Beyonce Meets Etta

The Daily Beast’s Rachel Syme talks with Cadillac Records director Darnell Martin about getting Beyonce, Mos Def, and Jeffrey Wright to channel Chicago’s blues legends.Etta transcended everything,” says Darnell Martin, the 44-year old writer and director of the fantastic Cadillac Records, a film in theaters now that chronicles Etta James and her label mates at Chess Records in the 1950s and ‘60s. “She was blues meets rock’n’roll meets elegance. She was just this whole other type of crossover, bridging race, age, and class.” www.wdalaw.com

Who better to play Etta in the film then, than Beyonce Knowles, a reigning pop diva in her own right? Like Etta, Beyonce possesses enough refinement to radiate glamour at public appearances, but enough musical grit and spunk to capture a wide swath of ears. “I wrote the part for Beyonce,” Martin admits. “I remember meeting her and thinking I would have to convince her, but when we sat down, she and her mother were already talking about how important this story was to tell. It was the music that inspired her to take the plunge. It’s always been about the music.” “I’ve seen men hit their actors, and it’s not considered a problem. But if you are a woman, and you have strong ideas, you can very easily become a bitch and not work again.”

Though Martin was fortunate to score Beyonce for the film (who churns out a surprisingly thorough and captivating performance—when she croons the torch song “I’d Rather Go Blind,” Knowles’ voice almost feels too heated, as if it might suddenly burst into flame), the director had no trouble convincing Jeffrey Wright to embody Muddy Waters or Mos Def to play Chuck Berry. “I’ve known Mos Def since he was named Dante Beze,” laughs Martin. “People don’t realize that he is brilliant, and was an actor who became a rapper.” Cadillac Records just might put Martin on the shortlist of both influential female and African-American filmmakers working today. The movie is a labor of love for Martin—a rare glimpse inside the world of Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Muddy Waters, and a few of the more forgotten musicians of early Chicago rock’n’roll—and unlike many other depictions of that era, the film offers a nuanced look at the race relations between black musicians and their white producers.

Martin shows Leonard Chess (Adrian Brody) as having a surprisingly tender hand while making money off of his stable of talent—a yearning love scene between Brody and Beyonce is the high point of the movie—and shows that just as he is exploiting his musicians, they too co-opted songs and riffs from other influences along the way. Martin’s musical world is a complex one of mixing, re-mixing, and blending; a more subtle treatment of the evolution of rock’n’roll than the big screen has seen in some time.

“Cadillac is not the story of Black music,” she says. “It’s story of popular music—the whole British invasion was actually the Black invasion—the songs went to England first and came back at us through the UK. There is no one origin.”

The movie is also phenomenally acted, in part because Martin did not want her actors to do impersonations, but rather sketch out their own characters inspired by the music. She says, “I loved Lady Sings the Blues because Diana Ross did not imitate Billie, she gave her interpretation, which made the music for me, much more accessible. It brought me to Billie in a way I never would have been brought to it had. My dream is that Beyonce and Mos can bring kids today to Etta, to Chuck Berry, to Little Walter. I want their music to fly off shelves! Can you imagine if children started playing the harmonica again?”