Little White Lies #107

Description

There’s a confidence and raw power to the cinema of Ryan Coogler that is astonishing in and of itself. From creating Sundance headlines in 2013 with his feature debut, Fruitvale Station, he has shifted seamlessly into the leagues of high-end franchise filmmaking (Creed, a brace of Black Panther movies) without ever allowing a formidable personal touch to become dulled or diluted.

Sinners is a passion project that the writer-director tells us he has wanted to make for some time, seeing the complex and protracted shoot of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as a good excuse to make something completely original and ripped from the heart. Inspired by the blues tunes played by Coogler’s own uncle, Sinners follows the twins Smoke (Michael B Jordan) and Stack (Michael B Jordan) as they return during Prohibition to their homestead of rural Mississippi from time away in Chicago to set up a juke joint and bring the party to the people.

However, malevolent outside forces begin to encroach, and a battle for the soul ensues. Coogler himself has described the film as one that hops playfully between genres, mixing musical, action and political elements into a potent supernatural base. We couldn’t help but be tickled by the fact that, when we spoke to Coogler about the film, he was sat in front of a giant poster for John Carpenter’s The Thing, which perhaps gives a few clues as to the paranoic, philosophically-laced thrilled that Sinners is.

As always, Little White Lies is a magazine focused on celebrating the craft of cinema and hearing from those who don’t often receive an equal share of the limelight. So we were thrilled to talk to a number of people whose work behind the camera gave so much richness and depth to Coogler’s grand, IMAX-filmed vision, which is out in cinemas globally on 18 April.