Ryan Coogler never concealed his emotional bond with cinema but in Sinners, the director makes it very personal. Talking of the creative soul of the movie, Coogler said that what he wanted Sinners to sound like was an old blues song, something that is finished on its own, something that is to be revisited instead of franchised. At the age of 39, the director seems to be at a reflexive stage in his career, consciously quitting the demands of the cinematic worlds and sequels to make a film that just exists, lives and grows with its audience.
In the case of Coogler, Sinners was the result of an unspoken fact that current film attendance tends to ignore the enjoyment of viewing a completed work of art. He was not afraid of sharing his feeling that he is one of the audiences and that he is rediscovering what it is like to be seated before a story that does not promise to have a second or a third part but instead is able to put up some depth in what he is going through. He said this as he explained that he had felt himself an audience-member, no longer remembering what it was to see a whole thing. I wanted to create something, which is rich enough, which could grow up to the mature enough, to come back to the movie as a grown-up, in two weeks or two years or 20 years, I have evolved enough and the movie is changed in some way. That is the best, bro, to me. I had blues music playing in my ear all the time when I was typing the script and creating this movie.
It is not an accidental or poetical exaggeration that the comparison to the blues music has been made. Blues as a genre is based on repetition, emotion and experience. An excellent blues song does not require continuation; it begs to be invited back. Coogler expressed this philosophy in the usual, understandable terms when he remarked, You get a phenomenal blues song, and you play that s*** again. You run it back. It is not such that, Ah, when are you going to do a follow-up to this song? You are in want of it, you return to it. And when you are older, perhaps it makes you think of when you first heard it, or the summer it was released. This is the essence of the desire of Sinners: a movie that is meant to grow with the audience.
This style is more of a belief in telling stories. Indeed, it can appear almost insubordinate in an industry that is increasingly being pushed in the direction of long-term IP planning and cinematic roadmap. The move by Coogler appears not to be based on the denial of franchises, but a wish to re-establish the relationship with cinema as a personal artifact. After years of creating large-scale projects, such as Black Panther, Sinners provided him with an opportunity of a lifetime: to look inside himself, to use atmosphere, sound, and memory as tools to run the camera.
During the production of the film, music especially blues were always around. The rhythms and emotional textures of the genre immersed Coogler in the genre when he was writing and directing, and this aspect of the movie affected the speed and mood of the narrative. The lack of blues music is sometimes fraught with themes of struggle, remorse, survival and silent determination, which are inherently cinematic to character. With this musical inspiration, Coogler wanted to make a film that is not smooth, but rough, the one that can be felt in the chest but can impress only the eye.
This has apparently worked well on the screen as indicated by the reaction of audiences. Coogler was truly pleased when people told her that they went back to cinemas to see Sinners again and again. He said, when I hear people say that they have watched the movie three, four, or five times, I say, Yo, that was what it was all about. To him, such a response signifies the success on the most basic level. The movie was not intended to establish sequels and hint at an expansive universe. Rather, it was designed to be re-read, consumed in different ways each time it was read, like a favorite record that you can hear and hear and dance around with, and will extract new information as you listen to it.
He elaborated on this thought with a colorful and almost nostalgic picture by saying that I was attempting to create something that would cause people to tear their VCR tapes because they watched it so much. Had I been after, Oh, this would open up a franchise or whatever the f, I do not believe it would have been that good. Exploiting tired tapes is another aspect that highlights the analog nature of Sinners. The film is made to be intimate, repetitive and emotionally familiar and not to be a spectacle with novelty.
It is also the feeling of relief in the thoughts of Coogler. Years of operating in a system and heavy franchise structure has apparently been creatively invigorating to get back to a closed-box narrative. He has told how it makes him feel good to make a movie that can stand on its own, without the strain of any expansion to come. That liberty appears to have enabled him to follow his instincts more intuitively, to put a greater emphasis on mood, recollection and meaning rather than the demands of the market.
However, Yet, Sinners is not being placed as an anti-commercial one or denying mainstream cinema. Rather it symbolizes equilibrium. Coogler admits the strength and reach of franchises, yet Sinners is a reminder to the audiences and filmmakers alike that there is something timeless in the stories that begin and end in one frame. Such films might not take years to capture headlines but they could be silent and well-persisting, and it could be discussed, remembered, and thought about by individuals.
Over time, the actual legacy of Sinners will probably lie in how it will be further processed by the audiences. Will it be one of those movies that people go back to in different phases of their life and each time have a different meaning? Or shall it be an individual favorite, beloved of a small though most devoted circle? Coogler appears to be fine with both ends. Mass expansion was never his aim, but emotional permanency.
