Sinners is the hardest movie Ryan Coogler has ever made. It’s also, coincidentally, his best-reviewed film ever (even Spike Lee agrees).
And that’s saying a great deal.
In a span of 12 years, Coogler has delivered a gripping, award-winning true story (Fruitvale Station), revived a beloved sports franchise that earned the original films’ star an Oscar nomination (Sylvester Stallone was nominated as Rocky for Coogler’s Creed), and elevated what we have come to expect from big budget comic book adaptations with Black Panther, which earned Marvel its first Oscar nods. But importantly — and this is very important — Coogler challenged a long-held, problematic Hollywood ideology that Black-centered films can’t perform well in overseas markets.
But in this new movie right here? Coogler is blending genres and creating a world filled with real-life villains and vampires that’s set in Jim Crow Mississippi and also — boom, ready for this? — has one hell of a lesson about cultural appropriation buried in the center of it. It’s perhaps the Oakland native’s headiest accomplishment yet.
So where does this come from? Coogler laughed, pushed his black-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of his nose and reflected on his grandmother’s brother-in-law. His great-uncle was originally from the Mississippi Delta and Coogler grew up listening to stories from the World War II vet, who for a long time was the oldest male member of his family.
“I used to sit up under him, listen to blues records and try to get stories about Mississippi out of him,” he said with another quick laugh. “He passed away in 2015, so while I was working on Creed, I found myself listening to the blues records with a different ear. And that was what got me to the core question of the movie.”
And the vampire of it all? Well, Coogler said he’s a longtime horror movie fan.
“I love horror cinema. People didn’t know that about me. I wanted to bring that element to this story and it just made sense the more I learned about blues music and its relationship with spirituality and with the supernatural … I put both things together,” he said. “My family is known for making gumbo. My grandma’s side of the family dominates our culture from parts of Texas, from a long line of chefs. The gumbo is exquisite, and this is like my cinematic form of it, you know what I mean?”
Coogler started working on this film while he was making Creed, the film that ultimately catapulted him into exactly where he is now: a revered filmmaker who is building an impressive list of credits that is steadily placing him alongside some of the greatest to ever do it.
“I love movies of all types, and I always admired filmmakers that can deliver different types of stories while maintaining themselves,” Coogler said.
“Obviously Spike is that. Steven Soderbergh is a great example of how he can move in and out of different genres pretty seamlessly. And Kubrick. And Steven Spielberg, bro. These filmmakers — I love when they can give you different packages,” he continued. “I also admire filmmakers that stay in the same zone and just knock it out each time like Hitchcock, and Chris [Nolan] is close to that in a way with the action movie, but Oppenheimer was an incredible departure into the biopic.
“I don’t have a favorite type of movie. If I did it would be horror movies. But I love everything else, too. [And] I would like to deliver for audiences in different ways.”
So what makes Sinners so well-received?
For starters, it’s story that transports us back to some of the uglier and more unsavory parts of American history — the same history that’s currently being edited, challenged and, in some cases, deleted by the current administration. Clearly Coogler and company couldn’t have prognosticated the space we’d find ourselves in right now where diversity, equity and inclusion — and history — are all being treated like four-letter words. That familiar and true story where Black folks don’t have many rights but want a space to be Black and free – or in this case of Sinners, a night out at a juke joint in the Delta – strikes a timely chord. So that helps, but it’s also a combination of gifted writing, out-of-the-box storytelling and some impressive acting.
Sinners is set in a small Mississippi town during the Jim Crow era and for the most part takes place inside of one day. Michael B. Jordan takes on a dual role, knocking it out of the park as twins Smoke and Stack, who return to their hometown in Mississippi from Chicago in the 1930s. Jordan creates magic alongside his scene partners Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld and Delroy Lindo.
Warner Bros.
This is the fifth film that Coogler and Jordan have partnered on, which means every film that Coogler has written and directed, Jordan also has carried either the starring role or, in the case of Black Panther, the substantial, largely talked-about role that in a lot of cases was a double lead, given Killmonger’s cinematic impact.
What Coogler and Jordan have is a filmmaking brotherhood that’s an incredible one-two punch and something we haven’t seen since Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, back when those two crafted back-to-back culturally significant films from the late 1980s into the ’90s. (Coincidentally, Washington and Lee reteam in Highest to Lowest, which premieres at the Cannes Film Festival next month.)
“He’s an incredible guy … because he’s become one of those few people that can open a movie,” Coogler said of Jordan, “which in this day and age is very rare. But also, he’s an incredibly kind man and that sh– is saying something.”
He continued: “I know that when he and I are working together, our rhythm is going to be the North Star for how everybody’s gonna operate on set. On our sets, we’re gonna respect everybody, you know what I mean? We’re gonna learn everybody’s name. We’re going to respect women … and we are going to work our asses off and do it in a way that’s humane both professionally and artistically.
“The best ideas are going to win. It’s going to be a family-oriented environment. Like all these things, for me, and in a package of somebody who is constantly trying to push themselves … you aren’t just going to settle for just going through the motions and showing up. It’s too much of a combo to pass up.”
But also, the timing of this film was perfect in Coogler’s estimation. This was the best time to get this specific type of work out of Jordan.
“Mike’s life has changed, right? He is a director now. He’s got nieces and nephews, they’re growing up, and he’s got businesses all over the world. He owns a soccer team, he’s got a beverage company, and you know … he’s getting busy,” Coogler said. “I looked and I realized, man, he might not have the capacity to commit to something like what I need him to do for these two characters. It was now or never with Mike. And I’m so glad, bro. I think these two are [the] two best performances I’ve ever seen him give. I saw him up close, so I’m biased. But I was astonished by what he was able to do. And I say that knowing him.”
Carlos Tischler/ Pixelnews/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Like much of Coogler’s work, Sinners makes an incredible cinematic statement.
Yes, it’s the latest foray a Black filmmaker is making in the world of horror, but it’s bigger than that. Because buried in the middle of this film is an interesting conversation about ownership of culture. At the center of the movie is Sammie Moore, a preacher’s kid played by newcomer Miles Caton, who is a gifted would-be blues singer.
“It was more like an interrogation of the concept of genre when it comes to music. I found in my research that it’s a very racist invention — two people looking different singing the same song, all of a sudden it’s a different genre, you know? And we still deal with that, in music, and I think that all entertainment art forms kind of chase music, in terms of how they do things,” Coogler said. “Because of the history of everything coming from Delta blues, if popular culture is a gumbo, then Delta blues is the root. It’s the base. Everything coming from these people in the art that they created is this potent form of folk music. What happens when a white person sings the same song? What happens when the Black person sings a white song? In knowing that we’ve been trained to judge and point the finger and interrogate that notion and have an antagonist that sees the world differently.”
You’d almost think that the pressure is cranked up when Coogler starts writing a new story or when he takes his place in the director’s chair, considering how every project he’s created so far has been cited by trusted Hollywood measuring sticks — box office numbers, certainly, but also voting bodies that can’t get enough of the work this young filmmaker is bringing to the masses.
But none of that fazes Coogler. Not the acclaim. Not the festival wins. Not even the breaking of box office records or that long-held theory that have, quite frankly, held films with predominantly Black casts back.
Coogler is aware of the eyeballs that are on his work, but he doesn’t carry that with him. Even in this case, given that Sinners is Coogler’s first original story ever and is already getting award buzz.
“I acknowledge that I can’t control any of that. All of that is outside of me. Any award that I received for a movie or any box office [success], it always says more about the people paying for the ticket. And the people deciding to give an award. It says more about them than it does about the movie. The reality is like each time I’m focusing on, man, how do I make the best thing, you know? And that is a f—–g difficult proposition every time,” he said.
“This time it was the hardest because I didn’t have a true story or a preexisting series of films to directly model the movie around and sell to the audience. It’s one thing to say, ‘I got Black Panther! Oh, that’s based on that comic book.’ Or ‘Oh, I got Creed man. Oh, Apollo Creed? Oh, OK, tight. I liked the Rocky movies.’ Or ‘I’m making a story about Oscar Grant, oh, you know, the young man that was senselessly murdered,’ ” he continued. “I’m now saying, ‘Oh, I’m making Sinners,’ and it’s like what the f— is that? So I got enough pressure just in execution; the pressure is always there. I have zero control over any of those other things. And so many of those things are up to timing and what folks is interested in and what people feel is quote/unquote deserving or something. That’s outside of me, you know?”
So here’s where he channels it all instead – by focusing on the project. And letting the chips fall where they may.
“… And that’s all I can stomach!” he said with a hearty laugh.