For the shape-shifting character actor Jeffrey Wright (“Broken Flowers,” “Syriana”) taking on the role of blues legend Muddy Waters in “Cadillac Records” turned out to be an opportunity to explore black American cultural history and even his own personal roots.
“I had an early admiration for and fascination with the language of the rural black South,” the native Washingtonian, 42, says. “The blues is that language, heightened.”
“Cadillac Records” recounts the history of Chess Records, the storied Chicago label whose artists electrified the country blues of the Mississippi Delta and helped pioneer the basic vocabulary and musical structure of early rock ’n’ roll.
Despite singing on the movie’s soundtrack, Mr. Wright says, “I still don’t consider myself a singer.” However, he has noodled on guitar for 20-odd years. He recalls playing the blues for an elderly grandfather in southern Virginia: “I played a few notes. He smiled at me quietly and nodded his approval. I knew then that maybe I was onto something.
“What can’t be notated in this music is tone and feeling,” he continues. “That’s what lends it a complexity. The notes are relatively straightforward - but the emotion is anything but.
“You can read the lyrics to these songs and still not be able to sing them. The shaping of words is so personal and specific to the black American South. The ways in which people claimed, crafted and personalized the language in their own image - that’s one of the things I find so joyous about this music.”
To Mr. Wright, the archetypal practitioners of the blues - Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Son House and the nameless bluesmen and -women who sang as they labored - are inspirational not merely for their art, but for their lives as well. “If artists can be heroic, then these guys were superheroes,” he says. “They were slaves or a half step away from slavery. The extent to which their basic freedoms and rights were denied them was extraordinary.”
That the blues morphed into rock (“I hear it with new ears now,” he says) and indirectly undergirded the cultural upheavals of the 1960s - which contributed in some significant way to the downfall of Soviet communism - is a culmination of black America’s quest for freedom, Mr. Wright avers.
“Rock represented a very specific Western and American idea of existential freedom, but the origins of that freedom have roots in black America,” he explains.
Contrary to appearances, Mr. Wright doesn’t necessarily gravitate toward roles, whether in film or onstage, that afford him the chance to get in touch with his inner sociologist. (He’s a graduate of St. Albans and Amherst College.)
On a practical level, he picks smallish roles that won’t keep him long from his wife and young son.
Artistically, he likes roles in which he can disappear. “I don’t find myself so interesting that I place myself in film after film,” he says. “I try to step out of my own way and empathize with someone else.”
Plus, he says, “It keeps me busy. I get more work that way.”
— Scott Galupo
Jewish lives
The 19th Jewish Film Festival, which began last night and runs through Dec. 14 at a variety of locations, is a chance for audiences to catch a glimpse of films that otherwise would go ignored.
“It’s really about having the opportunity to bring films that people never get to see,” says festival director Susan H. Barocas. “To bring this incredible variety and open up people’s eyes and minds a bit.”
This year also sees the inauguration of WJFF’s Visionary Award, presented to both the late documentary filmmaker Charles Guggenheim and his daughter, Grace. Miss Guggenheim will accept the award, and the festival will screen a retrospective of the deceased District-based director’s films.
Featuring a healthy mix of features and documentaries, the festival is hosting more than 20 filmmakers coming to town to discuss their work. One of those guests is Julian Shaw, the director-producer-writer of “Darling: The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story.”
“Julian is all of 22 years old,” Miss Barocas says, and he began working on the project when he was all of 15.
Mr. Shaw’s work is an impressively confident look at the life and work of Pieter-Dirk Uys, a South African satirist who first railed against apartheid and then against the failure of the South African government to do anything about the AIDS epidemic ravaging his country.
Another guest at the festival is Yisrael Campbell, a stand-up comedian and the subject of “Circumcise Me.” Mr. Campbell started his life as a Catholic in Philadelphia, converted to Orthodox Judaism and moved to Israel. He will perform his act after the screening of the movie.
One of the highlighted features is “Strangers.” The movie examines the difficulties in the relationship of a man from Israel and a woman from the Palestinian territories. Though a little amateurish (the actors are novices, and the shadow of a boom mike is sometimes visible) the movie is an achingly honest look at the difficulties of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Other documentaries to check out include “Pauwel’s Circus,” a look at a family of European clowns whose heritage in the circus world stretches back more than a century, and “Waves of Freedom,” about a group of American sailors who fought to break the naval blockade Britain threw up around Palestine before the founding of Israel.
For a full schedule, including times, dates, locations and the rest of the movies being screened, check out wjff.org.
— Sonny Bunch
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