MOVIE REVIEW | 'RAY' Portrait of Genius, Painted in Music
MuckTheDuck
I think I'll catch it opening day tomorrow when it opens in theaters
across the country.
The review is already up on the New York Times website for tomorrow's
edition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/movies/29ray.html?ex=1100001603&ei=1&en=ab56afb02bafba4a
The New York Times
Movies
October 29, 2004
MOVIE REVIEW | 'RAY'
Portrait of Genius, Painted in Music
By A. O. SCOTT
WHEN Ray Charles died in June, he had ascended to the most rarefied
level of fame; no longer merely a celebrity, he had become an
institution. There is no doubt that he deserved this status, or that
he enjoyed it, but universal esteem is not always a blessing for an
artist. Some of Charles's music has become so familiar that we risk
growing deaf to the audacity and innovation that made it great in the
first place. The opening bars of "Hit the Road Jack" can be heard at
every ballpark in the land, whenever a hapless pitcher heads for the
showers - a clever enough joke the first hundred times you hear it but
a curious fate for a song that crackles with so much high-spirited
sexual drama.
In "Ray," the new film biography directed by Taylor Hackford, some of
that drama is restored, and you hear some of Charles's best music -
the signature R & B hits of the mid-1950's, the astonishing forays
into orchestral pop and country-and-western of the early 60's - as if
for the first time. In the movie's account, "Hit the Road Jack"
emerges almost spontaneously from a hotel-room lovers' quarrel between
Ray (Jamie Foxx) and Margie Hendricks (Regina King), one of his backup
singers. This episode may be apocryphal, and is no doubt embellished,
but "Ray" succeeds, to an unusual extent for a movie of this kind, in
presenting a vivid, convincing portrait of an artist.
If it falls into some of the lacquered conventions that bedevil so
many biopics, it also has some of the sly candor that makes Charles's
memoir, "Brother Ray" (written with David Ritz), such a delight to
read. And though "Ray" occasionally strays into sentimentality and
facile psychologizing, Mr. Hackford and James L. White, the
screenwriter, have hit upon an insight that eludes most filmmakers who
try to put the lives of artists on screen, namely that the real story
lies in the art itself.
So while "Ray" occasionally flashes back to Charles's childhood in
Florida, recounting the twin traumas of his younger brother's death
and his own blindness (the result of glaucoma), and while it does not
shy away from his womanizing or his heroin addiction, its main concern
is his music. Mr. Hackford trusts the audience's taste and
intelligence enough to assume that, much as we might be curious about
Charles's mother (Sharon Warren) or his marriage, we are most
interested in learning - in hearing - how Ray Charles went from Nat
King Cole-style crooning to a raucous fusion of gospel and blues and
beyond, treating the whole range of American vernacular music, black
and white, sacred and secular, urban and rural, as a cornucopia of
musical possibilities. We hear a lot of what he made of this bounty,
and "Ray" lets us appreciate Charles's genius and eclecticism in a way
that no CD boxed set could.
This is partly a result of Mr. Hackford's judiciousness and
generosity, and the deft way he weaves Charles's recordings through
the behind-the-scenes set pieces that fill out the narrative. But what
makes "Ray" such a satisfying picture, in spite of some shortcomings
and compromises, is Mr. Foxx's inventive, intuitive, and supremely
intelligent performance. That this erstwhile comedian possessed
formidable acting chops was evident even back in the days of "In
Living Color," but it was not always clear how far he would go in
developing them. It's clear now. He has mastered Charles's
leg-swinging gait, his open-mouthed smile and the tilt of his head, as
well as the speaking style that could sometimes sound like a form of
scat singing.
But there is much more than mimicry at work here. In his best
big-screen performances - as Drew (Bundini) Brown in Michael Mann's
"Ali," for instance, and as the young quarterback in Oliver Stone's
"Any Given Sunday" - Mr. Foxx has displayed an intriguing blend of
quick-wittedness, bravado and sensitivity, and his recognition of
those qualities in Ray Charles is the key to his performance. You get
the sense that he is not just pretending to be Ray Charles, but that
he understands him completely and knows how to communicate this
understanding through every word and gesture, without explaining a
thing.
Great popular art speaks for itself. "I'm not one to interpret my own
songs," Charles wrote in "Brother Ray," "but if you can't figure out
'What I Say,' then something's wrong. Either that, or you've never
heard the sweet sounds of love." And "Ray," at its best, partakes of
both the directness and the incomparable sophistication of his music.
Apart from the flashbacks to Charles's youth in rural north Florida
(where he was born Ray Robinson in 1930), the film concentrates on a
two-decade span - roughly from the late 1940's until the mid-60's -
during which he made his way from rough-and-tumble clubs and
chitlin'-circuit dance halls onto the top of the pop and R&B charts.
Along the way, we get a sense of the fertility of African-American
popular culture in the era of segregation, and of the hustling,
nickel-and-diming and endless negotiating that permeated all levels of
the music business. Musical genius that he was, Ray Charles was also a
sharp businessman. His experience taught him to be tough, ruthless and
suspicious of everyone, traits that Mr. Foxx presents without apology.
One of the insidious aspects of celebrity biographies is their
tendency to become disingenuous fables about the pathology of fame, in
which the price of success is reckoned in broken relationships,
substance abuse and self-destructive behavior. Spectacles of unhappy
genius, I guess, are meant to make the rest of us feel justified in
our mediocrity.
"Ray" does not entirely avoid this kind of moralism. Charles turns on
some of his most loyal band-mates and employees, including his
steadfast driver and road manager, Jeff Brown (Clifton Powell). Ray's
relationships with Margie, with his wife, Bea (Kerry Washington), and
with another singer, named Mary Ann (Aunjanue Ellis), all include
their share of tears and melodramatic fights. (All three of the
actresses hold their own in underwritten roles, with Ms. King in
particular matching Mr. Foxx's feints and weaves with bouncing
pugnacity). His drug habit and his workaholism take their inevitable
toll.
But if this kind of trouble is the price of artistic achievement, the
movie makes clear, as "Brother Ray" did, that Charles paid it
ungrudgingly, even joyfully. "Ray" is the story of a man surmounting
the obstacles of racism and disability, but for the most part it
steers clear of easy uplift or self-congratulation. Mr. Hackford
trusts his material and loves his subject, too much to puff the man up
with hagiography.
"Ray" while not a great movie, is a very good movie about greatness,
in which celebrating the achievement of one major artist becomes the
occasion for the emergence of another. I'm speaking of Ray Charles and
Jamie Foxx, of course, though at this point I'm not entirely sure I
can tell them apart.
"Ray" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has sex, drug
use and some profanity.
Ray
Opens nationwide today
Directed by Taylor Hackford; written by James L. White, based on a
story by Mr. Hackford and Mr. White; director of photography, Pawel
Edelman; edited by Paul Hirsch; music by Ray Charles, score by Craig
Armstrong; production designer, Stephen Altman; produced by Howard
Baldwin, Karen Baldwin, Mr. Hackford and Stuart Benjamin; released by
Universal Pictures. Running time: 152 minutes. This film is rated
PG-13.
WITH: Jamie Foxx (Ray Charles), Kerry Washington (Della Bea Robinson),
Clifton Powell (Jeff Brown), Aunjanue Ellis (Mary Ann Fisher), Harry
Lennix (Joe Adams), Larenz Tate (Quincy Jones), Sharon Warren (Mother)
and Regina King (Margie Hendricks).
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
MuckTheDuck
Jamie Foxx really captured Ray Charles in this film. He was brilliant.
Mr. Foxx should get an Oscar nomination this year for it and I think
he will probably win best actor and take the award.
"Ray" is perhaps the best biographical film I've ever seen. Recently I
saw the Cole Porter film, "Delovely", which depicted his life. That
film doesn't even come close to how great this one was.
Catch "Ray" this weekend if you can. It will be the number one film of
the week.
William_B...@yahoo.com (MuckTheDuck) wrote in message news:<fd072f62.04102...@posting.google.com>...