A Jazzman’s Blues – first-look review

The year is 1995. A 26-year-old Atlanta-based stage direc­tor named Tyler Per­ry fig­ures he should get some more irons in the fire while he repeat­ed­ly retools his strug­gling musi­cal I Know I’ve Been Changed, so he writes a screen­play and sets an eye to Hollywood.

The script, titled A Jazzman’s Blues, would sit in his draw­er for a lit­tle over a decade until an abortive pro­duc­tion attempt with Lion­s­gate, and then return to the back burn­er for anoth­er 15 years. Dur­ing this time, its author would become a bil­lion­aire, con­struct his per­son­al Xanadu on three hun­dred acres of Geor­gia wood­land, and become the head of his very own studio.

One might hope that the long-ges­tat­ing real­i­sa­tion of Perry’s orig­i­nal vision could be a Rose­bud unlock­ing some pri­mal secrets deep with­in today’s Char­lie Kane. One would then be dis­ap­point­ed to find that this calami­tous melo­dra­ma is reveal­ing only with regard to his ten­den­cies as a film­mak­er, less so as a person.

A for­ma­tive work arriv­ing behind sched­ule as a long-lost pas­sion project, the humid saga of love, loss, and scat-solo­ing estab­lish­es pat­terns that have already recurred over the rest of his pro­lif­ic career. Lodged in his con­scious­ness at such an ear­ly age, his fas­ci­na­tions with abuse, Bib­li­cal betray­al, and colourism come to look more like pathologies.

Those less inter­est­ed in arm­chair psy­cho­analysing one of the titans of show­biz indus­try will be stuck with a laboured plot that paints itself into a nar­ra­tive cor­ner. In order to get out, the sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief must bend to accom­mo­date a patent impos­si­bil­i­ty, though that’s far from the only dis­tract­ing ele­ment of a pro­duc­tion that appears curi­ous­ly unpro­fes­sion­al for all the mon­ey behind it.

A frame sto­ry fol­lows an ancient woman hob­bling to the office of a racist politi­co so she can demand jus­tice for a mur­der from over forty years ear­li­er, shar­ing a let­ter recount­ing the lead up to the trag­ic inci­dent. Back to the ear­ly 1920s we go to meet the strap­ping Bay­ou (Joshua Boone) and the flinty Willie Earl (Austin Scott), half-broth­ers raised by their shared moth­er in a hutch wall­pa­pered with news pages and wheat paste, the canopy of Span­ish moss vis­i­ble through the holes in the ceiling.

From this stun­ning pock­et of the Deep South to Jazz Age Chica­go – an attrac­tive visu­al bur­nish is the main virtue here, at times indis­tin­guish­able from that of an HBO minis­eries, or sim­ply a less ter­ri­ble film – Bay­ou pur­sues his dreams and his love Leanne (Solea Pfeif­fer), their romance for­bid­den for the light-skinned Black woman’s choice to pass as white. The ten­sion between African-Amer­i­cans of vary­ing pig­men­ta­tion is the film’s main obses­sion, the inner tur­moil of hav­ing white blood giv­en as a ratio­nale for Willie Earl’s burn­ing self-hatred and as a sym­bol for the bit­ter divid­ed post-Con­fed­er­ate states.

On top of the unkind impli­ca­tions about light-skinned Black angst and the sham­bol­ic writ­ing that gets the film there, Per­ry returns to his sig­na­ture fol­lies, chief among them his fetishis­tic rela­tion­ship to mis­ery. The pro­duc­er of Pre­cious is just a bit too into suf­fer­ing, at his worst in a voyeur’s cam­era tilt from Leanne get­ting raped by her own father down to the scan­dalised Bay­ou as he lis­tens beneath the win­dow. At least when a Jew­ish music pro­duc­er relates his trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences dur­ing the Holo­caust in a maudlin mono­logue to con­sole a racism-stung Bay­ou, who then replies that that doesn’t make him feel bet­ter, it’s worth an unin­tend­ed laugh.

Despite his efforts to frame this seri­ous-mind­ed work of cin­e­ma as a depar­ture, A Jazzman’s Blues is busi­ness as usu­al for Per­ry, hold­ing fast to his brand of over­heat­ed con­trivance seem­ing­ly lift­ed from an email for­ward cir­cu­lat­ed among church­go­ers. End­ing with a reveal that could’ve very well been writ­ten in the ​“and that boy was me!” con­struc­tion just puts a fin­er point on it.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

By becom­ing a mem­ber you can sup­port our inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism and receive exclu­sive essays, prints, month­ly film rec­om­men­da­tions and more.