Mo' Better Blues (1990) on Netflix
Trumpeter Bleek Gilliam leads a quintet and divides his time between two women, Indigo Downes and Clarke Bentancourt. Giant manages the band, and saxophonist Shadow Henderson solos at length.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.7/1015,160 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes71%
Trailer
Plot summary
Brooklyn, 1969: four boys ask Minifield Gilliam to play baseball, but his mother Lillian insists he finish his trumpet lesson, and an argument breaks out in the family. Twenty years later, Bleek leads his own jazz ensemble at the Beneath the Underdog club, where his childhood friend Giant manages the band. Giant tells him to keep saxophonist Shadow Henderson from taking long solos. Bleek spends his time between Indigo Downes, a schoolteacher, and Clarke Bentancourt, who suggests that Giant be replaced as manager. The club's owners, Moe and Josh Flatbush, refuse the higher pay Bleek seeks for the group, and Giant's debts from betting on baseball with his bookie Petey keep rising.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mo' Better Blues (1990)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film was originally titled Love Supreme, after saxophonist John Coltrane’s 1965 album A Love Supreme, but the title was changed when his widow, Alice Coltrane, withdrew permission because of the film’s explicit content; it became Variations on the Mo’ Better Blues before being shortened.
- Lee's portrayal of the Jewish nightclub owners Moe and Josh Flatbush drew the ire of the Anti-Defamation League and B'nai B'rith. The ADL called the characterisations an age-old and highly dangerous form of anti-Semitic stereotyping, and said Lee, whose success was largely due to breaking down racial stereotypes, had employed the same tactics he supposedly deplores.
- Spike Lee wrote the first draft of Mo’ Better Blues in fifteen days, working on it while he was still making his previous film, Do the Right Thing.
- Branford Marsalis was originally cast as the saxophonist Shadow Henderson, but Lee chose a professional actor, Wesley Snipes, for the role, and Marsalis ended up making only a cameo appearance in the finished film.
- Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes both trained with the saxophonist Branford Marsalis and the trumpeter Terence Blanchard so they could authentically handle their instruments in the musical scenes; Giancarlo Esposito, who portrayed Left Hand Lacey, was a real-life pianist.
- Lee deliberately kept drugs out of Mo’ Better Blues, leaving them out of a story about jazz musicians in order to challenge the stereotypical views held about them.
