Episode 241: Unpacking the Virtues of Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners’
(Please note this transcript is autogenerated)
JADE HINDMON This is KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindmon. Ryan Coogler. Sinners has been dominating the box office the last two weeks. And one of the reasons is that people are not just wanting to see the movie, but also wanting to see it repeatedly. And that's because the film is not just an action packed vampire tale, but it is also a deeply personal film for Coogler. And it is packed with both history, about his southern roots and with black culture. To unpack the film, we are gathering our midday movies critics. Welcome once again to KPBS cinema junkie Beth Accomando and Moviewallas podcaster Yazdi Pithavala. Welcome to you both.
BETH ACCOMANDO Thank you so much.
YAZDI PITHAVALA Thank you, Jade.
JADE HINDMON So I have not seen this film yet. I'm super excited to see it, but I am looking forward to you all's insight. And also, what are we wearing today? This studio has really been turned into, you know, a lair of sorts. Tell me.
BETH ACCOMANDO A tomb? Maybe a catacomb. I don't know. Well, you know, Sinners is a vampire film. Not your typical vampire film. However, I did a Dracula haunt and I thought it might be appropriate to bring a few items in and, you know, just in case we're attacked, we have stakes and, you know, Bible and holy water don't work on Ryan Coogler's vampires, but the stakes work really well. And I do have an instruction manual about how to do that.
JADE HINDMON Okay.
BETH ACCOMANDO I have a lovely necklace that, you know, imitates a vampire bite because I thought I would just be kind of in theme in theme. And I'm blood splattered, too, but that's okay.
JADE HINDMON Yep, yep, yep.
BETH ACCOMANDO I'm not sure I fit the dress code for KPBS today, but it is work related.
JADE HINDMON Hey, you know, we're ready to go. If anything pops up in here, any vampires, we're ready. All right.
YAZDI PITHAVALA You'll be prepared.
JADE HINDMON Yes. Well, let's begin with a little setup for the film. Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers who return to 1932 Mississippi to open a juke joint. Here's the trailer.
CLIP You throwing a big event tonight. Your money come with blood. All money come with blood, baby. Listen here. This ain't no house party. Y'all ready to drink? All ready to sweat till y'all stank. You want some? You keep dancing with the devil, one day he's going to follow you home. I want to see. Like, I hear the crickets.
JADE HINDMON Okay, so the marketing for Sinners really sets us up for a horror film. Is it really?
BETH ACCOMANDO Yes, and no, the thing about Ryan Coogler is he's so good at making personal films that also work as Hollywood products. You know, in this case, it's a vampire horror action film. But it's also this very deeply personal film. His own Southern roots and about black culture and about what it's like to live in Mississippi as a Black person in 1932. But it's also horrific. And the thing is, they're also calling this Ryan Coogler's first horror film, or first foray into horror. But I would say that his first movie, Fruitvale Station, which is about the death of this young black man, a real story. A young black man who was killed by a BART officer. That's horror. That's real world horror. And for half of Sinners, I would say it's that real world horror where we're dealing with Michael B. Jordan as these two twin brothers comes back, he's facing these white people who do not seem wholly trustworthy at all. And then it makes a jump halfway through to Supernatural and vampires, and then it becomes a different kind of horror. And, you know, as somebody who's a fan of zombies, I'm used to zombies being a blank canvas for social commentary. I'm not as used to vampires being that way. And he just mines them for everything they're worth and delivers on so many levels.
JADE HINDMON Wow. It sounds like this one does not fit neatly into any box. Yazdi, what are your thoughts? How do you describe it?
YAZDI PITHAVALA So I think the very fact that we struggle to put it in a box speaks of its ambition and how different it is. First and foremost, I think Sinners is the reason we go to the movies. It's the reason we want to sit down in a cinema seat and just be wowed. And we watch so many movies every day. Not every day, but, you know, pretty often. And we kind of are used to just being, you know, going through a mediocre movie watching experience. And every once in a while a movie comes along which just shakes you up. And this is that movie. Every movie that Ryan Coogler has made has taken on a particular genre and kind of refracted it through the black experience. Be it Creed, which was a follow up for the Rocky movies, or Fruit Whale Station or the Black Panther movies, which were superhero movies, and now this one, Sinners. He takes the framework of the vampire movie to say so much about the state of racism then and now.
JADE HINDMON Wow. Also, music plays a key role in the film. So let's talk about the big set piece in the middle of the film that plays out to the song. I lied to you.
CLIP Something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time. It might hurt you. Hope you don't lose your mind. Well, I was just a boy about 8 years old. You threw me a Bible on that Mississippi road. See, I love you, Papa. You did all you could do. And they say the truth hurts. So I lied to you. Yes, I lied to you.
BETH ACCOMANDO This is another reason to see it in the theater is it's not just to see the visuals and see it in imax. It's to hear it. Because this music, you hear that that's coming through, like, you start to feel that coming up through your feet and up through your body. And Sammy is the one playing this music. And there's this sense, we're told, that he plays so well, that he can pierce the veil between dimensions. His father's a preacher and is trying to tell him, like, you know, don't play this music. You're toying with the devil and it's dangerous. So the music is so key. And I think what's interesting in a film like this, where there's a lot of action and other set pieces, I think most people coming out of the film will probably be talking about this big musical number. And it does so much. I don't think. I know, Yazdi, you didn't want to do spoilers, but I don't think it's a spoiler to say that this piece of music happens and it does pierce the veil between dimensions. It conjures up an evil character. It also serves as this commentary on how music strings through black culture. And I speak with John Jennings about the film, and he's a comic book artist, and he also talks a lot about Afrofuturism and this notion that this music is almost a way to time travel, like between times. And even though you may be in this one fixed place that you think you are, like, there's all these other time frames, past, present, future, that also exist at the same time. So I think it's really interesting for the music in this sequence to kind of do two things, which is the one, play up this role in the horror, and then this other part, which is about how music is so key to black culture.
JADE HINDMON What'd you think about it, Yazdi?
YAZDI PITHAVALA So Sinners is two movies, as Beth mentioned earlier. The first part of the movie is set in Jim Crow south, about this group of people who just want to have a good time and enjoy their music. And then the second part of the movie is the vampire bit. And this scene is the one which connects part A and part two of the movie. And not to indulge in hyperbole, but I cannot think of a movie in recent times which has used music this effectively. When this scene comes along, has been going at a particular pace and it just takes off. And I had a transcendent experience when it happened. And I hate to set expectations high for those who haven't seen it, but it's quite a remarkable achievement of how it's been shot, how the music is played. Coogler has used 65 millimeter film. He uses different aspect ratios. So we see a lot of mastery of the craft here to really give the audience an out of body experience, I think.
JADE HINDMON Wow. Well, the first half of the film is about setting up the party and Coogler is giving us a lot of detail about black life in the south in 1932. But when night falls and Sammy's music pierces the veil, things change. And we get the character of Remmick.
CLIP We heard tale of a party. You did. You remind us coming in now, would you?We hungry as dogs. Woof, woof. You fellers must be the owners of this establishment. That's right. And you are? We just came here to play. Here, I'll show you. Pick poor Robin clean. Pick poor Robin clean. I picked his head, I picked his feet. I would have picked his body, but he wasn't fit to eat. Let's go now.
JADE HINDMON Hadn't seen the movie, but I already know it was a mistake letting them in. It was such a mistake. So let's talk about Remmick and vampires. Beth, you want to start?
BETH ACCOMANDO Sure. So he is a fascinating character because he is both kind of the layers they give him. He can be both victim and predator. He's terrifying, but he's also absolutely seductive. And he also uses music like Sammy. He's Irish in the film. And again, this brings up another layer because. Because at one point he talks about the Irish being colonized by the British. And when the Irish first came over here to the U.S. you know, they were considered people of color also. So there's those layers to it. But then he talks like a preacher where he's come be part of our community, come be part of this family. And he's got this vibe like a preacher, where he's pulling you in and kind of seducing you with something attractive. But he's also very scary. And he's key to the horror, the vampire horror in this film. But again, it's layered with the ideas of colonization, racism. There's so much to unpack through it. And the music, the piece that Sammy plays is key, but there's also a piece with Irish music that is as impactful. And again, you really feel the music, like, through your body in this film when you see it in the theater. And that's part of the experience.
JADE HINDMON Yeah. Yazdi, what did you think? I mean, what do you think the music represents in this movie?
YAZDI PITHAVALA I think the movie represents, like Beth mentioned, this ability to reach outside of your circumstances, this ability to kind of get to a higher plane, which could be good and bad. It can open up your fortunes. It can open up evil forces as well. And you can see that both with the protagonists as well as with the bad guys. So Remmick and his two other companions, they are exceptional musicians themselves. And, you know, they are using music to actually get away into this group of black citizens who are kind of trying to just have a good time at the juke jaunt in the middle of the night. And I just love that, you know, Coogler fathoms racism and all, all of its cruel ways as simply vampires as a form of vampirism, which is out to suck the blood out of minority culture. So there's so many ways to kind of interpret it. And Jack O'Connell, who plays Remmick, is exceptional. He's equal parts like, shining, shimmering scales and potent venom. I mean, there's something very snake like about him, but you're still. You can understand why he's let in. You can see his charisma.
JADE HINDMON Yeah, this is so fascinating. I mean, this film is rich in meaning. Are there any films that you would recommend watching as companion viewing?
YAZDI PITHAVALA Yes, I would recommend a couple. One is A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, which was an Iranian film which came out a few years ago. And it's a beautiful, stylish black and white. I mean, you seldom see, you know, the vampire aspect in Iranian cinema, but this kind of movie takes a totally different view of vampires, in that the central protagonist, she's a vampire, and she uses her skills to protect women in Iran against patriarchy, against the men who want to do harm. And so in this case, her being a vampire is seen in a positive light, and we seldom see that aspect of a vampire story. The other one I would also like to bring up was the movie which was released on Christmas Day last year, which is Robert Eggers reimagining of Nosferatu, the original FW Murnau film. And he does a pretty faithful homage to the original film, but there are parts of it which are different enough that anybody who is a lover of cinema, who's a lover of horror, ought to visit it. The central character of Ellen has been changed enough that she's no longer somebody to whom bad things happen. She's not just a receptacle for the vampire's desire. She is part of the desire. She summons him. So her haunting is not just a haunting by the vampire, but there's also a sexual component to it. So I really like how that movie kind of opens up some of those themes which probably could not be addressed in the original film. And also the movie is just amazing to look at visually. There's these wonderful shades of blacks that he plays with during the course of the movie and definitely worth checking out.
JADE HINDMON All right, those are two on the list for sure. Beth, what about you? What are your suggestions?
BETH ACCOMANDO Yes, I would go to some films from the 70s to start with. Ganja and Hess is a really interesting movie from 1973. Spike Lee remade it more recently, but it's sort of on the edge of blaxploitation, but it's a little more art house. And it deals with someone who is pierced with a sword from Africa that has like infected blood on it, and it turns him into a kind of vampiric creature. But again, it has this feeling of spanning different time frames through this. And this plays up more a religious aspect also. But there's also music, which is similar to Ryan Coogler's film. But it's a really interesting film to see, very underappreciated. And then on the more exploitation end, there's Blacula, which I know a lot of people laugh at because of the name, but it actually is kind of serious in its social messaging because Dracula turns this African prince into a vampire and it's again, this twist on colonialism and it has a bit of a, you know, a ring and a sting to it.
JADE HINDMON Wonderful. Well, this discussion, at least right here, has made me definitely want to go see the movie. Sinners.
CLIP The sinners arrive. You scared? You scared? Who ain't gon kill every last one of you sinners? Rated art.
BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to KPBS Listener Supported Cinema Junkie. I'm Beth Acamondo. Sinners opened just a couple weeks ago to both critical acclaim and box office success. And while Sinners presents as a vampire film, it's also about real world horrors. And it's loaded with history that's both personal to Coogler and More broadly American. So to talk about this film, I'm thrilled and honored to welcome back two of my favorite cinema junkie guests to peel back some of the layers of sinners. So welcome to professor, artist and author John Jennings, as well as comic book author, novelist and filmmaker David F. Walker. Welcome, gentlemen.
DAVID F. WALKER Thanks for having us.
JOHN JENNINGS No, I'm glad to be here, you know. Thank you.
BETH ACCOMANDO Okay, so there's a lot to unpack in this film. And to start with, just give me your first kind of gut reaction, quick reaction to the film.
DAVID F. WALKER I was so thoroughly entertained, blown away, inspired, you name it. It's. I. I still love the movies, but I don't go to the movies, like, physically the theater that often because there's nothing that has. That has appealed to me in the last few years. I was like, that. I want to go out and be in a big group of people. But I went and saw this, and it was like. It was honestly one of those moments that made me. That reminded me why I love going to the theater, why I love seeing something on the big screen. But. But even more than that, it was this. Oh, I haven't seen anything like this. There were so many moments that I hadn't seen quite like this in, you know, years of watching movies. It was just. It really made me fall in love with movies all over again. And. And I. And I am slow to. I don't want to be one of those people that's like, man, Ryan Coogler is the greatest filmmaker of his generation, but at what, four movies in, like, he's better than everybody else, you know?
JOHN JENNINGS Well, I'm from Mississippi originally, right? And I work. Well, both of us work in this vein to a certain degree with our own, like, personal work, you know. And, you know, I. I was. I was so. I was moved to tears in several moments in that film. Seeing people that I've. It's almost like seeing, like, indexes of Ancestors, you know, I'm saying it was just beyond, like, the cinematic experience. The spiritual experience for me was something else. I mean, I had to comp. Actually, like, there's. So I was. I. I had to go see it again because partially I, you know, I was. I was in tears so many times that I'm like, I can't see to see the movie. You know, I was just moved one bit of the point where I felt like I left my body for a second. I was like, this is. This is some. This is some really wild conjuring that's happening in this movie.
BETH ACCOMANDO All right? And since there is a lot to unpack. I'm not sure exactly where to start, but let's begin with talking just about the vampires themselves. So they adhere to some classic vampire lore regarding sunlight and garlic, but the usual religious aspects like holy water and crosses have no effect. So what do you feel the differences reveal or have to say about what Ryan Coogler is trying to convey with the film?
JOHN JENNINGS He did eschew kind of like the, the religious aspects of it. Right. And I've seen it happen in other vampire films where they kind of like, they go beyond the idea of like a Christian, you know, vampire, what have you. And a lot of it's about faith and belief and all this kind of thing. Right. I think that the vampires are really different in this particular case. They're not only seeking sustenance. Remick is also seeking a reconnection, I think, to other things that have been lost that he senses in the griot that, that Sammy is kind of an index for, you know, this kind of like notional, like lost culture and things of that nature. I think that's one of the most important things. The other thing too is like, you know, this, this film obviously is a, is an exercise in the kind of southern, what I call it, Southern ethno gothic or Southern gothic play of like the sacred and the profane, you know, and so it's like, it's dealing a lot with like what is sacred to us and, and also the fact that, you know, the duology that is happening too, you know, I mean, the two faced nature of what it means to be black and from the south and all these different things, you know, so yeah, so I think the vampires are indexes for like, you know, colonization, for cultural appropriation, things of that nature too, you know, so that, that's why I think he was trying to. At least that's what I was kind of reading. I need to see it again so I can actually get a deeper read.
DAVID F. WALKER Well, first I'll start by saying that, that you know, in horror for a long time, the zombies were the sort of metaphor for just about anything you wanted to be a metaphor. And that's George Romero turned the zombie into what it had been into a metaphor for a lot of things. Right. And vampires can, can be metaphors, but they tend to stick very closely to either religious or sexual metaphors. Right. But this was really about, in a lot of ways this was, was about assimilation and appropriation and, and to a larger extent we could maybe say colonization. Right. It's about holding onto your roots. But Also finding new community. Right. And. And so there's the thing that's really interesting about Remic is he's. He's offering this new sense of community, this new sense of culture, new sense of race, like, let's all do this together. But then as you. As the story progresses, you see it's what he wants it to be. So it's, you know, in a lot of ways, it's this. It's a metaphor for immigration versus, you know, like, the forced, you know, enslavement and in servitude of Africans and their descendants. Right. The. The argument I always will, I will shoot down every single time is when people say to me, well, you know, when. When the Irish first came over, when the Irish first immigrated or when Jews first immigrated or when Italians, they weren't considered white. And. And I always go, but they became white. And. And that's what this movie's kind of about. It's. Right, you know, like. Like Remmick thinks, hey, we're all in this together, but I want you to be just like me. I want to be the leader of this thing. So. And that hit me more during the second viewing because there's little things he says, little things he does along the way that the first time. There's just some movies that lend themselves so much to multiple viewings. And the other thing, too, that's always interesting is, and I think Coogler does this so well in this movie, is that the best vampires, like, they don't see themselves as monsters. Right? Like, the best villains don't see themselves as villains. But there's something about. There's. There's a. It's not quite a religious component, but it almost is a religious component. Like, there's.n There's testifying going on, and there's, you know, like they're. They're practically speaking in tongues at points, this movie. And I just kept watching it and thinking, like, I knew from the beginning this isn't really about vampires. This is about something else. Yeah, but the fun is you don't. Like, he doesn't tell you exactly what it's about. There's nothing worse than. Than. Especially if it's a horror movie or another genre movie that's about so much more, but they. They telegraph it and they beat you over the head with it. And, And. And that's what I love about this movie is, is there's so many layers, so many. And it'll be, you know, I'm sure 20 years from now I'll be watching it and I'll catch something that I didn't catch before.
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah.
BETH ACCOMANDO What interested me was that they took out some of the religious components to the vampire lore. But Remmick talks like a preacher about community and join us and. And he's so seductive doing it too. Like. And that's another thing about vampires, right. They're always attractive.
JOHN JENNINGS He's a cult leader. Yeah.
DAVID F. WALKER I kept thinking of Jim Jones.
JOHN JENNINGS Jim Jones, man. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
DAVID F. WALKER That's so what I kept seeing. And so that's what I meant by, like, there's a religious component that's still there. It's just not religion as the enemy of vampires, but religion as the tool of the vampires.
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah, exactly. Because he's definitely. He's preaching, he's collecting things from his collecting collection play, still using blood as. As a type of currency. But at the end of the day, it's really about these. This, you know, the cultural. Cultural capital, you know, so, you know, I thought it was. Yes. Very seductive, very well played.
BETH ACCOMANDO And you. You brought up the idea of colonization. And the thing. The line that I couldn't remember exactly what it was is, doesn't Remmick talk about the Irish being colonized by the British?
DAVID F. WALKER Yes, it speaks to how old Remmick is, for one thing, but it also speaks to, again, this very particular time in American history where, you know, most people forget this, that in the history of immigration, there have always been groups who have come from other places, and for a certain amount of time, they were the other. Right. Irish, Italian, Jews. The key thing to remember about Africans is we weren't immigrants. Right. We were forcibly brought over here. So that aspect of the story doesn't. Never applies to us or seldom applies to us. There's some. Some folks that came over immigrated years later after the end of slavery. But, like, Asians and Latinos exist in the middle of that immigration process. Right. Where, like, again, there's. There was a time when the Irish weren't considered white.
JOHN JENNINGS Right.
DAVID F. WALKER I mean, that's like. And some people don't remember that. Remick is a callback to that mindset. And so he doesn't think of. He really doesn't think of himself as being white. He's Irish, and now he's a vampire. Two things that have removed him from that. And again, for me, that became more clear the second time around. And so, you know, again, I'm curious what I'll pick up on the third time and the fourth time, the fifth time. And it's been a while since I've been like, Man, I can't wait for this to come out on Blu Ray, you know, so. Because then you can stop it, rewind it, pause it, all that fun stuff.
BETH ACCOMANDO And also, what about Annie and Hoodoo? And I'm not sure. Is hoodoo a religion or is it a cultural practice?
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah, no, Hoodoo isn't a religion. It's very much a set of, like, cultural practices that are connected directly to folk magic. And it's a hodgepodge of different belief structures, too. That's the other thing. There's definitely, like, ancestor worship and, like, the different spirits that are worshiping, say, like, voodoo or other African or, you know, condomlay or other, like, African diasporic religions. But it also is partially like, there's part of, you know, French belief structures in there, and there's also things from, you know, from Europe, because it really kind of like, starts in New Orleans, which is, you know, of course, a port city, and everything's coming in there and then starts to, like, spread around. Right. But it's a. Yeah, but it's very much a practice that, you know, is. Is not a religion. But it. So, for instance, there's plenty of people who are, like, you know, in the church, but are also root workers, you know, that kind of thing. So those. Those things can coexist, which this piece is about as well, you know, you know, different. Different levels of faith, you know, and the difference between, like, organized religion and, you know, the structures that are given to us by our ancestral connections.
DAVID F. WALKER And I thought her character in a. In a film full of interesting characters may have been the most. Right. Yeah, in part because we seldom get to see women in roles like that that aren't steeped totally in these sort of sexist stereotypes, overly sexualized with this sort of ideal of beauty that is more of a. In a Eurocentric norm, but also in a lot of ways, she's like. She's the seer of everything. Right. She understands more of what's going on. She figures it out before everybody else. And she's the one who's like, this is what we got to do. And so it was so interesting to see her in, say, comparison to the character of Smoke, who's. Who's essentially the hero of the story. But without Annie, Smoke is incapable. Right. Like, whatever strength Smoke has really, he got from Annie, it comes through the first time, but by the second time you. You watch it, you're like, oh, wait a sec. And. And that then becomes also a metaphor for, historically, the. The strength of. Of black women within the community. And within the black experience and with them holding even the broken pieces together, because that's what Annie's doing. Annie is holding all these broken pieces and keeping them together as best she can. So.
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah, and also using her. Her practice, you know, which she gained from her matrilineal lines from my grandmother, to keep them safe, to protect not only the community protect, you know, smoke and stack as they're running away from their. Their pain, you know. Yeah. Because that's what it was. I mean, it's like them being chased away by too much hurt.
BETH ACCOMANDO Okay. And we can't ignore music. Music pulses through the whole film, and it's key to a lot of what happens. And let's start with Sammy and his music, which can pierce the veil between dimensions. So what do you think? What do you think some of the things are that Coogler's trying to say with the music?
DAVID F. WALKER This is as much a musical in a lot of ways. In fact, there are some moments where I felt like Coogler was dialing some stuff back so that it didn't become overly musical. Like, there's almost dance numbers, you know what I'm saying? They're not as choreographed as something you'd get in west side Story or whatever. But. Yeah, but I think that, like, music is so integral to. Especially once music was able to be recorded and transmitted via radio, it became. It became much more entwined with history. And especially when it comes to, I think, the black experience in America, music becomes such a crucial part, and you can almost break it up into, like, if I play you ragtime, it's evocative of a very specific era. Jazz, a specific era that the soul, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, another era, Hip hop, another era. But you can take any of those, you know, musical stylings and go, okay, this has its origins in, you know, hip hop has its origins in the South Bronx in the late sevent. And this is what it was all about. And this is how it was a response to this. The blues has its origins here, and it was a response to this. And so that. Like, to put that in a horror movie and to kind of put that. Not kind of, but to definitely put that in front of the horror. Right. Like. Like Sinners is a horror movie, like maybe third or fourth on its list of things that.
JOHN JENNINGS Exactly.
DAVID F. WALKER And. But this sort of exploration of music, to me, is part of what makes this movie. So there's a lot of things that makes it very unique and very special, but that music component and even the way they treat the blues. There's some aspects of the blues that are very modernized, you know. Is it Miles Caton, I think that's the actor's name, who plays Sammy, who, you know, he sings his own music. He sings his own songs. And I think that. That. Yeah, like, that's like. I haven't even begin to begin. Begun to fully unpack the music yet.
JOHN JENNINGS So on the music space, I mean, the blues, you know, like David's saying is response to. Or. It was a survival mechanism, you know, for people from. My People from Mississippi. Right. And, you know, it also speaks to, like, issues around, like, you know, the great migration. That's why things of that nature. Well, I love the idea of, like, this connection between Mississippi and Chicago, which I always call up south, because if you've been to Chicago, you really have been to Mississippi. But it's just with bigger. Like, as they say that they say it's with taller buildings. It's just Mississippi. You know. Two things popped in my head when I was watching. When I was listening to it. Well, three things. First of all, I. I grew up in juke joints. You know, we actually. Am. I in Mississippi, in Port Gibson on our. On our property, you know, which used. Which my. My ancestors were enslaved on, actually. And now we own. There is a juke joint. It's called Ms. Gertz. And so after. After church, people would go to that juke joint and get a beer and hang out and into the evening. You know, it's a communal space. It's also a sacred space too, in its own. Right, Right. Right. So. So I grew up listening to Coco Taylor and Bobby Blue Bland and, you know, B.B. king. You know, all of that music is inside of the work that I do too. So. So when I. When I see that movie, I saw it as a. As a reflection of myself and, you know, my family in this movie, you know, two things that pop. Other things popped in my head was like I was watching, you know, this classic documentary called the Last angel of History by John Okomfra. And it's about like the black speckle of impulse in digital music. But it starts out with the story of Robert Johnson.
CLIP Now, the story goes that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in the Deep South. He sold his soul and in return, he was given the secret of a black technology. A black secret technology that we know to be now as the blues. Sammy's character reminds me of a lot, actually. Is Robert Johnson the great blues man who supposedly sells his soul at the crossroads to the quote Unquote, devil, right?
JOHN JENNINGS So in this particular film, you know, John Okonfra has this, like, time traveling, like, archeologist character called the Data Thief. And he basically talks about the fact that, you know, Robert Johnson goes down and he's. And he talks to this entity at the crossroads, which probably is an issue. Allegra, honestly, you know, not a devil. And he says that the spirit gives him a black secret technology. And the secret technology was the blues. And when I first heard that, it just blew my mind because I never thought of music as a technology, but it is. It's a way of understanding the world, it's a way of remaking the world, and it's a way of travel. And to that note, it reminds me of this short story by Mary Baraka called Rhythm Travel, where there's an invention where basically, like, you know, in this short, very. It's almost like a flash fiction piece, right? And this gentleman in the story creates this method of time travel where you're actually turned into music, right? And your body is. It's almost like. Like you're beamed, you know, into different places. So wherever that music has been played, work from the start of it, and wherever it ever will be played, you can access because you become that song. So, for instance, if it's like, you know, Get on up by James Brown, wherever that song originated from, and wherever that song will ever go, you can go to. And I was like, wow. So these are the. So when I. When I look at this, I'm like, this is a very Afro futurist, you know, or like black speckled, like tenet, you know, it's this notion of, like, time being a circle and being like, ever present, you know, which, you know, not to give it away, but there's scenes in there that actually feel like some of them, what it does with the blues does. Because it's so technologically and so futuristic in its own ways and also backwards looking at the same time, is that it situates the south, or the black south, as a futuristic space and as an aspirational space, which I've always believed.
BETH ACCOMANDO All right, so now this can be a horror, vampire, science fiction, real drama. We're adding one more thing.
DAVID F. WALKER Yeah, yeah.
JOHN JENNINGS No, it's science fiction for real, because we talk.
DAVID F. WALKER It's. In some ways it's more science fiction than it's. Than it's horror anyway. Because I know, right? In terms of horror, I mean, I've watched a lot of horror movies in my day, and there's a minimal amount of gore in this film. But I don't think there's a single real jump scare. And the real tension comes from. We know what's going on. A lot of the tension comes from simply knowing vampire lore as well as most of us do, just from other media. Right. So it's, it's never like a, oh, I'm so too scared to watch. It's more like, oh, like I'm pretty sure I know what's coming next. There's more of a thriller. It's like more of a supernatural thriller, I think might be a better way to say it than a horror movie, which isn't to denigrate the, the horror elements or the vampire elements. I just think that it's like I've had people say, oh, you, they didn't get to the vampire soon enough. Things like that, you know. Says who? That's the beauty of this movie is it's so many things.
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah, I would say, like, you know that, of course. And you know this, I mean, both of you, because when you critique something, you're really saying a lot of things about what you expect, you know, or your critic actually like is. Is showing what they believe in, you know, that kind of thing. So when someone says that. So I said, okay, well, that tells me that you don't necessarily like a, A meal. You want, you want, like McDonald's, you know what I'm saying? You want. You know what I'm saying? Because, because to me, like, when a horror film deals with dread, it deals with like, I felt like the pacing to me feel more like old school, like John Carpenter film or like Alien, where you like, where you have like this character driven character, you know, you have the setup and a lot of the, the crazy happens in the last like what, 30, 40 minutes of the film, you know. And so the other thing too is I felt like, you know, it definitely is a horror movie, but not in the supernatural way or, or it deals with the supernatural powers of, you know, white supremacy and oppression and how it affects people in the. How it feels. Black. Black lives. Right. So to me, the horrific elements are, you know, Delta Slim's story about his friend who was. And lost his life and. Or the fact that he was, you know, essentially like taken advantage of by a system, you know, that. That's horrific, you know, or, you know, the death of Smoke and Annie's baby, you know, that that's a. Sorry, you know what I'm just saying. But I don't want to give away story points, but I'm saying that it is horrific in its own way. And I think that to, in some ways the vampire part is the joy. Like that's the release of the, of the horror, you know, you know, so, so that's the thing, I mean the horrific choice of having to, to choose between like your religion and your faith in yourself, you know, those are, those are, that's the, that's, those are terrifying things to me, you know, so, well.
BETH ACCOMANDO To me, you know, because everybody was going like, oh, this is Ryan Coogler's first foray into horror. But I would say that Fruitville Station was horror. Like it's real world horror. And I feel like sinners, like that whole first part and sinners also. Like Fruitvale Station takes place in a 24 hour period. It's the same like time frame. But to me it's like all that beginning stuff. The tension before you have vampires is like the guy they buy the place from, like he looks dangerous and that it might be a killing floor and that those Asian store owners like are they going to get their shop vandalized because like there's all that real world horror that's filling up the space before we get to vampires.
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah, you know, that's, it's a lot of dread. It's a lot of stuff people understand. Like, you know, you don't just. I think, I think like modern horror movies have ruined horror. You know, this is something, you know, the jump scare stuff, but also just like, you know, the tick tock rot that we have in our brains now. You know, it's just like I want a meal, I don't, I want a long movie, I want an intermission. I think it should be longer. And we become like, you know, we, we eat, you know, and consume media in this really crazy like ways. Which is why the way that my wife and my nephew was in the other room watch movies drives me crazy because I'm like, you're supposed to sit and enjoy this and like sink into it, you know, and, and people want the fast things, they want to jump scares, they want to feel this particular thing. But you know, to be scared, like a jump scare is a physical thing and it's, it's very fleeting.
DAVID F. WALKER Yeah.
JOHN JENNINGS Oh right. You know, I feel better now. Right. Horror stays with you. Horror is the thing that leaves the theater with you and, and makes you on the sense of ennui and the sense of like, you know, unruha that you have on your body. You know, I'm saying that's horror, you know, and people, don't people forgotten that.
DAVID F. WALKER You know, no, it's. There's a lot to be said for, like if you haven't, if you're not leaving the theater terrified.
JOHN JENNINGS Yes.
DAVID F. WALKER Movie. The Descent, which I think is a truly terrifying movie. I saw that in Park City, Utah at the Sundance Film Festival at a midnight screening and then had to walk back to the condo at like 2 in the morning. And I have never been more afraid, ever, after watching a movie. And I remember getting back to the condo thinking, this is one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, because it stuck with me afterwards. The other, the other one was the Ring. And after watching the Ring for the first time, I didn't ever want to turn the TV back on again.
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah, I felt that. I mean, I feel that too. Yeah. So that, that sense of dread is very present. I think what it is too is that Coogler is not spoon feeding us like the vocabulary of film, you know what I'm saying? He's, he's doing his thing. He's like, look, you can, you can go with me if not, if you want to, you know, but this is someone who was in his bag, his mojo bag, his movie mojo bag, casting spells and, you know, he's like a cinematic conjure man, you know, and, and you can get down with this mojo or not. And my whole thing is that if you are into film, like real film and real narratives and stuff to this, then you're going to love this film. You know, you're going to want to see it several times. It's a, it's a, it's a wake up call, I think, to Hollywood, like, yo, we need to get back to like really, really creating new things or things that people connect to in these really visceral ways. Or else, guess what? You're cooked.
DAVID F. WALKER When you look at Coogler's career at this point, you know, there's Fruitvale Station, which is his debut feature, which is based on a true story. Right. So it came from somewhere else. Then he does Creed, which is a legacy film. It's based on existing ip. And then he does two Black Panther movies. So his career is made up, up to Sinners is made up of things he's created from, I'll say very tangible existing things. Right. This is Coogler showing that he can make a movie 100% on his own, that he can, that he can spin a tail that is, is the product of all of his influences and all the things that he's enjoyed, but it's, it's not anybody else's. And you're hearing a lot of stuff. People talking about, oh, it's an original IP movie that, you know, most, most of those movies don't make money these days. It has to be a remake of something or a sequel to something or based on something. And, and, and they're talking about how he's disproving that. But what we're also seeing is what happens when. When a really talented filmmaker is allowed to make something and he doesn't have to answer to anyone. And I have some of my theories about Coogler and his relationship to Marvel. I have been working with his company on a project. I've never actually met him personally, but now all these theories that I've had about him for a very long time, like Sinners is, is paying off. And I'm going, yeah, I know this guy. Like, I don't know him, but I know him. Right? It's sort of like he's leaving a lot of stuff for us to interpret. And that's the sign of a filmmaker who is, I'm not going to say is total and complete freedom, but is whoever he's answering to, he's answering to in a completely different way than you would say to Marvel.
JOHN JENNINGS Right.
DAVID F. WALKER And that means you can't do this. Right. But Sinners is the first time in a very young man's very young career, when you really think about it, where there was nobody telling him, you can't do this. And this is the most important thing because we've all seen those movies where nobody said no to the director. Star wars the Phantom Menace is a prime example. George Lucas's career became one where no one said no to him. We see what happened. That's what I. That's what I think. Even on an unconscious level, that's what a lot of people are responding to in the positive response to Sinners is like, a lot of people are understanding, oh, we're seeing creativity that is not being held back by one thing or another. It's not being held back because we got to sell action figures. It's not being held back because we got to get a PG13 rating. It's not being held back because Disney is saying, oh, this isn't the sort of message we. We give out. And then on top of that, it's not being held back. And I'm going to say this on the record by both a very poorly constructed marketing campaign on the part of Warner Brothers and a concerted effort by a lot of people to try to find something negative to say about the movie.
JOHN JENNINGS That's what Variety did, Variety did. Now they walking it back hard, hardcore.
DAVID F. WALKER This. This thing right here that we're watching, this is undeniable. And it's a. It can be hard for a lot of filmmakers to get to a place where there is. Their work is undeniable. Especially, you know, cougar. I don't think coogler is even 40 yet.
JOHN JENNINGS I think he's still, in fact, still in his. I mean, he's a baby, you know. No, you're right. I mean, all of what you said, I think is. Is right. The zeitgeist that people have spoken. And now we're in a space too, where people are supporting it because of the fact, because of the deal. There's people who, who, you know, who are going back. So you know what? Let's add some. Let's add some. Some dollars to this, you know, because this deserves to be seen. And he deserves that deal. That unfettered power of like, someone who understands the medium so well. And it could actually probably teach a masterclass in filmmaking, not being hampered by any of these things. I mean, that's unheard of, you know. And, you know, people. I've been looking at these. These articles, it's like, oh, he's changing Hollywood. And like. Like the executives are afraid that other people might want deals like this, you know, And I'm like, well, here's the thing. I mean, if you, if you give people. If you. If you treat people like partners and not, you know, slaves or like, you know, or sharecroppers. Sharecroppers.
JOHN JENNINGS Is that. I mean, that's the thing. Yeah, yeah. It's like sharecroppers. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's how you get a. And a lot of times, too, you'll see, you know, to. On the opposite side of what you're saying. Like, not only, like, people who are, you know, get to the point where no one says no, but people who should have more agency, who get told to know too much. This is the other thing. Before I, Before I shut up. I've been seeing people saying, like, oh, you know, I wish that. Wish they would have let him do Blade. You know, I was like. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Nope. We don't want him to do Blade. We want him to do something else that he's created from scratch, that he controls. That's what we want. We don't want his Blade. We want his. Whatever the hell else he's going to make.
DAVID F. WALKER And I've said this all the time. Right. Like, and some people, I don't know for sure, I know that I personally believe that parts of Sinners comes from a failed Blade movie. Right. Just now, over the weekend, there was three reports. The Blade was originally supposed to be set in the 1920s. And Ruth Carter had already started all of her costume design. She did an interview, she was talking about it. Blade was starting to fall apart. And then proximity, people from proximity reached out to her and said, hey, we're making a movie. It's going to be set in the 30s. Delroy Lindo was also cast in Blade at one point, and he talks about this too. Right. There's a really good chance that while Blade was not coming together, which it wasn't for a very long time, and Coogler being one of the rock stars of the Marvel Universe, I see a scenario where they came to him and said, what? How can we make this work? And he came with some ideas and maybe even was pushing to direct it or get writing credit, and they wouldn't give it to him. This is what I think happened. Or a variation of this. And so he just took what he had and left Marvel. Because you notice there's been no talk of him doing anything else for Marvel.
BETH ACCOMANDO And to give this a little context in terms of cinema history, I know, David, you have mentioned we can't really talk about Sinners without talking about Ganja and Hess. So a lot of people don't know that film. So why would that film be important for others to see and to kind of understand this lineage that, that this film has?
DAVID F. WALKER Part of the reason I said that was because so many people are just comparing Sinners to the, the first Blade movie, which is.
JOHN JENNINGS I know, right? I'm like a horrible comparison.
BETH ACCOMANDO Or from the dawn, maybe Blacula. At least there is that colonization sort of thing with Dracula turning him.
DAVID F. WALKER Exactly. People are dismissive of Blacula in part because of the title, but I tell people all the time, like, Blacula is an incredibly deep movie and he is not the villain of that story, the first Blackula movie. He is a tragic hero who is killed by the lapd. But. But Gon Jin Hess is. Is one of those movies, like, especially when we're talking about stuff from the 60s and into the 70s. Gun Jen Hess was made, I think 73 by Bill Gunn, wrote and directed it. And he is a fairly well known playwright at that time. And he had been hired to make a vampire movie in the. In the vein of Blacula is what the investors wanted. But instead he. He gave him Something that to this day, I don't fully know how to describe. Right. It is the most artsy, art house vampire movie I've ever seen. It's tied into many aspects of the black experience. Religion plays a big part of it. The blood addiction is a metaphor for whatever it wants to be a metaphor for. And the history of that movie is also the history of artistic oppression. There were at least three different versions of the movie that were recut by the distributors and given different names. Like, one was Blood Couple. There was the Black Vampire. Right. And so all the things that Coogler was able to do. Ganja and Hess is an example of what goes wrong. And again, it's a beautiful movie that I've probably seen it seven or eight times. I still don't fully get every aspect of it. And it's funny too, because nobody's talking about Spike Lee's movie that was essentially a remake of Ganja.
JOHN JENNINGS Yes.
DAVID F. WALKER And. And, and I get really. I got into an argument with a good friend the other day about this. I. I said, you know, if you're gonna call yourself a critic in any capacity, and I don't care if all you're doing is being a critic on TikTok, like, at least know a little bit about what you're talking about. So if you're gonna be talking about, quote unquote, black vampire movies and your only frame of reference is Blade and Eddie Murphy's Vampire in Brooklyn directed by Wes Craven, then you're not really qualified. You're not qualified to contextualize. You're not qualified to really make comparisons, you know, if you're not talking about Grace Jones and. Vamp.
JOHN JENNINGS Vamp. Yeah, exactly.
DAVID F. WALKER There's so much stuff that can be talked about, but it's not even like not talking about Underworld, you know, which Kevin Grievous wrote, and that's. That in and of itself is about culture wars amongst monsters. Right?
JOHN JENNINGS Yes, exactly. Slavery and. And lichens are enslaved by the vampire. I mean. Yes, exactly.
DAVID F. WALKER And it's. It's. It's bothersome to me. It's troubling to me when. When people start talking about Blade versus. Again, that Blade versus Sinners conversation is so ridiculous to me, but it's also like, well, why do we have to compare Sinners to other black vampire movies when what we should really should be doing is how does this stack up to other vampire movies?
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DAVID F. WALKER And when I say that, like, how does Sinner stack up to other vampire movies? And the answer is it's up there with all of them, right? But when we have these sort of conversations there, you know, especially when races, you know, the idea of race and questions of racism come up, sometimes the conversation gets diverted in another direction. And it's like, I remember seeing, and I still hold that this is one of the best vampires of all time was Near Dark, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Right? And that was one of the first times I saw a vampire movie where I was like, I've never seen anything quite like this before, Right. And it's interesting to me because it's like, yeah, why aren't we, why aren't we talking about Near Dark in this conversation?
JOHN JENNINGS I saw somebody posting about this and I said the same thing. I said, pacing wise, you should be looking at like 80s science fiction horror films, you know, as far as, like, pacing, it's not from Dust Till dawn where the flip is in the middle. No, this is actually a very controlled release of the horror. And I totally mentioned Near Dark. I was like, no, so why not? We're not talking about Near Dark, you know, also too. I mean, when we talk about the esoteric nature of like, conjure, I. I think we need to revisit Daughters of the Dust as well. And also to Sleep with Anger by Charles. Charles Burnett, you know.
DAVID F. WALKER Oh, I hadn't thought about that one. Okay.
JOHN JENNINGS But that is about like the tenuous, the tensions between like these old belief structures that are coming from the south and this kind of modernization of people who have migrated from the south. And what that means, that's actually happening here too, in fact, in some ways, I mean, like, to sleep with anger feels to me like, Like Dracula. Because that's what Dracula is about too, you know, because it's about these nation, this notion of like these old world folk beliefs in encroaching on the quote unquote, modern, you know, you know, that kind of thing. And so both, both, you know, you know, Daughters of the Dust and actually, you know what I mean? Really? By the way, Sankofa too, you know, and Kofa's about that too, you know, like losing.
DAVID F. WALKER You're really going there, aren't you?
JOHN JENNINGS Man, I'm just saying.
DAVID F. WALKER I mean, I know, I know.
JOHN JENNINGS I'm just saying, like you, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm amen and yoke. I'm in your amen corner. That's what.
DAVID F. WALKER No, no, and I get it. But of course you got to top me. You got to bring in the san and you just. You squash me.
JOHN JENNINGS I didn't squash nothing bad. I'M trying to edify you, baby. This is your world, baby.
DAVID F. WALKER If we're going to contextualize the cinematic history of black expression, of African and African American expression, Julie Dash, Hailem and Charles Burnett are like. And then throwing in Bill Gunn as well. Coogler is following in the footsteps of them and those filmmakers way, whether anyone sees it or not, way more than he's following in the footsteps of a John Singleton or Spike Lee. If anything, Coogler is the convergence of a Spike Lee or John Singleton. He went through the film school process. Burnett and Dash and. And Garima all went to ucla. They're all part of the LA rebellion, of the LA rebellion movement. And Coogler, to me, is. And I'm just saying this right now, so, John, you got to remind me of this. Beth, you got to remind me of this. Coogler, to me, is the embodiment of black cinema, of every aspect of black cinema finally coming together. So it's him building on the things that were done by the race star race filmmakers of the 20s, 30s and 40s, the Oscar Micheaux, the Noble, Johnson's, the Spencer Williams folks like that. And then the filmmakers in the 70s and into the 80s who were still trying to find their place. Because we're talking about, again, we're talking about a cat who's not yet 40, who's only had four or five movies to his credit, but he's already made over $2 billion with his movie movies. Right.
BETH ACCOMANDO But see, that's where I think he is. So I agree with everything you're saying, except what Ryan Coogler adds to that. Yes, is a savvy of how to play the Hollywood game. Because, like, a lot like Spike Lee is great, but he's never really figured out how to deliver exactly what Hollywood wants to get more money, to make more films on a certain level. But Ryan Coogler seems able to do a personal independent film that also works 100% as, like, this vampire action blockbuster. Like, and you can take it either way. You can take it all together. But I've just found that his filmmaking is so smart in being able to walk that tightrope.
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah. I mean, honestly, I mean, to be borrowing from the, you know, from the conjure space, he's a. He's like a crossroads, isn't he?
DAVID F. WALKER Yeah.
JOHN JENNINGS You know, he's a living crossroads between those different aspects. And I dig it, man.
DAVID F. WALKER Yeah, yeah. No, I'm with you. I'm with you. You're right. I think that Coogler is part of a, I think part of it's also a generational thing, right. He's young enough to, to, to looked at all the other filmmakers, not just black filmmakers, but all the filmmakers that have come before him. And to see like, okay, what were the challenges they faced. How, you know, how do you get to. And when he has said in interviews, look, you know, I got this, the deal for sinners, because I've made a lot of money, right? And so the interesting thing I think is he's made a lot of money and while sinners cost a fair amount, it's on the screen, right. His talent is so undeniable and in some ways it's like, oh man, can he keep up with this? What, what's his next follow up gonna be?
JOHN JENNINGS I don't even want to think. Yeah, I feel you. I don't even think about that. I was like, you know what, let's.
DAVID F. WALKER Just, let's enjoy this.
BETH ACCOMANDO Enjoy it for now.
JOHN JENNINGS Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DAVID F. WALKER What I'm really looking forward to, I look forward to seeing him make like a five million dollar movie and having it be as phenomenal.
JOHN JENNINGS Right?
DAVID F. WALKER Like, I think he can do that.
BETH ACCOMANDO I need to wrap this up and I don't want to ask another question because I feel like I'll open a whole other can of worms.
JOHN JENNINGS Oh yeah, we got a lot of water.
BETH ACCOMANDO And we'll talk and we'll talk for another hour. So we might have to do a part two after we all see it again. But I want to thank you both very much. This film is so much fun to talk about and so much fun to see in a theater. Not just to see, but this is another film where the sound is so amazing. Like feeling that music come up through your feet and like up through your body.
JOHN JENNINGS It drives me crazy when I've seen people say, hey, you got to go see it. And somebody says, where is it streaming? I was like, no, no, no, no. You need to get up, you need to go to a theater and you need to see this the way it was intended.
DAVID F. WALKER Don't wait to watch it on streaming, which it's going to be probably streaming in a month anyway.
BETH ACCOMANDO Yeah.
DAVID F. WALKER Here's the truth. Warner Brothers is, is going to look to get that out of the theater as quickly as they can and get it, get it onto HBO Max or whatever. And so anybody who's listening to this, if there's ever a time where your, your consumer dollars really speak something, say something, this is, this is an example of it. Go see this in the theater and Then when it comes out on, you know, whether it's blu ray or 4k or whatever it is, buy that theater disk. Don't wait for it to be streaming, because when you, when it's streaming, Cougar and Proximity are not getting. I don't know what, how the deal exactly will work, but that's not where their money is going to be going to. And, and that's, that's going to be the rush on the part of Warner Brothers to get this out of the theater. They want, they like. I'm not gonna badmouth Warner Brothers publicly any more than I already do, but there are, there are people at Warner Brothers that were more interested in this movie failing than they were in succeeding. And up until a week ago, like Michael DeLuca, who green that this project and one of the EPs, Mike DeLuca was about to be shown the door at Warner Brothers, right? And now it's going to be a lot harder. And if Superman succeeds, because DeLuca was the one who got brought James Gunn in and said, do this, do it however you want to do it. If Superman succeeds, he's gonna be doing fine. But I've had so many conversations with people who. And this is, this is sort of that insider trading thing where people are like, yeah, DeLuca's career is over. And there's people who were, who were wanting that, Right. They wanted to take charge of. They wanted to get rid of him and take. Take charge of Warner Brothers in a way that would never have allowed sinners to take place. Right. Instead, they. They want to keep making the Flash. Right? Which is, you know, I'll say, this was garbage.
BETH ACCOMANDO I want to thank you both very much. It's always so much fun.
DAVID F. WALKER Beth, thanks for having us. I appreciate it.
JOHN JENNINGS This. Yeah, thank you.
BETH ACCOMANDO That wraps up another edition of KPBS Listener supported Cinema Junkie. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please share it with a friend because your recommendation is the best way to build an addicted audience. You can also help by leaving a review and check out Cinema Junkie presents Midday Movies video podcast on the KPBS YouTube channel. Till our next film fix. I'm Beth Acomando, your resident cinema junkie.
