Jelani Cobb
Appearances
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
That's actually what I wanted to talk about, because literally the size of the film. The last time I saw you, we were in the IMAX offices, and they were showing the reels of the film. First off, I had no idea the reels were that big, like 500, 600 pounds to show this film. But you were talking about how significant it was for this film in particular to be shown in those dimensions.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
Uh, and can you talk a little bit about, you know, why you felt like that was important?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
Listen, this has been an incredibly insightful kind of tour of how you think about film and what filmmaking represents to you. Yeah. So I want to say thank you for taking the time to talk with us today. And, you know, good luck with the film.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
I've been interested in talking to Ryan Coogler for years because I thought he had a really kind of nuanced and subtle way of seeing the world and certainly of seeing people.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
On the other side of Black Panther, which was this gigantic movie and, you know, made him the largest grossing black filmmaker of all time. And I believe the youngest filmmaker to ever gross a billion dollars for a film. There was this kind of big picture of him. And I didn't know if all the kind of details of who he actually was as an artist had been filled in.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
And so I thought it would be interesting to write about him and kind of fill out the silhouette a little bit.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
It's always good to see you, bro. Good to see you as well. So I want to talk a little bit about how you approach a film that is simultaneously about... It's about music. It's about the relationship between fathers and sons. It's set in the Jim Crow South in the 1930s in Mississippi, so there's an element of race.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
So, you know, of those themes, you know, how did the vampire element, you know, become part of that story?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
Can I say, I'm interested in this idea of this kind of film representing a culmination, you know, that you've been working. Yes, sir. You know, kind of really well-received independent film, Fruitvale, and then three franchise films that have been well-received artistically and commercially.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
And then being able to spread your wings and do this project, which also made me think about another theme that's so prominent, which is the theme of I would say Christianity, but it's actually more kind of broadly spirituality since there are lots of different kinds of spiritual practices and beliefs that people, you know, foreground in the film. And I hadn't seen that in your previous work.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
And I wondered how that came to you, how it connects to your own beliefs, your own kind of thinking about spirituality and religion and how it made its way into this film.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
So it's like the Baptist thread and the Catholic thread, these two things are not the same.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
The coping part of the film, I think, comes in even on some level to the kind of vampire element of it too. Absolutely. Which is one of the things I thought was really interesting because I've seen my share of vampire films I don't think I'd ever seen the kind of vampire question presented in a spiritual frame in the way that these characters do in some ways.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
It's these ancient... Yeah, it's a reference to the deity Papa Legba, who's common in kinds of African forms of spirituality that came with enslaved black people into the South. Yes, sir. But yeah, sometimes people have that idea that that Johnson is at the crossroads, not talking to the devil. He's talking to this deity figure, Papa Legba.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
One of the things, you know, when I was talking with Zinzi, your wife, and, you know, your frequent collaborator and co-producer on this film, and she compared this with, you know, Black Panther, with the two Black Panther films.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
And, you know, you talked openly about before you made Black Panther going to Africa to actually get a kind of understanding of Black Americans' relationship with the African continent. Yes.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Ryan Coogler on “Sinners”
And Zinzi pointed out that it was like you were grappling with the questions of distant African ancestry in that film and here grappling with more immediate questions of, you know, ancestry in this country, in Mississippi, where the film is set, you know, even though it's shot in Louisiana, but it's set in Mississippi. And that this is the same sort of kind of ancestral exploration happening here.