especially that rolling, pigeon-toed walk -- is uncannily evocative. It's a cold, detached, performance, but Ray Charles -- cut off from the world by his drugs, his blindness, his genius, his invincible will to thrive -- was a detached man. Note also that except fror a brief imaginary sequence, Foxx has to do all his acting with his eyes covered by big dark glasses.

    Flashbacks show how Ray saw his younger brother drown in a washtub and failed to save him and then went blind. Is there a connection? This isn't explored, but it's made clear that abject poverty, trauma and guilt certainly fed into Charles's heroin addiction and drinking. It looks like he continued to drink and smoke marijuana after kicking heroin; but the movie paints its pictures in broad strokes, without defining what did and didn't happen, what is and isn't known as a documentary might do. The young actor who plays Ray as a boy and the actress who plays Ray's mother are both touching and good.

    Much of Ray, aside from focusing on how the music came to be, is about how Charles fought to foil those who would like to cheat him, and later, to limit his artistic scope. This is heavily stressed in early scenes where a woman acts as his first "manager," making all arrangements and providing free lodging but demanding sexual favors and syphoning off most of his pay for herself. He insists on one-dollar bills so he can count them, and later this leads to conflict and spurs his departure for Seattle -- the farthest he could get from Florida where he's been all along up till now -- where he meets Quincy Jones and begins a freer musical life. His hard bargaining comes up when he goes from the small, jazz-oriented Atlantic to the big ABC-Paramount label and he demands ownership of the masters of his disks, a thing even Frank Sinatra didn't have. It's made clear that when Charles records with strings with ABC, it wasn't their choice but a new format he chose (and with fine results, as was the case with Charlie Parker). The movie doesn't go into the actual detail of all the labels Ray worked with.

    What emerges in the artistic portrait is what we already know: that Ray Charles turned songs of every genre, soul, pop, gospel, or country, into gold -- and into something purely his own; a universal piece of music: a Ray Charles song. His versions of "Georgia" and "Yesterday" are equally classic and unforgettable, better than anybody else's and beyond time. Unfortunately, his "Yesterday" isn't included in the movie, which otherwise does hit most of the high spots for us. But the historical arc of the biopic also shows us that Charles wasn't always Charles but more of a Nat Cole clone when he first gained attention on the "Chinlin' Circuit" -- till he began recording with Atlantic and Ahmet Ertegun guided him to a distinctive, gutsier style beginning with stride piano and a song Ertegun himself had written. (The Beyond the Sea Bobby Darren biopic has an Ertegun (the actually Turkish Tayfun Bademsoy) who looks more like the real McCoy than Ray's Curtis Armstrong.)

    The rest of the story is women and drugs, plus the childhood traumas and lessons his mamma taught him. He had many women; his wife never went on the road. He was barely present as a father. His main "road" woman was an alcoholic singer who died of a heroin overdose, a tragedy Ray shares onscreen with his wife. Ray himself became a heroin addict early on and remained one till the feds caught him returning from Canada. He was also a heavy smoker and many scenes are atmospherically wreathed in smoke.

    As is usual in musical bio-pics, and this one often falls into conventional patterns, songs don't get played out in full. But the joy and rhythm of them and many of the ways they came into being, these we feel and see. Lip-synching is hardly an adequate term for the way Foxx recreates Ray Charles's facial expressions as he sings. Has anyone ever done this better? Foxx's performance may in a sense be mechanical, but it's triumphantly so. The movie stops in the Seventies, then does a quick recap of the great artist's later decades. It's not Foxx's fault -- or Taylor Hackford's either -- that Will Smith in Ali had more warmth and charisma; that's the difference between the men.

    For this and other Knipp reviews, go here: http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewforum.php?f=1
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-01-2005 at 08:49 PM.

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    What I enjoyed about the film were the performances. Not only Foxx's whole-body mimicry, which you describe so well, but Kerry Washington's nuanced acting as Della. The whole casting of the film's on the mark.

    "Songs don't get played out in full" is an understatement. Snippets of the original recordings, which sound better than ever in properly equipped theatres. A lost opportunity to showcase the music.Though Ray does a good job of conveying Charles' dexterity and ease in a variety of musical genres, the film gives the false impression of Charles as a particularly autobiographical songwriter. Attempts at visualizing the creative process are quite inelegant, with Foxx seeminly jumping on the piano right after anything eventful.

    Definitely no hagiography, Ray concentrates on the "hard" years, coming to a halt in '65 when Charles got busted at Logan and kicks heroin (but not cannabis, nicotine or gin). Then it jumps to '79 for a scene lasting a few seconds set in the Georgia Senate building. I found Ray both worthwhile and frustrating.
    Last edited by oscar jubis; 01-02-2005 at 08:39 AM.

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    the film gives the false impression of Charles as a particularly autobiographical songwriter.
    Good point. Incidents surrounding song choices seem tweaked to make them all seem relevant to the life. A weakness of the genre.

    "Songs don't get played out in full" is an understatement. Snippets of the original recordings, which sound better than ever in properly equipped theatres. A lost opportunity to showcase the music.
    I believe Tavernier's Dexter Gordon portrait Round Midnight and Clint Eastwood's Charllie Parker story Bird have the virtue of a couple of complete long jazz cuts, though the sound track of the latter is confused by having authentic recordings mixed in with studio recreations.

    The acting in Ray is good. I don't know how "on the mark" all the casting is without knowing all the people, though. The Ahmet Ertegun example isn't great casting.

    "No hagiography," but rumor has it Ray (in the later years as well) was an insensitive and downright nasty man with associates, as artist/substance abusers can be: the movie isn't devastatingly honest either.

    I found Ray both worthwhile and frustrating.
    Agreed. Ray is a standard (the cliché is "boilerplate") biopic with a subject who's both popular and topical, plus some good acting.

    I remember Lady Sings the Blues as being more moving and disturbing; but maybe it's just that I was more malleable then. This time, somehow the traumas and vicissitudes of Ray left me a little cold, though the music is great, while it lasts.

    I said Foxx is a movie star now. I hope so. Foxx does not disappoint in either Ray or Collateral, but only time will tell whether this year was a fluke or a splendid beginning.

    Can somebody recommend some arguably great musical biopics?

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    Originally posted by Chris Knipp
    I believe Tavernier's Dexter Gordon portrait Round Midnight and Clint Eastwood's Charllie Parker story Bird have the virtue of a couple of complete long jazz cuts

    One can tell Tavernier and Eastwood love jazz. Dexter Gordon is actually playing a composite character named Dale Turner, "inspired by the lives of Bud Powell and Lester Young", in 'Round Midnight. Clint Eastwood's film is undeniably a musical biopic. It's the best one I've seen.

    I remember Lady Sings the Blues as being more moving and disturbing; but maybe it's just that I was more malleable then.

    Your comment is thoughtful. It's likely you'd still find it moving and disturbing. Few deny its entertainment value. Yet the pic is a "film maudit" for jazz lovers. Holiday fans like myself would rather watch a loved one being slaughtered. Two quotes from crits not particularly known as jazz enthusiasts:

    "Clearly, Lady Sings the Blues is an affront to Holiday's art" (Kehr)

    "Lady Sings the Blues fails to do justice to the musical life of which Billie Holiday was a part, and it never shows what made her a star, much less what made her an artist. The sad truth is that there's no indication that those who made the picture understand that jazz is any different from pop corruptions of jazz. Pop drives jazz back underground. And that's what this pop movie does to the career of a great jazz singer". (Kael)

    I'll be sad when the eventual dvd release occurs.

    Can somebody recommend some arguably great musical biopics?

    You brough up the great one(s). Most of the ones below are worthwhile, and flawed to different degrees.
    Amadeus may not fit the biopic criteria, based on a play about Mozart's relationship with Salieri. Probably the most overrated of the titles mentioned here.
    The Buddy Holly Story has a great perf from Gary Busey. Problem is Holly's short life was free of controversy, so the filmmakers made some up.
    Great Balls of Fire has serious factual errors, but the concert scenes are great and the casting's good.
    What's love got to do has problems with content but both Angela Bassett and Larry Fishburne are amazing. It's Tina singing too.
    Coal Miner's Daughter is quite uneven and becomes increasingly maudlin.
    The Doors has great images but "it's 15 minutes of peace and love and two hours of puritanical retribution. According to Stone, Morrison was an incoherent asshole with occasionally inspired poetic flashes". (Rosenbaum)
    If you like Douglas Sirk, check out The Eddy Duchin Story(1956), with Tyrone Power as the 30s pianist and bandleader.
    Last edited by oscar jubis; 01-02-2005 at 08:02 PM.

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    Thanks for the information and ideas. I certainly respect the Eastwood film...it meanders a bit. The Tavernier one is rather depressing. The doomed artist thing haunts musical biopics. True Lady Sings the Blues doesn't show the really hip musicality of Lady Day.

    I just watched Almodovar's High Heels from 1991 and noticed that the two songs in it are presented complete--he tends to have a song or two, complete. I loved the Caetano Veloso one in Able con Ella...

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    Originally posted by Chris Knipp
    I just watched Almodovar's High Heels from 1991 and noticed that the two songs in it are presented complete--he tends to have a song or two, complete.

    It's a certified Almodovar trademark since the early stages of his career. I haven't seen his debut feature (Fuck...fuck...fuck me Tim!), few have. But his second (Pepi, Luci, Bom) and third (Labyrinth of Passion) both include performances of complete songs. The latter includes Almodovar in drag singing songs he performed in the 70s as part of a duo with his friend Fabio McNamara.

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    I forgot to mention my favorite musical biopic other than Bird. Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory, with David Carradine as the legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie. Pity MGM has done such a poor job transferring the film to disc. Wait until this great film gets the deserved treatment.

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    Maybe we could change this to a musical biopic thread and combine it with BEYOND THE SEA.

    What about ROUND MIDNIGHT, with the late Dester Gordon playing a version of himself, movingly, very shortly before his death?

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