(Photo from David Lewis)
- Mississippi Arts Commission’s David Lewis immerses himself in the story of how Mississippi and her music brought this summer vampire film to life.
After an open letter penned to Warner Brothers and the makers of the blockbuster film “Sinners” went viral, community leaders in Clarksdale came together to host a weekend of free screenings in the Delta town, which lacks a movie theater.
As the Executive Director of the Mississippi Arts Commission, an avid film fan and courier of “Mississippi’s cultural and artistic excellence,” I set aside Thursday, May 29, for a visit to experience this Mississippi moment. As I left Lexington and came down off the bluff into the Delta, I rolled down the windows, passed under a crop plane, and turned on the film’s soundtrack for the first time. The rest of the day, I was immersed in the story of how Mississippi and her music brought this summer vampire film to life through the vision of its director, Ryan Coogler.
Set in our very own Clarksdale, Mississippi, the film follows the story of twin brothers who have returned home to open a juke joint with money they have questionably earned while away in Chicago. They employ the help of their younger cousin, Sammie Moore, known as “Preacher Boy,” played by breakout star Miles Caton, alongside a cast of entrepreneurial locals who feel like family and whose history with the brothers brings both pain and joy.
The film mostly takes place over a single day. The brothers purchase a piece of property along with the building onsite, bringing it to life for a grand opening that same night. But, as you can probably imagine, things don’t go according to plan.
Films like “The Help,” “O Brother Where Art Thou,” and “My Dog Skip” use Mississippi sights and sounds to create an unforgettable film that becomes beloved by the entire world, even driving tourism.
Nina Parikh, director of the Mississippi Film Office, notes, “I was immediately struck by the way the producers of the film wanted to set it in a real place. As a result of the film, more people now want to go to Clarksdale.”
Critics and viewers alike agree that the setting of Mississippi and the sound of the blues stand as marquee characters of their own for “Sinners.” This is an intentional move by the director, Coogler, along with the film’s executive producer and composer for the soundtrack, Ludwig Göransson.
Coogler has ties to Mississippi through both his uncle and his grandfather, who both grew up in the Magnolia state. The film’s creative duo dove into researching the sound of the blues.
“The blues has a metaphysical connection that opened to the concept of a vampire story,” Coogler explained to an electric and proud audience in Clarksdale at the recent free screening. “I did a lot of research on the state of Mississippi and zeroed in on the Delta blues style. It was an intentional selection given that during the film’s timeline, blues music was popular in Black communities but didn’t have national notoriety.”
Coogler went on to note that Clarksdale was the perfect setting, as a town steeped in a rich historical blues tradition and specifically became the perfect town to set the story within because he could build that world and hold the tension created by blues music’s popularity in Black communities before it spread across the world. Coogler even noted that the enterprising spirit of the film’s characters reflected what he saw during his time in Clarksdale, specifically noting the efforts of Tyler Yarbrough and the local teams that lobbied for the special screening to take place in the Delta town, which has no movie theater.
“We see that here in Clarksdale,” Coogler told the audience, “The community-based builders’ mindset has a clear history here.”
Over the course of the film, Coogler and Goranssen spend time developing an understanding with the audience: what we feel when we hear the blues transports listeners to both the past and the future – a concept that plays out in full form on the soundtrack. The soundtrack employs its own cast of characters familiar to many of us.
Coogler and Gorransen’s research began in Memphis, where they quickly connected with “Boo Mitchell,” whom Coogler called “the heir to the throne of Memphis sound” during the Clarksdale screening’s introduction. When the creative duo asked Mitchell who they needed to work with, they all got in the car and drove south through the Mississippi Delta. Cedric Burnside recalls, “Boo Mitchell called me up to invite me to be a part of this, and of course, I agreed.”
Mitchell went on to draw on a deep bench of Mississippi musicians to join him and other artists from around the world in creating this soundtrack, with Ludwig guided by Coogler’s vision. Artists include Mississippi Governor’s Arts Awards recipients Bobby Rush, Cedric Burnside, Sharde Thomas, and James “Super Chikan” Johnson, among other renowned Mississippians such as Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.
As they all sat together in Mitchell’s studio, Coolger shared the tight-lipped vision of the film, allowing the magic of Mississippi musicians to come to life. The group would go on to collaborate on original songs together, such as “Wang Dang Doodle” and “Can’t Win For Losin’.”
At the Q&A panel after the Clarksdale screening, Coogler even noted that there’s an inspired comical line in the film given by Delta Slim, a bluesman who joins the twins to open the juke and undeniably resembles Bobby Rush. Coogler shared that when everyone in the juke joint realizes they are interacting with vampires, Slim says, “I had a girl once who was a vampire.” It turns out that this was a direct quote from Bobby Rush from their sessions creating music together.
The soundtrack line-up showcases how the creative team sought to bring the traditions and founders of the blues to the table alongside a new generation of musicians working to preserve the blues and keep it fresh. Both Sharde Thomas and Cedric Burnside intentionally carry on the legacies of their grandfathers and are actively passing down these traditions to new generations.
After the screening, Cedric and I spoke about the experience of working on the film’s soundtrack.
“I felt a connection to the film’s story because my Big Daddy (RL Burnside, Cedric’s grandfather) was a sharecropper,” Cedric said.
In the film, the twins’ cousin, Sammie Moore, is also a sharecropper who dreams of breaking out of the South and becoming a musician. Cedric continued, “and this movie is going to broaden the horizon and reach of the blues to a younger generation, simply because Sammie was written to be a kid on this journey to be a musician.”
Nina mentioned that her son took inspiration from the film, “Sinners inspires a new generation, and my son told me, ‘I want to visit the Delta now, and I have to learn to play guitar.’ If he is having that thought, I know others are as well.”
The final product is a horror film that has become an instant classic set in the magical and mystical Mississippi Delta with a soundtrack that is a masterful work of original music and intentional covers.
For our Mississippi makers, the job was simple and second nature. Coogler took a hearty bite out of the Mississippi Delta and the blues to enrich his original and captivating story. And as Cedric said, “All Coogler had to do was set the stage.”
David Lewis
