DON CHEADLE

ACTOR SHOWS THERE’S NOTHIN’ MORE INTERESTING THAN BLACK ON BLACK

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Hollywood began as a department store selling cultural hegemony and identity for the white power company in Washington DC. Over the years though black performing artists have become more and more prominent.

Gone with the Wind (1939) with a 3 hour and 58 minute runtime about American history in the South during the Civil War, told from the perspective of the white plantation owners, based on the Pulitzer Prize (1937) winning novel by Margaret Mitchell, won 8 Oscars, including one Oscar for black actor Hattie McDaniel in a supporting role.

United States President Jimmy Carter, from Georgia, stated that everyone knows that history begins with Gone with the Wind.

The next black actor to win an Oscar was Sidney Poitier (1927-2022) for Lilies of the Field (1963) but he should have also won for The Defiant Ones (1958), losing out to David Niven for his performance in Separate Tables (1958).

Denzel Washington would be next with two Oscars, one for Training Day (2001) in a lead role and one for his part in Glory (1989) in a supporting role. Washington like Poitier also began directing.

Halle Berry would win in a leading role for Monster’s Ball (2002). Berry made her directorial debut with Bruised (2020).

That record having been said, black actors have become more and more the stars of the big silver screen and stage.

In Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) Denzel Washington plays a returning World War II veteran looking for employment opportunities in Los Angeles during the Summer of 1948.

Don Cheadle walks into the set in a supporting role and steps inside the light of the big star. Cheadle was just beginning to earn his film credits by creating idiosyncratic characters like Mouse, a little guy with a loyal heart called up to lend some muscle to the private investigation headed by Washington’s character.

Cheadle develops a voice and demeanor befitting the duality of a reckless unpredictable gun toting friend.

In Rosewood (1997) Cheadle has a small role as a member of the black Rosewood community sharing community space with white people until a white woman falsely accuses an unknown black person for the rape and physical abuse done by her white lover.

The narrative of this true story devolves into madness as one black community member after another is lynched by the white mob. The white lynching party becomes increasingly fired up and ultimately destroys the town. Cheadle appears every so often as part of the fleeing blacks leaving Rosewood to escape the rampaging white mob.

In Flight (2012) Cheadle plays in a supporting role as the lawyer called up by the pilots union to defend Washington’s character after the drug and alcohol fueled pilot is involved in a plane crash. Cheadle plays the no-nonsense, no excuses for what you did lawyer from HQ.

Cheadle soon found his own stride in leading biopic roles beginning with the hotelier in Hotel Rwanda (2004).

The Belgian colonialists have left the enemies in charge of the state. And the ensuing strife between the Tutsis and the Hutus devolves from calm into genocidal madness.

Cheadle performs the biopic character, Paul Rusesabagina, with dignity that slowly melts away into existential angst as the grotesqueness of the genocide gradually becomes revealed to him. The Hutu majority would kill more than 622,000 people of the Tutsis minority in just 100 days.

The hotelier continues to survive with his family while protecting 1268 refugees inside the hotel as the military takes and takes and takes.

Cheadle goes on to costar with leading stars in a variety of supporting roles, including Tim Robbins and Connie Nielsen, Michael Douglas, John Travolta, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, Richard Gere, Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow, and Thandiwe Newton.

In Talk to Me (2007) Petey Greene practices the art of radio talk show host while in prison. But obtaining his early release is just the first obstacle to a career as a Washington DC Radio personality.

Cheadle is able to adjust his portrayal of idiosyncratic characters to become the charismatic street wise talk show host in this biographical drama about the real life personality and civil rights activist using the language of the street to communicate with the city.

In Miles Ahead (2015) Cheadle stars in and directs a biopic about the delicate comeback moments of musician Miles Davis after a five year hiatus. Cheadle brilliantly portrays the well grounded hubris of the world famous musician while also providing a unique vision from behind the camera.

The film becomes a bit of a psychodrama at points with scenes melded together with the sound advance of a car horn or the falling sounds of the journalist, Francis Taylor.

The film is not all about music or personalities as a bit of comedy is infused as everyone seems to be chasing the recording tapes from Miles Davis’ last session.

Cheadle uses Mile’s opening catch phrase about his music, “It’s not Jazz – it’s social”, as a narrative device for the film.

This comedy streak is also highlighted in the Guard (2011) and No Sudden Move (2021). Cheadle plays the straight cop in one with a bit of parody while playing the crooked criminal with a bit of parody in the other, with both films following the narrative of a comedy of errors.

In No Sudden Move, Curt Goynes gets released from prison early due to overcrowding. And in just two days the career criminal becomes involved in a hostage taking and an elaborate plot to make hundreds of thousands of dollars on a motor vehicle patent document.

Cheadle adjusts the idiosyncratic character acting with a different voice, a new attitude and a tighter physical presence on screen to represent a hardened streetwise, ‘don’t mess with me’, criminal.

These criminals never get a break though as the deal goes sideways while the payout they are chasing gets bigger and bigger, but also gets cut several times among more and more accomplices.

Benicio Del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm and Brendan Fraser costar as the sardonic humor just drips the scenes along while everyone wants to get what they got coming to them.

Cheadle perfects his character acting apart from the idiosyncratic character sketches provided in supporting and leading roles in Reign Over Me (2007) costarring Adam Sandler, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler and Saffion Burrows.

Cheadle plays, Alan Johnson, a successful dentist with a controlling partnership in a Manhattan firm. Alan spots an old college roommate, played by Sandler, riding a scooter in the streets of New York City.

Alan reaches out to Charlie knowing he has dropped out of his dentistry practice after his family was killed in one of the planes that were flown into the World Trade Towers in the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.

The college roommates have a long way to go because Charlie spends most of his time in a paranoid state gaming after developing a disassociated disorder as a result of the trauma.

Cheadle plays the character as an upwardly mobile black person with a strong internal morality base moving through a narrative compelled along with several poignant moments of friendship and character building.

The dentist is an honest businessman, the parolee is a career criminal, the musician is an artist, and the man with a language from the street is a genuine civil rights leader.

The performances as a whole illustrate the rich diversity of black culture in America while individually providing a truthful telling about why people are who they are.