The film Cadillac Records (2008) stars Adrian Brody as Leonard Chess, the owner and operator of an independent music recording label in Chicago during the 1940s and 50s. As a white son of a Polish immigrant household, the movie depicts Leonard's risky entrepreneurial venture into the genre of what was then identified as 'race records.' His independent label, called Chess Records, employed quite a few of the greatest R&B and rock n' roll musicians of that era, including Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Etta James, Little Walter, and Howlin' Wolf. While many of these characters' lives and careers are embellished for the dramatic purposes with the film, their depiction in general serves as an interestingly informative look into this racially-charged and culturally-redefining time in American musical history.
The film is "based on a true story" in that the artists and their music were accurately shown in terms of historical and socio-cultural context. However, many details of their individual personalities and deeds were exaggerated to engage an audience that had really come to see a Hollywood movie, and not a documentary. The interplay of drugs, violence, lust, and money culminate in a highly entertaining plot, but the movie contains a conspicuous amount of inaccurate information. For example, after a rough start to the relationship between Muddy Waters and rival singer Howlin' Wolf, Waters goes behind Wolf's back to use his guitarist in a gig. Wolf confronts his cohort throughout the performance and, following some seemingly arbitrary gun play, takes back his guitarist and tells Muddy that he will kill him if he does this again. While in real life their rivalry was marked by a sense of competition, their relationship was generally friendly. Among many other strange events and interactions, this scene exemplifies the movie's primary purpose as entertainment rather than factual representation. While it is possible to go on indefinitely about the intricacies of this movie's historical and biographical accuracy, this paper will focus on its depiction of Chuck Berry, one from the most innovative figures in the emergence of rock n' roll and its associated subculture.
Chuck Berry (played by Mos Def) is depicted in the movie as a well-mannered, good-hearted young man who is at one point mistaken as an imposter because his music so closely resembled that of a white musician. After proving his identity, Berry performs a gig and meets Muddy Waters, who introduces him into Chess Records' inner circle. Leonard Chess encourages him to play in his "hillbilly" style despite the label's reputation as a rhythm and blues producer. The song, his 1955 hit "Maybellene," crossed Berry over into the world of super stardom, and the song's cultural influence was equally grand. While in reality Chuck Berry's influence on the desegregation of white and black audiences was significant, the movie makes it seem as though he was solely responsible for this monumental feat. Playing in front of a literally segregated audience, his music apparently inspired them to the point that they ignored the physical boundaries that separated the two groups, and formed an integrated audience right before Berry's eyes. David Brackett (2009) describes his role in this cultural transition in The Pop, Rock, and Soul Reader: "Berry was also the master of creating miniature stories depicting experiences that were widespread enough... to transcend a lot of social boundaries." (Brackett, p.107) Through this unique ability, Berry was able to captivate a nascent white audience in the 1950s, the teenagers. His affinity for a country-twang,looking at movies dvd download, hillbilly style of performance, as well as his incorporation of African-American influences (e.g. Muddy Waters, Nat King Cole) coalesced in a manner that made his music appealing to the masses, independent of racial boundaries or affiliations. In his own words, Berry describes this process: "All in all it was my intention to hold both the black and white clientele by voicing the different kinds of songs in their customary tongues." (Brackett, p.109) In this sense, the film's portrayal of Berry's involvement in this revolutionary cultural transition is oversimplified, and in fact, largely incorrect. In the film, Berry's first radio play was of his 1955 hit, "Maybellene." The radio DJ,play movie online for free, however, announces to the audience that while this song is what they might normally consider a "race record," he would prefer if the audience considered it to be "rock n' roll." In this scene, the movie suggests that Chuck Berry's song was the sole source of two monumental changes in cultural vernacular: first, that the bigoted term "race records" was eliminated, and second, that the term "rock n' roll" was first used to describe his song's radio play. In reality, "race records" was at first phased out in 1949 at the hands of Jerry Wexler, a magazine columnist, and replaced with the term "rhythm and blues."
Further evidence of disparate information surrounding Chuck Berry's dramatic depiction can be found regarding issues of copyright infringement and proper songwriting credits. In reality, "Maybellene" was musically derived from Bob Wills' fiddle tune, "Ida Red." While Berry provided original lyrical content in his version, the song's original title under the Chess label was "Ida May." This was changed to "Maybellene" at the request of Leonard Chess. (Brackett, p. 111) At another point in the movie, both chronological and biographical accuracy breaks down, as Berry hears a Beach Boys song on the radio, and claims they stole the tune from one of his songs. In the very same scene he is arrested for violating the Mann Act because he allegedly trafficked a minor across state lines. In reality, the Beach Boys song ("Surfin' USA") was released in 1963, while Berry's arrest occurred in 1959. (Studwell and Lonergan, 1999; Weiner, 2008)
Although Cadillac Records is a commercial film, and therefore does not have to reflect the characters' real lives with complete accuracy, it is important to note further discrepancies regarding the Chess Record label's fictional versus actual treatment of Chuck Berry. In the film, the only musician who occasionally felt that he was being swindled by the record label was Muddy Waters. However, Chuck Berry recalls that he too was the victim of the Chess brothers' business interests. Regarding "Maybellene," Berry recalls that other people were credited with contributing to the song because their "big names" would draw more sales. Berry states, "With me being unknown, this made sense to me, especially since [Leonard Chess] failed to mention that there was a split in the royalties as well." (Brackett, p. 110) While this was not uncommon within the music industry through this racially segregated period in history, it reveals the management from the Chess Record label in a much more negative light than it was portrayed in the film. Finally, after Mos Def's character is arrested for violating the Mann Act, the film's narrator (Willie Dixon played by Cedric the Entertainer) states that Chuck was imprisoned during the "peak of his career," and was unable to make any recordings. The film leaves this storyline open-ended, and an uninformed audience may assume this is how Berry's career concluded. In fact, he was released from prison only a few years later and continued to produce R&B and rock n' roll hits for many years,film-download.com, and has performed as recently as January 2011. (McKeough, 2011) The only further information given about Berry in the film was regarding his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
In all, I found this film to be very entertaining, but its lack of historical accuracy and wholly contrived dramatic elements sullied its credibility. While the film gives a glimpse in to the worlds of lots of salient American musicians, it may have benefited from concentrating on a more specific sample of these historic individuals.
Works Cited
Brackett, D. (2009). The pop, rock, and soul reader: Histories and debates. New York: Oxford
University Press
McKeough,aylar dianati lie film download, K. (2011, January 2). Chuck berry recovering at home from exhaustion after
chicago show. Retrieved April 27, 2011, from http://articles.chicagotribune.com.
Studwell, W. E.,where to buy movie props, Lonergan, D.F. (2009). The classic rock and roll reader: Rock music from its
beginning to the mid-1970s. Binghamton,film download sites, New York: The Haworth Press
Weiner, E. (2008, March 11). The long, colorful history from the mann act. Retrieved April 29,
2011, from http://www.npr.org.
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