Going to see a biopic about a recently deceased and beloved personality is always a risk. For filmmakers, the trap of elevating the celebrity to mythic status at the expense of realism is ever a temptation. With "Ray," however, director Taylor Hackford delivers an inspired portrayal of the life of the late soul musician Ray Charles, capturing his pains and his joys without being trite.
Charles' history is so rich in pains and joys that it provides plenty of material for a tear-jerker biopic. It is much to Hackford's credit that he rarely stoops to clich?©s or cuts corners in his exploration of the emotional significance of Charles' past. Blind from the age of seven and raised by a tough-as-nails mother in the poverty-stricken Georgia of the 1930s, Charles went on to become the soul superstar that we know, accompanied by a twenty-year heroin addiction and a long string of infidelities.
The film is at its best, however, when it avoids the musician-as-drug-addled-womanizer model and focuses on the music. Charles' musical genius combined gospel and blues to produce a unique breed of soul that set him apart from predecessors such as Nat King Cole. It was also this combination that led Bible groups and conservative housewives across America to criticize him for making "devil music." The phrase "halfway between the gutter and the stars" (though also a Fatboy Slim album title) could easily be applied to Charles, and it is great to see Hackford exploring the many facets of his character.
Equal credit must be given to Jamie Foxx, whose brilliant performance may very well put him in the running for an Oscar. Foxx is himself a skilled pianist, and in auditioning for the role actually met and played with Charles. The story goes that he kept up fine with the gospel and blues, but had a bit of difficulty with the jazz stuff. No worries though; he got the thumbs up from the master himself.
Foxx made himself blind for this role by wearing prosthetic eyelids and wandering around for hours in the dark. Assistants had to lead him on and off the set. All the effort paid off, as Foxx perfects Charles' mannerisms, complete with the facial tics, grimaces and stutters. All this from a man who you probably best know from "In Living Color" or more embarrassing roles in movies like "Booty Call."
Yet there is no doubt that Foxx is a comic genius. Some of the funniest scenes are the glimpse of Ray Charles as a ruthless businessman, boldly dumping Atlantic Records and then manipulating the execs at ABC-Paramount into getting the musical freedom that he wanted.
But there is also much pain. The story follows Charles from his beginnings in the music industry to his death from liver disease in June, but is interspersed with flashbacks from his childhood. The idea is that the flashbacks gradually allow an insight into the adult Charles, and it works.
Artfully done and almost painfully poignant, the flashbacks don't fail to pull at our heartstrings. We see the Ray Charles who is constantly haunted by his past, whose efforts to heed his mother's warning to "never become a cripple" only seem to make him more of one. He was raised to believe that "there is nothing free in this world but God," and this harsh world view seems to render him both unusually tough and exceedingly vulnerable.
The only times that the film resorts to clich?©s are when Charles' life itself becomes one. Thankfully, although Charles did in fact recover from his addiction, Hackford does not make this into an act of great transcendence. Charles played "devil music" and was flawed, but that's what made Ray Charles Ray Charles. He was charismatic, and Hackford's direction allows us to see how he used his vices and heartaches to produce beautiful, passionate and energetic soul music.
