‘Sinners’ is so much bigger than the BAFTA chaos around it

(CNN) — When director Ryan Coogler called Raphael Saadiq to run him through the script of “Sinners,” the celebrated R&B singer and songwriter knew the song he wanted to write before he hung up the phone.

Saadiq felt guided, picked up a guitar and a few hours later, he and Coogler’s longtime collaborator, composer Ludwig Göransson, had written “I Lied to You,” the now Oscar nominated song sung by newbie actor Miles Canton in the role of blues musician Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore.

“I was sitting there going ‘Preacher’s son who plays blues, and it’s gonna be hard for him to get out to church and go do what he wants to do,’” Saadiq recalled in an interview with CNN. “I lived that life. A lot of my friends lived that life.”

“Sinners” has felt guided from the beginning by those who have gone before in the Black community, with Coogler bringing all that history and ancestorial memory – both the bitter and the sweet – to the big screen.

On its surface, “Sinners” is a story about twin brothers returning to their Mississippi hometown for a fresh start, only to face vampires who threaten their dream — and lives.

But it is so much more than that. It is a statement about racial injustice, how we are all connected by our collective history, religion, faith, music and family trauma, all wrapped in a fantastical, Southern Gothic tale.

That such a film would go on to break the record for most Oscar nominations — with 16 including best film and best director for Coogler — is a fulfillment of the ancestors’ dreams. (The film is produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, which is owned by CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.)

From the future back to the past

Ironically, it was the success of his hit 2018 film “Black Panther” that helped bring Coogler’s latest project to fruition. The Afrofuturistic Marvel movie became a box office juggernaut and changed the awards season conversation around “comic book movies,” much like how “Sinners” has shifted that narrative about horror films.

“I don’t think there’s another Black director who could have gotten the funding to do a movie like ‘Sinners,’” said Tananarive Due, an acclaimed horror writer. “I think Ryan Coogler was the one who had the capital to bring this vision to life, and boy did he bring it.”

Since the 2013 release of his first film, “Fruitvale Station,” which depicted the events leading up to the real-life police killing of a young Black man named Oscar Grant, Coogler has been intentional in his art as a reflection of the Black experience.

With “Sinners,” Coogler told the outlet Junkee, he “got the chance to dig into my own ancestral history.”

“It’s not dissimilar to what I was doing with the ‘Panther’ films generationally, but this is right there,” he said, referring to “Black Panther” as well as its sequel. “This film is about the music that was so special to my uncle and I couldn’t be happier with it.”

That sense of the ancestors was so potent on set that one of the film’s stars, Wunmi Mosaku, mentioned it after winning best supporting actress for her role as Annie in “Sinners” at the BAFTAs this month.

“Ryan, like Preacher Boy your gift comes from home and it is big,” she said as a visibly emotional Coogler looked on from the audience. “Conjuring spirits from the past and future, I felt the presence of the ancestors’ pride and joy daily on your set. Your commitment to artistry, truth and humanity is to be treasured and protected at all costs.”

BAFTAs controversy

With Mosaku’s win, “Sinners” took three awards at the BAFTAs, becoming the most decorated film by a Black director, a record previously held by Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” which won two awards in 2014.

That history-making achievement was overshadowed at the awards ceremony when Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson, the subject of British indie film “I Swear,” yelled the n-word while “Sinners” co-stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage presenting.

The incident — widely discussed after the BBC did not remove it from its broadcast of the ceremony, for which it later apologized — marred what should have been a triumphant night for Coogler and his film. It was also a stark reminder of one of the messages of “Sinners”: racism and its history is a horror.

Due, who wrote the award-winning horror novel “The Reformatory” in addition to others, said she could see in the film the influence of Black authors who came before, including sci-fi pioneer Octavia Butler, filmmakers like Julie Dash and Spike Lee as well as actor turned writer/director Jordan Peele who won the best original screenplay Oscar in 2018 for his horror film “Get Out.”

She also saw the power of music, transfixed by the juke joint scene in which Canton as “Preacher Boy” sings “I Lied to You” as part of a history of music sequence.

Coogler has spoken about how music is part of the alchemy of “Sinners.” “I wanted the movie to feel like music and to have an aggressively dynamic range,” the director said in an interview with RogerEbert.com. “To me, ‘Sinners’ is a song in and of itself.”

Such observations are music to the ears of the man who co-wrote the song that has become the film’s calling card.

Saadiq said his sound was built on his past and those who came before him.

“It’s just 50 years of being around that music,” he said. “It’s just a lot of years of, hanging out in Oakland and being around my dad who was singing blues or going fishing with my mom where they would have Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf. Playing in gospel quartet groups since I was 11 years old.”

“I know it’s a gift. That it’s not mine because I was borrowing this gift,” he added. “This is the first time I got a call for something like this where I have to reach back and, and feel it through this ancestor type of vibe.”

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