WE ARE ALL...SINNERS.
The Ryan Coogler Joint that keeps on giving...
“I am a traveler of both time and space to be where I have been.
To sit with elders of a gentle race this world has seldom seen.
Who talk of days for which they sit and wait
When all will be revealed.”
Kashmir by Led Zeppelin
The mass hysteria that has erupted over Ryan Coogler’s latest cinematic offering, SINNERS, has moved me to end my self-imposed silence and return to the space of amateur criticism. Most of us are able to articulate what we like and don’t like about movies, but don’t truly, understand the craft of storytelling and the structure that helps us digest the story. I’m still coming to terms with the elements of style and the myriad ways a writer can unfurl a story to his/her audience while entertaining them and maintaining suspense.
The first thing I noticed in the marketing campaign for “Sinners” was the unorthodox trailer that broke away from the trailer de jour…you know, the ones that basically reveal the entire plot? The SINNERS trailer was mysterious, thought provoking, and contained scenes that aroused a desire to watch and learn more about Michael B. Jordan in a 1930’s Mississippi locale. A period piece directed by Ryan Coogler….? Starring his favorite thespian the always reliable and swagged out Michael B? With the hint of supernatural seasoning to boot? Shhhhiddddd. You had me at hello. Subsequent trailers were released including snapshots of vampiric mayhem, bootlegging gangster intrigue, and a creepy juke joint as a back drop. My inner critic began to develop opinions almost instantly…I deduced the plot based on the cryptic glimpses I had gathered from social media. Coogler has cobbled together remnants of past theatrical offerings; From Dusk till Dawn from Robert Rodriguez merged with an O’ Brother Where Art Thou vibe. Cool. That’s funky….it’s fresh….and when’s the last time we have been treated to vampires in a juke joint soaked in some down home Mississippi blues and hoodoo? Never. The anticipation of the flick was at a 10 for me.
Let’s dispense with preambles. I have now seen SINNERS twice. The first time I saw it….I rushed to peep it at the 6:00 IMAX showing at the CINEMARK movie theatre with my girlfriend and my son and his girlfriend. The first viewing was rough. As a cinephile, particularly a “Black Cinephile”, I’m undoubtedly rooting for the black director and writer of this movie. If you are reading this and happen not to be “Black”; black folks want to see other black folks perform well in their chosen craft because their commercial success leads to further opportunities for black voices to reverberate in fickle Tinseltown ….Failure would mean the shunting of further offerings from black creators and therefore the Black “voice” and “experience” disappears utterly from American filmic experience. Music and sports have been an undeniable source of AFRICAN AMERICAN influence….historic institutions, powerful men and corporations, and even illiterate hate mongers have attempted to prevent our participation and limit our achievements in the arts and athletics. Their desire to do so, however, has never eclipsed their greed and fascination with our innate abiltiy to create and excel even in the face of suffering, mortal danger, and generational sorrow. It certainly has not curbed their desire to “EXPLOIT” our creative mastery over pain and progress. So when I say I’m rooting for a Ryan Coogler…..A Spike Lee or even A Tyler Perry….it’s not because I want to center race, it’s because I want to see things refracted through the lens of black creators more often than Hollywood allows. I understand instinctively that field hollers and gospel music begat the blues, and then Jazz, that the generational anxiety and trauma of black folks can make magic when allowed to germinate and take root.
This brings me to the absolute necessity of works like the one Mr. Coogler created in SINNERS. SINNERS hopefully will be a new section of the tapestry representing the “BLACK EXPERIENCE” created and captured on celluloid to eventually become part of the “AMERICAN EXPERIENCE”. I am often left dumbfounded by some white podcasters (and quite frankly, some out of touch black ones) on social media who are obsessed with either erasing the notion of race from popular entertainment or who get annoyed when white folks are depicted as villains or less than desirables in “Black Movies”. Never considering the long time harm that American media has done to the global image of the African American. We have been described as half human, primitive, lazy, shiftless, ugly, sexually promiscous, untrustworthy and of inferior intelligence for long stretches of time to the point where the damage done is likely irreprable. The fact that times have changed does not negate the fact that this country started out on the wrong foot with black folk. Our development as a group of people has been arrested to say the least because of our complicated relationship with the white power structure. We assuredly can maintain that the shockwaves that have reverberated throughout time create our present day circumstances. SINNERS has shook all these feelings loose in me. It has framed the collective experience of the diaspora amazingly into one film that slithers, vacillating delicately between history, mythology, and music creating a heady roux of pop culture that oozes with the blues.
This is not so much a masterpiece as it is an anomalous sign of things to come. It has influenced me to think deeply about matters of race and the willingness to embrace each others colors and traditions….but also to cogitate frankly about our origins and where we came from, and where we are today, as a people. This movie will also hopefully influence newcomers to re-examine the genre of blues music and it’s influence on American music. Years ago my father told me that Elvis Presely was heavily influenced by the blues and rockabilly music….that the early “Race Music” of the late forties and early fifties was the mystical ingredient he imbued his music with. I never understood the significance of that fact until I got older and learned that the Rolling Stones’ lead guitarist, Keith Richards, adored Chuck Berry and patterned his early playing style after the icon. He stated in a random publication that I read years ago that his love of Berry’s growling guitar led him on a pilgrim’s journey through the sonic realms of blues and jazz to attempt to approximate the sound of Berry. The power of history and struggle lead a burgeoning Kentish musician to research the instinctive paths and rhythms of prior masters and we, the public, have “Brown Sugar” and “Give me Shelter” as testaments to the Black melodic arts.
There was also the story of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame….a band that I considered to be “dangerously white” in my teen years, even though I loved a song called “When the Levee Breaks”….I was terrified of letting my parents or friends catch wind of the fact that I adored Rock and Roll music and even appreciated some forms of Metal. Imagine my shock when I learned that Zeppelin had cribbed that song about the “levee breaking” from obscure but significant blues artists by the names of Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe Mccoy! Here I was thinking something was wrong with me for gravitating towards what I thought was “White Music” and come to find out that groove had been laid down originally by black folks. That’s because the blues has a vibe that permeates culture, time and space….it could be said that it is the sonic manifestation of American Africans’ plight….like Frankie Beverly and Maze once sang, “The joy and pain…the sunshine and the rain.”
To whomever is reading this and now saying to themselves…..this is not a review of SINNERS….you would be correct. This is a review of the thoughts, the moods and feelings that the movie SINNERS has provoked in me. I’ve already given you a brief description of the movie’s plot….Vampires converge on a fledgling juke joint in the middle of the night. The juke joint is run by two prodigal sons, twins, who happen to be former employees of Al Capone. This article is here to celebrate the accomplishment of Ryan Coogler. His art has the power to make people feel the spirit of an age, and to be weightless in time with the art he’s fashioned. Like a good hot plate of fried catfish or a soulful blues tune that creeps into your subconscious….this movie reminds you of where your peoples come from, what they ate, drank, and fed you, what their struggle sounded like, the rhythms of their speech, and how they passed it on to you. I believe all of us Americans need to fight and battle like hell to preserve our history and the essence of our origins. Along with that we need to build a tolerant community that considers all communities….great and small….and realize that through the chaos of history we somehow got here together. The pathos of the American Immigrant is what makes our country great. It takes our collective trauma, heartaches, and hardships that we have all suffered in one way or another. This nation, that has been fashioned by our polyglot sufferings, has countless triumphs and many more missteps….the resulting melange of stories, music, and culture have inspired the entire planet.
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