Last month Bessie premiered on HBO and won the Critics Choice TV Award For Best Movie. The biopic stars Queen Latifah as iconic blues singer Bessie Smith, and Oscar winner Mo’Nique as her mentor, Ma Rainey. Latifah and Mo’Nique earned Critics Choice Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress nominations, respectively, with another Supporting Actress nod going to Khandi Alexander for her portrayal of Smith’s older sister, Viola.
The Critics Choice recognition has helped to build momentum for Bessie this awards season along with considerable Emmy buzz.
Bessie paints an intimate personal portrait of Smith whose talent and love for music took her from anonymity in vaudeville to the 1920s blues scene and international fame. Despite her personal demons, Smith became a legend, inspiring such future generation singers as Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin and Nina Simone.
Based on “Bessie: Empress of the Blues,” a 1972 biography by Chris Albertson, the movie has been a long-standing passion project for Latifah who first auditioned for the role in 1992. Eventually Latifah gained control of the project and ultimately she and HBO brought in Dee Rees to write and direct it. Rees teamed with Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois on the teleplay. Sharing a story credit with Rees is the late playwright Horton Foote, who penned a first draft years ago.
Latifah gravitated to director/writer Rees’ storytelling acumen and sensibilities which were notably demonstrated in such prior projects as her short film Pariah which spawned her acclaimed feature debut, also titled Pariah. The story centered on Alike (portrayed by Adepero Oduye), a 17-year-old African-American woman who struggles through adolescence with grace, humor and tenacity while finding her sexual identity as a lesbian. The feature went on to win assorted accolades, including the Independent Spirit Award’s coveted John Cassavetes Award in 2012, the Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review in 2011, and Best Director distinction from the Black Film Critics Circle Awards and Breakthrough Director honors from the Gotham Awards, both in 2011, a GLAAD Media Award in 2011, and an Excellence in Cinematography Award (U.S. Dramatic competition) from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival for DP Bradford Young.
Rees shared backstory on Bessie, the creative challenges posed by the film, and insights into her first-time collaborations with cinematographer Jeff Jur and editor Brian A. Kates. Kur won an Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series on the strength of the “Pick A Number” episode of HBO's Carnivàle in 2004; he was nominated the following year in the same category for the “Lincoln Highway” episode of the series. Kur is a two-time ASC Award winner, including for Carnivàle in ‘04.
Kates won the Emmy for Outstanding Single Camera Picture Editing for a Miniseries or a Movie on the basis of the HBO telefilm Taking Chance in 2009 (shared with editor Lee Percy). Taking Chance also garnered Kates one of his three career ACE Award nominations. He was also ACE nominated for his editing of the series The Big C (Showtime) in 2011 and won for cutting the TV movie Lackawanna Blues (HBO) in 2006.
SHOOT: What drew you to Bessie?
Rees: I was asked in 2012 to rewrite the script. I plunged into research. There is so much mythology about Bessie Smith. I tried to get behind all that, to understand who she was on her own terms. I looked at her old songbook–the songs she wrote herself, which was my road into her personality, the entry point to who she was as a person. She was a character who was interesting not just on stage. She was very conflicted which made her even more interesting.
SHOOT: What were the biggest creative challenges that Bessie posed to you as a filmmaker?
Rees: Getting Bessie’s voice right. Not just her singing voice but how she spoke, her world view. Queen Latifah was very much attuned to that voice, how she moved through the world. She tended to walk through things, not around them.
Also the performance scenes include not just Bessie’s performance but the performance of her audience. As a director, I tried to capture how the crowd responded to her. Bessie lived those lyrics and there were people in the audience who found her songs in a sense redeeming them or saying something for them that they weren’t able to easily articulate otherwise.
One advantage I had from a writing standpoint is I knew that Queen Latifah would portray Bessie. She had been attached to the project for 22 years. It’s not often you know who you’re writing for. I could write for her physical rhythms. I could write words which I could envision her saying.
SHOOT: You opted to work with two key collaborators whom you hadn’t worked with before: cinematographer Jeff Jur and editor Brian A. Kates. Why did you gravitate to them for Bessie?
Rees: I hadn’t worked with either before but I was drawn to both of them. Jeff is genuinely passionate about his work. He shot Carnivàle, a series set in the 1920s with a washed out monochrome feel, similar to the kind of feel we saw for this period piece telling Bessie Smith’s story. Len Amato [president of HBO Films] recommended Jeff to me and I liked what he could bring to the project.
Brian is terrific also. He’s super smart, articulate and is an editor who likes to get between the lines. Bessie Smith is a complicated person and he was able to shed light on who she was through his editing.
SHOOT: You are known for being in the dual writer/director role. Are you open to directing someone else’s material?
Rees: I am for the right project. At the same time, I like writing, having a hand in the process, having narrative ownership on projects I direct.
SHOOT: What’s next?
Rees: I’m developing a series with Shonda Rhimes. I’m also working on a spec TV pilot.
