Deconstructing James Brown: "Get On Up" (2014)

directed by Tate Taylor
starring Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Dan Aykroyd
Jill Scott, Tika Sumpter, Aunjanue Ellis, Tariq Trotter

August 6, 2014

If you didn't know it before, by now you should all know the name of Chadwick Boseman. Let's hope Oscar knows it too when awards season rolls around.

How can any performer truly embody the essence of a preternaturally talented, conflicted, driven, troubled, egomaniacal, essentially history-making artistic personality -- especially one who, in his later years, became something of a frazzled caricature? Watch Chadwick Boseman portray the mighty James Brown in Get On Up, and the answer is there before you on screen. It's uncanny: the cadence of his speech, his physicality, the street-wise logic, and the hair (oh, the hair). The darkness and the light of the Soul Man, while still lending him dignity.

Yes, the winds of controversy are blowing around this film. African Americans, so prominent on the screen, are missing from the production team in this instance (it was produced by British rock icon Mick Jagger, among others). A story about one of the most influential, beloved, and conflicted figures in American music seems to skip over some essential facts. The film itself hopscotches through times, cherry-picking pivotal moments. It skirts the protagonist's problems with domestic violence and drug abuse. But what it does show adds up to a lasting impression of the man's life and times, and engages the audience in co-authoring the import of the narrative from what we thought we knew and what we learn here.

col·lage
[kuh-lahzh, koh-] noun
1. a technique of composing a work of art by pasting on a single surface various materials not normally associated with one another, as newspaper clippings, parts of photographs, theater tickets, and fragments of an envelope ....

Yada yada yada, let's get to

4. a film that presents a series of seemingly unrelated scenes or images or shifts from one scene or image to another suddenly and without transition.

This is a film collage, a sewing together of scenes, inspirations, influences, and ideas about Brown. As a piece of art, Get On Up stands out as an attempt to add context to the myriad pieces of a divided soul. The performance by Boseman, as well as those of the stellar supporting cast, is toweringly compelling.

Controversy aside -- Watch it, and have a funky good time.