The musical sequence in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners was a major risk for the filmmaker, and it paid off with one of the most memorable scenes from the movie.
In a newly published conversation with The Los Angeles Times, the film’s writer and director acknowledged that he took a chance with that scene on purpose.
“I remember every movie that made me say, ‘Yo, what the fuck,’” Coogler said. “And I was feeling like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I’ve given people that feeling enough.’ I haven’t taken enough of those risks when I’m making my movies.”
Coogler said he wanted his audience to have a visceral reaction while watching Sinners.
“The risk of the scene is that it could rip the audience out of the movie, but in the wrong way,” he explained. “When we would show the movie, the scene would always get a rise out of people. They reacted to it passionately. And we had to be comfortable with that.
“Every movie should have its version of that scene, if it can hold it,” Coogler added. “All the choices we made had to commit to getting to it. We had to say, ‘This is maybe the most important scene in the movie. Everything that came before and everything that comes after has to support that.’ Seeing it come together was one of the most rewarding moments of my career.”
The scene in question shows a young Sammie (Miles Caton) singing in a juke joint run by twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan).
The voiceover says that some musicians’ gifts are so powerful that they can conjure spirits from the past and the future. The scene closes with the juke joint’s roof catching on fire, though it’s only metaphorical.
