Get on Up
Directed by: Tate Taylor
Written by: Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth
Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Aykroyd, Viola Davis, Lennie Davis, Fred Melamed, Craig Robinson, Jill Scott, Octavia Spencer, Brandon Smith
Biography/Drama/Music - 138 min
Written by: Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth
Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Aykroyd, Viola Davis, Lennie Davis, Fred Melamed, Craig Robinson, Jill Scott, Octavia Spencer, Brandon Smith
Biography/Drama/Music - 138 min
When thousands of teenage girls scream their hearts out at a Bruno Mars concert, I wonder if they realize they are actually screaming for James Brown. Those are Brown’s moves and Brown’s sound. The Godfather of Soul, the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, call him what you will; he created a distinctive sound with horns and vocal shouts you can recognize in an instant today. Almost all R&B, hip-hop, and most rock and roll groups probably do not realize the extent their sound is influenced by James Brown. Get on Up, Tate Taylor’s James Brown biopic attempts to show the audience how Brown (Chadwick Boseman, 2014’s Draft Day) transformed the music business, was a key innovator in the invention of funk, and moved audiences of all colors. The film mostly achieves its ambitions and keeps us on our toes as it breaks out of the traditional biopic mold.
Biopics, especially those focused on musicians, follow a faithful arc. There are the humble beginnings in the subject’s rural backwater, the glory, and then the drunken/drug-addled downfall. Get on Up contains all these sections but director Tate Taylor (2011’s The Help) shakes up their placement. In an unusual hard opening for a non-action film, we see James walking backstage toward the sound of screaming fans. Suddenly, we are back in 1968 as Brown’s plane absorbs anti-aircraft fire over South Vietnam. Then we jump back to 1939 and 1964 to glimpse different episodes key in Brown’s life and career. Taylor realizes chronological biopics have a tendency to limp along dutifully recording the encyclopedic version of the singer’s life. James Brown was vibrant though, manic even. Brown’s funky style makes people move on the dance floor and should also make the movie audience move in their seats, hence the wise choice to jump around episodically.
Biopics, especially those focused on musicians, follow a faithful arc. There are the humble beginnings in the subject’s rural backwater, the glory, and then the drunken/drug-addled downfall. Get on Up contains all these sections but director Tate Taylor (2011’s The Help) shakes up their placement. In an unusual hard opening for a non-action film, we see James walking backstage toward the sound of screaming fans. Suddenly, we are back in 1968 as Brown’s plane absorbs anti-aircraft fire over South Vietnam. Then we jump back to 1939 and 1964 to glimpse different episodes key in Brown’s life and career. Taylor realizes chronological biopics have a tendency to limp along dutifully recording the encyclopedic version of the singer’s life. James Brown was vibrant though, manic even. Brown’s funky style makes people move on the dance floor and should also make the movie audience move in their seats, hence the wise choice to jump around episodically.
Each film segment begins with words at the bottom of the screen telling us what year we’re in and gives us one of Brown’s many nicknames setting us up for what the portion will concentrate on. Front and center, as he should be, is the man himself. Chadwick Boseman is phenomenal as James Brown; he is right up there with Jamie Foxx’s Ray Charles. His voice is consistently hoarse and raspy; his confident demeanor consumes whatever room he walks into. Boseman was an outstanding Jackie Robinson in last year’s 42 and proves he has the mettle and chops to study an infamous historical figure and become them. Get on Up’s best part is neither the groovy tunes nor the story, it is Boseman’s unforgettable performance; one of the best of the year in any film.
Boseman plays young Brown in prison for stealing a suit and old, drug addicted Brown who shoots a shotgun hole in the ceiling after someone uses his bathroom. Brown met his life-long friend and music collaborator Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis, 2012’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist) when his group played Brown’s prison. Byrd heard Brown’s voice and instinctively knew this was a voice he needed to be around. It’s the voice that would take over his own musical group and step out front, leaving Byrd behind. Brown could neither read nor write music, but he could hear it. He knew what sounded good, what felt good. He needed his backup musicians to keep up with him and not slow him down. If the horn players could not follow his directions then they had to go.
Brown was no angel though. We see drugs, unbearable condescension, and domestic abuse. Also, in either a real life habit or an annoying script tick, Brown says his own name a lot. How many times do we need the affirmation, “I’m James Brown!” “Come on James Brown!” “You’re talking to James Brown!” If he third personed himself this often in real life, then no wonder he drove so many people away. If the habit is a screenplay invention, then this is a rare misstep in an otherwise laudable script by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth (2014’s Edge of Tomorrow).
It may be the music, the energy, Mr. Boseman’s performance, or a combination of all three, but I enjoyed Get on Up more than Ray. From his Depression-era experiences growing up in an Augusta, Georgia brothel, trying to act as a leader after Martin Luther King was assassinated, or flying off to perform for the troops in Vietnam, Get on Up may not show us James Brown’s soul and what made him tick, but it shows us enough of a remarkable man for me to recommend this film.
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