The SINNERS of Ryan Coogler

    

it should be obvious that a film with this much Michael B. Jordan cannot be anything but an essential film.

*this is a spoiler filled deep dive into Sinners as well as Ryan Coogler's career thus far*

    The split personality, a long held literary and cinematic trope, is almost as prolific as its inverse, the cinematic twin played by a single actor, yet, traditionally, each serve distinct and separate purposes. Both of these have mined ample horror as well as metaphorical consideration into the nature of the soul, though the cinematic twin is often a performance tour de force, even verging on stunt casting, while the split personality is almost exclusively reserved for “madness.” In Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, one of two semi-recent twin centered releases (the other Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, which utilizes its twins for humanist metaphor and political critique), these dueling visual motifs converge, at the very least thematically. Doubling his preferred avatar, Coogler brings his audience again the ever immaculate Michael B. Jordan, playing both of the music fan gangster twins Smoke and Stack. Ruth Carter’s genius costumes help to immediately differentiate the two characters, Smoke wears blue, Stack wears red, though the two performances given by Jordan handily fashion two distinct, albeit twinned, characters. Yet, it is in and through the separate natures of these twins, that Coogler siphons himself, projecting a vision of his own ethos in two halves. 

    By the end of the picture, both Smoke and Stack face grisly fates. Stack is turned into a vampire, living an eternal life yes, but damned to a search for the transcendence now lost to him that was in his grasp early on, while Smoke’s revolutionary action, the destruction of a local kkk faction, catches him a stray bullet. Smoke dies, although not without first witnessing a vision of his lover Annie with whom the audience can infer is their child. The twin that survives is only allowed to remain as a reflection of assimilation, unable to fully capture the true power of music, only able to admire it, while the twin which dies, perishes in the process of genuine revolutionary activity. So it is with Coogler.

    Ryan Coogler, one of the more successful and notable mainstream directors of the last 15-20 years has built himself something of an unorthodox career. His debut feature, a heart wrenching, infuriating, yet grounded film, Fruitvale Station, chronicles the true story of the last day of Oscar Grant, a Black San Francisco native murdered by a police officer on New Years Eve. The film is elegantly directed and, as becomes a norm, stars Michael B. Jordan in the title role, and while some have critiqued the piece for insisting humanity must be given where it already was, the film works startlingly well. Its imagery is haunting and while certainly tragic, never in a melodramatic sense. While the film likely cannot be called completely radical, it contains within it a powerful call to action and is certainly entrenched in progressive American political action, and like the best advocacy films, is not an experience that encourages repeat viewings. Thus, Fruitvale Station makes it clear from the get-go that activism is equal to, if not greater than, artistic merit in Coogler’s considerations. The film played well enough from its Sundance launch to get Coogler in the rooms to make his next three films, all of which play as a part of existing franchise. 

Michael B. Jordan in Fruitvale Station (2013)

    Creed, probably a masterpiece in its own right, the 2015 installment in the long running Rocky series, retroactively repurposes Stallone’s saga of the rags to riches to American HeroTM as if the series had in fact always been building only to this entry. The film is thunderingly exciting and yet deeply intimate. Jordan’s turn as Adonis Creed, the son of Balboa’s rival turned BFF, is committed and fierce, and the way the film explores Black identity relative to both the sport of boxing and, albeit more metaphorically, the question of its role in cinema/history, is ingenious. Creed is concerned with presenting an exciting sports drama, but utilizes this form to excellent exploration of identity. A synthesis of the director’s desire to appeal to a mass audience via artistic statement, without sacrificing political/social messaging. In his next film, he would push these ideas even further.

    Clearly, the Best Picture nominated, billion dollar grossing Marvel film Black Panther, though less so its sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, need little introduction. While I don’t find either of these two films anywhere near as stirring, in Coogler’s hands the first entry, anchored by the late Chadwick Boseman’s unmatched charisma and the most interesting villain in any Marvel movie from, again, Michael B. Jordan, is mostly an exciting and thoughtful movie in what can often be a stale, ever corporate series. In both Creed and the Black Panthers, Coogler is working on a massive scale with increasingly larger budgets, yet he attempts, the best he can, to infuse these works with the same socially conscious themes and rumination on Black identity that defined his first film. The results are varyingly successful, as Coogler’s desire for genuine spectacle within American capital, conflicts with his otherwise progressive ideals, and the weight of this tension especially buckles in Black Panther 2.

for some reason only one of these two got an Oscar nomination in Creed (2015)

    Now comes Sinners, Coogler’s first truly original vision and with it the twins, or maybe the psychosis: Smoke/Stack. In Smoke, Ryan Coogler places his revolution. One of the first introductions we have to the character is instant retaliation for an attempted car robbery. Smoke shows no mercy and shoots (albeit only to injury) both of the would-be thieves. Even earlier in the film it seems clear that Smoke is the guiding mastermind of things, and other stories reveal that it is Smoke who has kept Stack out of trouble for much of their lives, yet the true thesis of the character comes after the defeat of the vampires, when upon learning that a local white, kkk, ambush is coming, Smoke waits and handily dispatches them en masse. The scene, as well as several more that follow, has been criticized as a tacked-on ending, yet it is integral. This is where the film verges into revolutionary action. When Tarantino blew up DiCaprio’s plantation in Django Unchained, it was stirring, yet not nearly as powerful as Coogler’s display of screen violence here. It is indeed the revolutionary half of himself, weaponizing the IMAX frame to confront both America’s, and with it of course cinema’s, greatest demons. However, despite this powerful moment, Smoke is notably the half which Coogler does not allow to survive.

    Stack, turned by his white girlfriend Mary, played quite well by Haliee Steinfeld in her best performance since True Grit, ends the film as a vampire. As the film enters its epilogue, stretching into the credits, we are first shocked upon seeing virtuosic Miles grow up to become a particularly scarred Buddy Guy, a shock compounded to find the vampire Stack and Mary, dressed now in 90s attire, waltz into his bar. At first their arrival would seem to predicate violence as a foregone conclusion, yet soon we realize, perhaps surprisingly, that Stack and Steinfeld have resurfaced simply because they miss hearing Miles play. They know he is an old man and will soon depart the Earth, and as such they hope to hear him play his music at least one more time. Stack is a reflection, assimilated, albeit against his will, yet still part of a system that cannot really make something that breaches time and space, that connects to something transcendental, the way Miles can. Stack, a victim himself of the vampires, can only appreciate it. This is Coogler as well. This is the franchise half of himself that reaches for themes, can identify them, and hope for them, perhaps even find them, yet cannot achieve them really, because of the very context of their existence.

    In the epilogue, we also learn that Smoke could have killed Stack, but chose to spare his vampire brother because he loved him too much. So it is with Coogler. He cannot end either version of himself. Yes, he predicts a definitive end to revolutionary retaliation, yet it must persist. Yes, some of his work is perhaps forever assimilated, monetized, but he cannot end it. Here then is perhaps the great victory of Sinners. It moves past the paradox of its lead characters and director. The film is a studio picture, funded by a major company, yet both in the behind the scenes deal achieved by Ryan Coogler and in the resonance of the picture itself, it becomes a merging of Coogler’s halves, the one he has attempted his whole career. The film is radical. The film is popular. The film is exciting. The film is thoughtful. The film is Ryan Coogler.

Buddy Guy as older Miles in the Sinners epilogue.

Sinners streams somewhere but also maybe get the 4K or the blu-ray, which is how I re-visited it yesterday.