Bessie Screening, LA

Khandi Alexander & Queen Latifah | Photo: Janet Mayer/PR Photos

Affair: Bessie Screening & Conversation with Dee Rees & Queen Latifah

When: Saturday, May 9, 2015 @ 7:30PM

Hot Spot: LACMA, Bing Theatre, Los Angeles

Deets: Director Dee Rees (2011’s Pariah) reminds us of the crowd-pleasing aspects of blues in its original iteration—glamour, swagger, and sexuality—by dramatizing the life and career of one of its biggest avatars: the legendary Bessie Smith, whose short life was full of incident and mystique. As played by Queen Latifah, Bessie Smith is a compelling and charismatic aggregation of talent and anxiety, violence and curiosity, hunger and fear, outspoken and insecure, ambivalent appetites and ambition. Her Bessie is a star in search of a planet to illuminate. (Rees has an eye for the tremor and sweat that go into a creation of presentation of self—it was also a keystone of Pariah.) The film also gives Latifah the opportunity to display a powerful singing voice that rivals her plainspoken confidence. “The same three chords . . . you got to put something else in it,” she’s told by her equally earthy mentor, the legendary Ma Rainey (played by Academy Award–winner Mo’Nique). With Charles S. Dutton (playing on his own career; Dutton got his start on the stage as the force-of-nature guitarist in the August Wilson play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Khandi Alexander, and Michael K. Williams as her straightforward suitor. 

Who You May Spot: Director/writer Dee Rees and actor/executive producer Queen Latifah will be in attendance for a Q&A after the screening. 

Hint For The Average Socialite: This is a LACMA and NY Times Film Club members only screening with 2 free tickets per membership.

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