The film world is littered with also-ran second efforts from directors whose debut features took the world by storm but whose follow-ups missed the mark. There are simply too many to count.
But with Bessie—the biopic of renowned 1920s-era blues singer Bessie Smith that premieres on HBO this Sunday, May 16—out writer-director Dee Rees can set that worry aside. Rees's follow-up to 2012's Pariah, the autobiographical teenage coming out story of an African-American lesbian, is no less lyrical, no less complex, no less gorgeously shot ( by Jeffrey Jur ), and is also driven by a compelling lead performance.
That would be the one given by Queen Latifah, who sings up a storm as Bessie Smith and who brings a mixture of passion, unbridled fury and deep melancholy to her ferocious, no-holds-barred performance. Latifah, who has always had a strong bond with her audiences, is sensational portraying the legendary blues singer.
She is surrounded by a cast that includes Mo'Nique ( as Smith's mentor, Ma Rainey ), Khandi Alexander ( as Smith's sister ), Michael Kenneth Williams, Mike Epps, Oliver Platt and Charles S. Dutton. Through Smith's hardscrabble early life and bumpy career the film artfully explores the world of Black entertainers in the 1920s and 30s—a world rarely explored in cinema and that much more eye opening because of it.
Bessie—which Latifah executive-produced—doesn't skimp on exploring the intricacies of this emotionally damaged woman who electrified audiences with her red-hot talent and that includes her forthright bisexuality. Smith's complicated relationships—both female and male—are front and center throughout the film and are presented without judgement.
Windy City Times: Bessie is like a window onto a world that you just don't explored in movies. In a way, you are reclaiming history, right?
Dee Rees: Yeah. I mean, for me, the biggest challenge; the thing that I most wanted to respect was Bessie's voice. I just wanted to really make sure that I was bringing forth her authentic voice; not her anecdotal voice; not her "commercial voice." It was really difficult to find that voice because there's not a lot of documentation. I mean, everything about her is conflicting down to her birthdate. So that is the thing that I wanted to honor—you know—and to your point—to reclaim it by letting her speak for herself and not let others do that.
I tried to understand what she thought about the world; what she loved, what she was worried about, what she hated, and what she was insecure about. The best way to start to know an artist is through their work so that was like a doorway into her life.
WCT: What spoke to you so strongly about the material?
Dee Rees: I had known about her—she was someone who my grandmother would play. My mom had a cast album of a play that was a sendup of Black vaudeville. It was called One Mo' Time, and she would play that for me as a kid and we would dance around; that was my first taste of that world and the kind of un-self-conscious, unconcerned-with-the-mainstream artistry that it was. It was entertainment by Black people for Black people and I loved how they created for themselves without concern for the larger world. Also, I loved that Bessie was a Tennessee woman and I'm a Tennessee woman, too.
WCT: I understand that Queen Latifah had this on her "to-do" list for 22 years.
Dee Rees: That's right—this project has been around. I came on in 2012, the last two years; but, for me, it was a chance I didn't blink at. I wanted it to be from a woman's perspective. You know, to me, I thought that she was a radical feminist even though there wasn't a name for that and she didn't label herself that. But if you get into those lyrics—it's ironic, cynical, it's like humorous, it's like coded—I just really liked her work.
Even her recordings don't capture her fully because they are censored in some ways—the lyrics she would sing at the live shows wouldn't be the lyrics that got recorded. But the fact that she was bucking at the system—the fact that this was social protest—this was a political statement. The fact that she was daring enough to do that at a time when Black people had very few rights—which persists—were all reasons I wanted to be involved.
WCT: It makes sense why Queen Latifah would work on this for so long. This is a revelatory experience. As you say—the public Bessie Smith, the woman who sang the kinda dirty songs in honky-tonks and died early—only scratches the surface and the movie gets beneath that facade. The music is fantastic to begin with and then you have this deep, mysterious character at the center—who, to your credit, remains a mystery.
Dee Rees: Unknowable—that's right. [That], I think, is respecting her. A lot of the moments we find her pondering—although, when she talks she says what she thinks, she doesn't always say everything that she's thinking. So I wanted to see that kind of "inner churn" within this complicated woman. The person that she was onstage wasn't necessarily the person that she was inside. I used a lot of steady cam to help do that—to give it that floating feeling, that in-and-out kind of thing. We're constantly caught in the line between the inner and the outer worlds.
WCT: There is a dream state—a sort of melancholy haunted thing that happens along with all this raucous joy. It's a really full, rich piece. Did you sit down with Queen Latifah and talk about your vision?
Dee Rees: I'd been writing it for about two years when HBO came to me and said, "Do you want to direct this?" I said yes and I sat down with her and tried to explain why I was the director for the piece. I was always writing it with an eye to direct—I hoped it would come around. I talked to her about the character and the relationships and, for me as a director, it's all about the relationships.
Since I had written it I had the narrative authority, I felt. I just tried to convey to her that I understood the world and that I knew where to put the camera and get the performances. [Laughs] I talked about wanting to use the songs, and not just the famous ones, to show her journey as a character through the film and some of my writing inspirations—Jamaica Kincaid and Angela Davis—to help get at what I considered the core of the character: her "motherlessness."
WCT: Queen Latifah is one of those performers—whatever the medium—that you go to. She has always had that audience rapport but it's great to see her take risks—to watch her dive into one of these multi-faceted characters. I'm thinking of her character in Living Out Loud, for example, though this goes way beyond that.
Dee Rees: Yeah, she gives a really brave performance and really went there for me and I was very proud of it—even though it was scary and she might blink for a second. For example, the scene with the mirror where she's confronting herself I had to explain, "This is about taking off all the armor and this is why we see Bessie the way we see her through this mirror." The wig comes off, the clothes come off, the make-up comes off and what are you left with but yourself and the choices that you've made. You're forced in such a moment to take an inventory of your life and your loves.
WCT: Did she having any hesitation about the nudity? Were you at a point in the director-actor relationship where she was like, "Okay, I'll jump off the building for you?"
Dee Rees: I would call them questions of any good artist, not hesitations. We talked about it and [director of photography] Jeff Jur pulled an image that I think is called "Brown Girl with Earring." We showed her a painting—This is what it's going to look like"—and when we were able to show her the visual and why, she was game.
I think she really internalized what was happening in the moment. She was really brave and when she was ready to go, she said, "Let's go," and we cleared the set, and she came in and she did it. She would listen to Bessie's music and get in the zone and then be ready, fully immersed, ready to go there with no vanity, no ego. I love that moment—we're truly behind Bessie's eyes.
WCT: I also love the scenes between she and Mo'Nique—the relationship between the two women is fantastic and the chemistry is really palpable. Did the two actors get together to do that?
Dee Rees: Mo'Nique was also amazing and she's ready at [the drop of] a dime. She's in it and is game for anything. It was really a great cast to work it—everybody was really on it and ready. I like to work one on one with actors so I had her and Mo'Nique in my office and they were bouncing off each other in character and they're telling these war stories and exploits—you know, they're building that shared history, that camaraderie, so they've created this shared history before we get to the set.
I did that with all the actors. She and Khandi Alexander, who plays her sister, were screaming at each other in my office so that by the time we got to the set the tension was there. On set, I'm using the composition and the blocking to heighten the drama to put them in opposition with each other.
WCT: I loved that the film is very upfront about Bessie's bisexuality—that we see her intimate sexually and emotionally with women and with men.
Dee Rees: Yeah—they're trippin'. [Laughs] I really wanted to present Bessie's sexuality in a matter of fact way. That's one of the things that attracted me to the project: Here's this Tennessee women who loves women as well as men—like, I gotta tell that story! That was always going to be a part of it for me, and ( the character of ) Lucille ( Tika Sumpter ) was always a key character.
She really shows Bessie in a loving, healthy relationship that is not sensationalized. It's not flash; you feel that Lucille loves Bessie. It's a made-up character [a combination of several women], but you feel that Bessie has this deeply fulfilling relationship with a woman—but that this woman wants more and can get Bessie to say, "I love you." But Bessie never tells anybody that she loves them.
WCT: Ironically, this 1920s-set piece has this very modern feel to it in the way it presents the blurring of gender lines and that sexuality is a bit more complicated. I want to point out before we wrap that I love how you meld these beautiful, complex characters with extraordinary technique, and I love that you allow Bessie to remain a mystery.
Dee Rees: That was a definite choice to not show her death. That's the one thing people seem to know about her and to me, I wanted to give Bessie the win. I wanted to end on the triumph; I wanted to tell you the things that you didn't know.
