'THE BEST SCENE IN MICHAEL B JORDAN'S SINNERS IS A TOTAL TRIUMPH'

Sinners is absolutely a vampire movie. It concludes with a chaotic onslaught of fangs, bullets, and arterial spray. But it's also a fascinating musing on the cultural power of music, especially music created by Black artists throughout history. This comes to a head in an incredible scene at the movie's halfway point, when young blues musician Sammie (Miles Caton) starts playing his guitar in the 1930s juke joint where most of the action takes place.

Such is the power of his musical talent that he appears to pierce the veil between the real and the supernatural, drawing on spirits past, present, and future. Director Ryan Coogler and his cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw allow the camera to roam around the juke joint, as musicians from throughout history, including African drummers and modern hip-hop DJs, appear — as if summoned by the beauty and passion of Sammie's performance. 

It's a bold and inventive sequence that showcases the true message of the film — the transcendent and escapist power of creativity. In a two-hour epic of violence and vampires, it's remarkable how much power this strange, elegiac scene holds.

"There’s so many layers to that sequence — how we executed it, but also all the historical layers regarding ancestry, music, culture and where our community was born from," Arkapaw told Variety as she explained how they made what was referred to as 'The Surreal Montage' happen. IMAX cameras can only shoot continuously for around two minutes, so the sequence was constructed as three separate shots which would be stitched seamlessly in the edit.

During the scene, Sammie's music appears to literally burn the roof off the juke joint, with characters real and imagined seen dancing against the light of the flames from the burning sawmill. It's this sequence which draws the attention of Remmick (Jack O'Connell) and his fellow vampires — themselves inspired by Irish folk music.

Read more: 'Sinners draws from folklore and gangster films as much as it does from horror' (Yahoo Entertainment, 4 min read)

Arkapaw added: "There’s a blend of a VFX takeover that tips up into the roof that’s based on a burning roof plate that we shot on the last day of principal photography. Then, it transitions into a night exterior shot that’s on a 50-foot techno crane that pulls back in a night exterior where you see them dancing with the effect of a burned mill around them.”

The music came from a collaboration between Sinners' score composer Ludwig Göransson — who has to be talked about as a potential Oscars candidate already — and singer-songwriter Raphael Saadiq. Together, they wrote I Lied to You — the song Sammie sings during the scene. Göransson explained to Entertainment Weekly that he and the crew met at the New Orleans soundstage weeks before shooting in order to get a handle on the sequence.

He said: "We mapped it out with the camera — the route it's going to take, what musicians we need and where they're going to be. The camera operator was there, too, and with dancers. We created a video and then I created another piece of music that tied everything in together."

Read more: Sinners is a box-office winner, making $45 million on its opening weekend (Insider, 3 min read)

Fittingly, this sequence was an example of an army of creatives all working together to create something transcendent and special. It's the perfect combination of medium and message, creating a moment that resonates more powerfully after the credits roll than any of the bloodletting and vampiric action.

“You’re watching a movie through the most beautiful of lenses, and then when you step into the IMAX world, it almost feels like a look behind the curtain and into the soul of the character. This pulls you deeper in, and it becomes an experience," Arkapaw told IndieWire.

Read more: Ben Stiller defends Sinners against critical headline about box office performance (The Independent, 2 min read)

In her Variety interview, she explained that the scene had real personal resonance for her. "When the camera tilts down, you see the mill that’s burned away. The people are still there, and they’re still strong, and they’re still dancing and singing. I read it as nothing can be taken away from us ever, and I feel that very much in my own family history. It’s very special that I was able to be a part of that.”

Sinners is a vampire movie, but it uses those genre trappings to tell a more thematically dense and complex story about the way that great art can vibrate through time. Its greatest scene has nothing to do with blood-sucking ghouls and beasties and everything to do with the way music connects us to those who have come before us, and those still to come.

Sinners is in UK cinemas now.

This article originally appeared on Yahoo Movies UK at https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/sinners-behind-scenes-michael-b-jordan-movie-124637912.html

2025-04-22T12:59:42Z