Get On Up

In December 2006 James Brown was planning on performing at the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square. He didn't make it - he died on Christmas day at the age of 73. That he remained a tireless performer so late in life only underscores his moniker of "the hardest working man in show business." His sinewy sound, defined by his supple, powerful tenor, was complemented by a tightest blues band in pop music, and his smooth, showy dance moves made him as a true original - an R&B anachronism that refused to go quietly into retirement. Even when he broke into mainstream culture, appearing on ABC's "Shindig" or B-movies like "Ski Party," he sat outside the 1960s pop revolution breaking around him. Yet he was revolutionary. There's nothing more distinctive than James Brown's sound or his larger-than-life personality.

Why it took so long to make a biopic about him has more to do with a legal wrangling than it does in the interest of telling his story on film; yet it was worth the wait. (It took the help of Mick Jagger, long a Brown fan and one of the film's producers, to make it happen.) "Get On Up" isn't perfect - like "The Help," director Tate Taylor's previous film, it is sometimes lumpy and feels long, yet it also is inventive in its narrative technique, one that moves back and forth in time to create a psychological impression of a man hardened by a childhood right out of "The Color Purple."

The script, credited to Steven Baigelman, and the brother screenwriting team of Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, samples from Brown's life the same way that rappers were to latter sample from his music; and it offers a divergent alternative to straight-forward biopics. The approach isn't perfect: big life moments, such as the death of Terry, Brown's oldest son, occur off-screen and never fully register as to their effect on the singer; but this is more an impressionistic portrait of just what makes James Brown run, which might seem an almost impossible task for a feature-length film.

That the filmmakers succeed at all comes with the depth of emotion and sheer resolve of Chadwick Boseman's performance. With his hair pomaded up (to the heavens, someone says), a confident swagger, and a cocky, seductive smile, Boseman commands the screen. And when he takes to the stage, which is often, he's as thrillingly theatrical as Brown was. Boseman has Brown's bravado; but that's only part of what makes this a great performance. Unlike other biopics where impersonation is mistaken for acting, Boseman turns Brown into his own creation. He even takes you in his confidence, speaking directly to the audience as if he knew there was always a camera present. It is a tricky device for the filmmakers to use, but what makes it work is the intimacy that Boseman brings to those moments. With this and a time-tripping narrative, Tate and his screenwriters attempt to rethink the biopic formula, which may seem confusing at times; but does come together with a potent image that begins and ends the film: Brown walking down a corridor headed to the stage as his name is being chanted by an audience. What comes between these images defines a complicated man driven by ambition and a need to be loved.

That this need is reduced to a Freudian analysis of Brown's tortured relationship with his parents may seem simplistic, but does yield the film's most poignant scene: a reunion with his mother years after she abandoned him. Up to that point Viola Davis plays that role more as Brown's sister than mother - in the early scenes when she's raising Brown (played by the remarkable twins Jordan and Jamarion Scott), she's conflicted in her love for her son and her hate of her circumstances; but in this key scene, some 25 years after they have seen each other last, Davis is repentant and more than a bit sad. That Brown doesn't trust her becomes the key to understanding his character: having raised himself, found major success, he eschews sentimental attachments. Davis is letter-perfect in this scene, defenseless and seeking forgiveness; which the hardened Brown has no interest in giving her. For him it is payback without mercy: he overcame the obstacles from his youth, now he isn't giving anything back emotionally.

As Tate showed in "The Help," he has remarkable rapport with his actors. In addition to Davis, Octavia Spencer (who won an Oscar for that film) has a small, but telling role as the owner of a brothel that becomes Brown's surrogate mother. Dan Aykroyd, who worked with Brown in "The Blues Brothers," is on hand as a manager (a "white devil" according to Brown) who wisely acquiesces to his client about how to build his career. (Brown predates today's model of self-marketing by decades.) Aykroyd is one of the few white characters in a cast filled with excellent black actors, most notably a memorable Jill Scott as Brown's second wife Deidre "Dee-Dee" Jenkins and a slyly funny cameo by Brandon Mychal Smith as Little Richard, who offers Brown sage career advice while all but undressing him with his eyes in a sequence that yields one of the film's biggest laughs.

What turns out to be the key relationship is that between Brown and Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis), the leader of a gospel group who helps Brown get out of prison, then introduces him to performing. Byrd has a coolness and humility that makes him the opposite of the ego-driven Brown - he's Ying to Brown's Yang, which Ellis captures beautifully in a soulfully-nuanced performance. His presence also underscores the film's subtext about how friendship can conflict with show business.

Brown is loyal to Byrd to a point; while Byrd sacrifices what could have been his own career to ride on Brown's coattails. In exploring the competitive, ruthless nature of show business and the personal betrayals that go along with it, "Get It Up" recalls "Dreamgirls," which also had a character (played by Eddie Murphy) that seemed inspired by James Brown. In this story, though, Brown is not a victim; rather a canny artist able to reinvent himself time and time again. "I paid the cost to be the boss," says Brown towards the end of the film; but it is Brown as a child who says this in one of the film's bits of magical realism, which underscores the Peter Pan nature of the filmmakers' impression of Brown.

As he showed in "The Help," Tate's style is decidedly old-fashioned; but the film, superbly photographed by Stephen Goldblatt and edited with kinetic grace by Michael McCusker, is more visually dynamic than his earlier film. What prove electrifying are the concert sequences, which can be drolly nostalgic (as in the recreation of Brown performing in the B-movie "Ski Party" or "The TAMI Show") or simply thrilling (as in a slick recreation of a 1971 Paris date called "Fever in the Funkhouse"). One of Brown's most famous stage appearances where he quieted a volatile crowd after the death of Martin Luther King in Boston is vividly rendered (though Jason Davis's impersonation of mayor Kevin White borders on caricature). But Tate's attempts at comedy often fall flat: a car chase where a drug-addled Brown is chased through the Georgia woods has a "Smokey and the Bandit" feel and there's an unfortunate bit with Allison Janney as a racist who, nonetheless, succumbs to Brown's music. Fortunately in this long film, these moments are brief.

"Just do your thing, James," Aykroyd tells Brown; and Chadwick Boseman does Brown's thing with a no-holds-barred fervor. He holds the disparate parts of "Get On Up" together and creates a mercurial portrayal of one of American pop music's most unique artists. He is nothing less than spectacular in a film buoyed by his presence.