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Sinners (2025) with Brooke Obie · Left of the Projector

• 0:20
  Track 1: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,
• 0:23
  Track 1: back again with another film discussion from the left.
• 0:26
  Track 1: You can follow the show at leftoftheprojector.com. This week on the show,
• 0:30
  Track 1: we are talking about the hit film released just a month ago,
• 0:33
  Track 1: Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler.
• 0:36
  Track 1: It has, as of recording, hit $215 million in the domestic box office and closing
• 0:42
  Track 1: in on $300 million worldwide.
• 0:45
  Track 1: With me to discuss this great film, I have filmmaker and critic Brooke Obie.
• 0:50
  Track 1: Thank you so much for joining me today.
• 0:52
  Track 2: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
• 0:53
  Track 1: Of course, of course. And I guess before we dive in, do you want to tell people
• 0:57
  Track 1: where they can find your work, what other work you have, you know,
• 1:01
  Track 1: anything that people can access?
• 1:04
  Track 2: Oh, sure. So I am a film critic. I am a filmmaker.
• 1:09
  Track 2: You can find all of my work at brookeobie.com. But my newsletter is where I
• 1:15
  Track 2: do my criticism as of the past year, and it is Black Girl Watching on Substack.
• 1:20
  Track 2: So you can find all of my many pieces on Sinners, including my upcoming syllabus
• 1:25
  Track 2: on what to watch, what to read, what to listen to, all of that.
• 1:32
  Track 2: All the videos on the making of Sinners
• 1:34
  Track 2: and all of that you can find in my syllabus on Black Girl Watching.
• 1:38
  Track 1: Well, that actually leads me to sort of like a, before we maybe talk about the
• 1:42
  Track 1: film itself, is sometimes I ask different kind of, you know,
• 1:46
  Track 1: icebreaker type questions. And because...
• 1:49
  Track 1: You mentioned the syllabus, and I'm thinking about, I saw a lot of people,
• 1:53
  Track 1: you posting it, a number of other people after Sinners came out,
• 1:56
  Track 1: is, you know, if you like Sinners, you might also like X.
• 2:01
  Track 1: And I think I saw my reading list, you know, grew substantially in,
• 2:06
  Track 1: you know, books that I had seen and, you know, media and movies I'd seen.
• 2:10
  Track 1: So I'm curious if you have, if you can't narrow it down to one, you can share a couple.
• 2:14
  Track 2: Um, so I do have one book that I actually wish that Ryan Coogler had read in
• 2:20
  Track 2: the making of this movie.
• 2:21
  Track 2: Um, it's a book by Angela Davis. It's called Blues Legacies and Black Feminism.
• 2:26
  Track 2: And it talks about the history of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday,
• 2:31
  Track 2: and how central they were to the blues legacy.
• 2:36
  Track 2: And also how central black feminism was to the creation of this music and surviving this time period.
• 2:44
  Track 2: So I think it would have been, it's, it's great for us to know now moving forward.
• 2:50
  Track 2: And I think it would have been really awesome for Ryan to have included some
• 2:54
  Track 2: of that information as well in this film.
• 2:56
  Track 1: Nice. Yeah. I think, I think, well, I assume that will be on your,
• 2:59
  Track 1: on your syllabus along with for sure lots of other things
• 3:02
  Track 1: yeah and the and the the one that i had read and i
• 3:05
  Track 1: have didn't read i don't know maybe it's just uh things that are similar but
• 3:10
  Track 1: i read ring shout last year or actually 2023 now i was looking at my goodreads
• 3:15
  Track 1: i read it two years ago almost and i would say that that is sort of like the
• 3:18
  Track 1: closest book or media i read that has kind of a very similar.
• 3:23
  Track 1: Vibe so if you've read it you might know what i'm talking about i won't spoil
• 3:27
  Track 1: it you know let people check that out on their own, but that would be my, um,
• 3:31
  Track 1: the one suggestion that I would have as far as film.
• 3:33
  Track 1: And I saw the, uh, author talking a lot about both his book and just,
• 3:38
  Track 1: you know, sinners as well on, uh, on thread.
• 3:41
  Track 1: So clearly it was, uh, in a lot of people's minds, but
• 3:45
  Track 1: Yeah, before I maybe walk, we sort of talk through the plot and maybe,
• 3:50
  Track 1: or sorry, before I ask you sort of like, why, you know, why talk about this film?
• 3:54
  Track 1: Why have you written numerous, you know, pieces about it, which everyone should go check out?
• 3:58
  Track 1: I'm going to maybe just very briefly sketch out the plot.
• 4:02
  Track 1: I mean, again, of course, there's going to be spoilers to the film past this,
• 4:05
  Track 1: past this moment in the episode. But it primarily involves Elijah Smoke and
• 4:11
  Track 1: Elias Stack, both played by Michael B.
• 4:13
  Track 1: Jordan, in 1932 in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
• 4:17
  Track 1: And they both have their individual paths, as we'll kind of talk about in a little while.
• 4:22
  Track 1: And they use money that they had stolen from some people while living in Chicago
• 4:27
  Track 1: to purchase a sawmill to start their own juke joint for the local community.
• 4:31
  Track 1: And it kind of follows the you know about the first half of the movie kind of
• 4:35
  Track 1: follows or maybe more than the first half of the movie follow sort of the entire
• 4:38
  Track 1: day as they're planning to open it up and actually opening up for their opening
• 4:43
  Track 1: night and then of course things slowly.
• 4:46
  Track 1: Unravel in in the way they might in a movie like this and i think it's it's
• 4:52
  Track 1: hard to maybe describe the full plot but what maybe drew you to this and had
• 4:57
  Track 1: you heard about the film before it had come out?
• 5:01
  Track 1: Were you waiting for it to come out and then you went to go see it?
• 5:04
  Track 2: I was not that excited about it. If I'm going to be honest, I was not that excited
• 5:09
  Track 2: about it when I heard about it, when I heard the premise.
• 5:14
  Track 2: I just wasn't sure, honestly. I wasn't really sure.
• 5:18
  Track 2: I think I had seen the trailer and it looked interesting.
• 5:25
  Track 2: I'm a vampire girly, so I love vampire lore.
• 5:29
  Track 2: So I was like okay you know I will I
• 5:32
  Track 2: will find out what
• 5:35
  Track 2: this is all about um I wasn't the biggest fan of Wakanda
• 5:38
  Track 2: Forever so it wasn't like I was just like or Creed 3 um which I I did like but
• 5:44
  Track 2: in retrospect I'm like in combination with Wakanda Forever um I was just like
• 5:49
  Track 2: you know I think there's a pattern that's developing here with black women and
• 5:53
  Track 2: the way they're being used in these movies.
• 5:56
  Track 2: So I was honestly not that thrilled for it, but, uh, went into it,
• 6:00
  Track 2: uh, not really knowing what to expect and was completely blown away.
• 6:07
  Track 2: The first time that I watched it, I don't know how I felt about it.
• 6:11
  Track 2: I don't know if it was positive or negative. I just know that I had a lot of feeling.
• 6:16
  Track 2: And, you know, for me, when I write reviews, um, especially if,
• 6:20
  Track 2: you know, there's something that I I'm not quite sure about.
• 6:24
  Track 2: I don't feel comfortable just watching it one time. So I had to go back and
• 6:29
  Track 2: see it again. So I saw it twice before it actually came out for the public.
• 6:33
  Track 2: And it was that second time that I was like, oh, this is the feelings that I'm having.
• 6:39
  Track 2: They're complicated, but this is a gorgeous piece of cinema that is going to
• 6:47
  Track 2: last for a really, really long time. Like it was that second viewing that was
• 6:51
  Track 2: like, that clarified a lot of stuff for me.
• 6:53
  Track 2: And even some of the stuff that I kind of, you know, wasn't all that comfortable
• 6:58
  Track 2: with in my first viewing, my second viewing, it all kind of gelled.
• 7:01
  Track 2: And I was just like, I understand why these things had to happen this way.
• 7:06
  Track 2: I would prefer it to happen a different way. But I understand.
• 7:10
  Track 2: And, you know, I don't it just it felt like a gift.
• 7:15
  Track 2: And then so now I've seen it seven times. So since then, for various reasons,
• 7:20
  Track 2: some have been, you know, I wanted to see it in 70 millimeters.
• 7:24
  Track 2: So I went to Quentin Tarantino's movie theater here in L.A. and saw it,
• 7:29
  Track 2: which was an amazing experience opening night.
• 7:31
  Track 2: Ryan and cast actually came that night. They were so excited that we wanted
• 7:36
  Track 2: to see it in the format that he created.
• 7:38
  Track 2: For us to watch it in. Um, so that was exciting.
• 7:42
  Track 2: Um, the fourth time I, I went with a friend who hadn't seen it.
• 7:47
  Track 2: Um, the fifth, the sixth time I know it was because of the IMAX film strip. I wanted that strip.
• 7:54
  Track 2: Um, yeah. And the seventh time another friend hadn't seen it and we just seen
• 7:58
  Track 2: Thunderbolts and I was underwhelmed and he was like, well, we're at the movies, let's go see sinners.
• 8:02
  Track 2: And so I saw it a seventh time and it does, it gets better.
• 8:06
  Track 2: It literally is one of those things that just gets better with every single
• 8:09
  Track 2: viewing it's a it's a real work of art.
• 8:12
  Track 1: Yeah i would agree i saw it the first time i hadn't even seen the trailer and didn't i just knew,
• 8:18
  Track 1: kugler's like past work and kind of like
• 8:21
  Track 1: you said i kind of had like mixed feelings like some of his earlier films i
• 8:24
  Track 1: like more some of the later ones less so and i went in knowing almost nothing
• 8:28
  Track 1: about it and just almost couldn't believe it it was just like the most one of
• 8:33
  Track 1: the most immersive of an impressive experience and i saw it the first time in
• 8:37
  Track 1: 70 millimeter imax so i was like i just couldn't it was a crazy and then a friend
• 8:42
  Track 1: of mine wanted to see it and i thought well,
• 8:44
  Track 1: i'll go see it again and we saw it again in imax and
• 8:47
  Track 1: he was also blown away and as you said like there
• 8:50
  Track 1: were so many things i did not notice the first time and that's the case with
• 8:53
  Track 1: a lot of films i guess but this in particular had like layers upon layers each
• 8:58
  Track 1: time i saw it and so i don't know was there you said because you said you saw
• 9:02
  Track 1: it twice before and then you saw it again did more what was what would you say
• 9:06
  Track 1: is like the most impressive sounds kind of like a,
• 9:10
  Track 1: It's a hard thing to pin down, but what would you say, as a cinematic achievement,
• 9:15
  Track 1: what do you think is the most impressive aspect of it?
• 9:17
  Track 2: Oh, cinematic achievement. I mean, it would have to be the music scene, the juke joint scene.
• 9:25
  Track 2: I feel like on my third watch is when I cried at that scene.
• 9:29
  Track 2: I felt like I had time to digest everything that was going on,
• 9:33
  Track 2: to see the different instruments and to see, you know, all the different types
• 9:38
  Track 2: of ancestry that were represented in that scene.
• 9:41
  Track 2: And just it being a one-er, you know, just that single shot moving through this
• 9:47
  Track 2: space and this camera is just snaking all around this space.
• 9:50
  Track 2: And, you know, having the actual physical manifestation of what we say,
• 9:57
  Track 2: like the roof is on fire, like, you know, I raised the roof, all that,
• 10:01
  Track 2: you know, like, and to see that on screen, like,
• 10:04
  Track 2: it really felt like Ryan was visually translating so much of not just our musical history or our even,
• 10:16
  Track 2: you know, just Black American lingo that we have that when we're talking about,
• 10:20
  Track 2: you know, something that was celebratory.
• 10:22
  Track 2: It was also just like, we're tracing here the history of the club scene,
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  Track 2: the space itself as a, as a space where you can be free of enslavement,
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  Track 2: whichever form it takes, you know,
• 10:40
  Track 2: whether it's your, I'm a millennial.
• 10:43
  Track 2: So we were in the club with our business casual, you know, in the early aughts
• 10:49
  Track 2: looking absolutely insane now in retrospect, but I'm just like,
• 10:53
  Track 2: like that was what we were doing.
• 10:54
  Track 2: And that was, you know, I, I remember Thursday, Friday, Saturday in my twenties,
• 10:58
  Track 2: like that was where, like, I went straight from work to that space and met up with my friends.
• 11:04
  Track 2: And we just, you know, to understand that he is trying to show that this is
• 11:10
  Track 2: a through line that it started not necessarily even as a, um.
• 11:18
  Track 2: As a reaction to white supremacist oppression in this country,
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  Track 2: that it's rooted in something beyond, you know, that experience,
• 11:27
  Track 2: that it's all of this started where we started in West Africa,
• 11:32
  Track 2: in Southern and Central Africa.
• 11:34
  Track 2: And, you know, bringing those traditions over, it was just like,
• 11:38
  Track 2: okay, now this thing is happening.
• 11:39
  Track 2: We're experiencing this thing and now we're using it to battle what we're currently facing.
• 11:45
  Track 2: But it feels like an ancient tradition to me.
• 11:50
  Track 2: It felt like that's what he was showing us, an ancient tradition that is going to continue,
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  Track 2: that's lasted longer than their structures, and that will continue on beyond
• 12:00
  Track 2: these white supremacist oppressive structures, that we will always go as a people towards freedom.
• 12:08
  Track 2: And it will be loud, and it will be joyous and it will be musical and it will be in community.
• 12:14
  Track 2: And so, yeah, I would say translating all of that without dialogue,
• 12:19
  Track 2: um, I think was the best cinematic achievement of this film.
• 12:23
  Track 1: Yeah. I would, I would agree that that, that scene just, and I went in not knowing
• 12:28
  Track 1: the second time you go in, you know, it's going to happen and it's still mind
• 12:32
  Track 1: blowing. I think is just, it doesn't lose its potency at all.
• 12:36
  Track 1: And actually that kind of the, kind of the through line you're talking about
• 12:39
  Track 1: kind of maybe makes a good maybe a good point to
• 12:42
  Track 1: kind of discuss is the time period
• 12:44
  Track 1: which i mentioned this happens in 1932 in mississippi
• 12:48
  Track 1: and the primary most of the people that
• 12:51
  Track 1: are in this film work or live around a plantation as a sharecroppers and i think
• 12:58
  Track 1: that the context of when it takes place the location kind of all of that components
• 13:04
  Track 1: to it you also get brought into the town nearby where they're all,
• 13:08
  Track 1: you know, where they end up meeting several other characters,
• 13:11
  Track 1: which we'll kind of maybe talk through some of the characters.
• 13:13
  Track 1: But what do you make of choosing this specific moment for, you know,
• 13:18
  Track 1: the context of the film, you know, post-World War I and kind of this,
• 13:23
  Track 1: You know, this, I don't want to try to think of the term I'm thinking for,
• 13:27
  Track 1: just kind of like, well, I'll let you answer.
• 13:30
  Track 2: You know, it's in the center of the Jim Crow time period.
• 13:37
  Track 1: That's the word that I was thinking of.
• 13:39
  Track 2: Yeah, yeah. So that's where we are. I think that matters for a lot of reasons.
• 13:44
  Track 2: I mean, blues music obviously, you know, started during enslavement in America.
• 13:49
  Track 2: Um, so it's, it's not like, you know, the 1930s is a particular time of its
• 13:56
  Track 2: origins necessarily, but I mean, we are at a growing, you know,
• 14:00
  Track 2: height at this point, um, for blues music.
• 14:04
  Track 2: Um, you know, this is also, you know, so reconstruction has failed,
• 14:09
  Track 2: um, you know, and, and we're living totally under Jim Crow at this,
• 14:13
  Track 2: at this time period. And so, you know, having it set at this point.
• 14:18
  Track 2: For one, you can just highlight a lot of things, I think. Slavery is over.
• 14:25
  Track 2: But again, because of the evolution, which I think this movie also tracks,
• 14:31
  Track 2: it tracks the evolution of slavery.
• 14:33
  Track 2: So we have sharecropping, we have Black people still on plantations that were
• 14:37
  Track 2: pretty much all through the mid-century, that was all still happening.
• 14:43
  Track 2: And so I do think this was a great opportunity.
• 14:47
  Track 2: You have, you know, legends like Bessie Smith, um, Ma Rainey,
• 14:51
  Track 2: like they're very popular at this time period too, which was why I think it's
• 14:55
  Track 2: such an oversight that, um, you know, we have Pearlene, which I love.
• 15:00
  Track 2: And I think that's amazing.
• 15:01
  Track 2: And Jamie Lawson does an incredible job, um, with playing Pearlene and,
• 15:05
  Track 2: and, uh, her song rivals, if, if not best, um, Sammy's song,
• 15:12
  Track 2: you know, Pale Pale Moon.
• 15:15
  Track 2: But, you know, I do think it is a little, it is,
• 15:18
  Track 2: it's an oversight to me to not have a queer presence on screen because this
• 15:24
  Track 2: is the time period where Black queer blues musicians who helped in founding
• 15:30
  Track 2: the genre and defining the genre and moving it forward were very active at this time period.
• 15:37
  Track 2: So I also think, you know, this is a very personal story for Ryan.
• 15:41
  Track 2: So he's talking about his great uncle. This is the time when he's alive.
• 15:45
  Track 2: And so what I thought was so beautiful
• 15:47
  Track 2: listening to Ryan talk about his memories with his great uncle and,
• 15:52
  Track 2: you know, going to his house as a kid and listening to his great uncle play
• 15:56
  Track 2: all these blues legends all the time was that, you know, he's trying to conjure,
• 16:04
  Track 2: his great uncle was trying to conjure what was going on at that time period.
• 16:07
  Track 2: Like who are the people that he lost? You know, who are the,
• 16:09
  Track 2: you know, the, the friends, the cousins, the, the lovers, you know,
• 16:14
  Track 2: all the people that he left behind when he moved to Oakland.
• 16:17
  Track 2: And so, you know, I do think it's very specific to Ryan's family that he chose
• 16:23
  Track 2: this time period as well.
• 16:25
  Track 2: But again, it's ripe for so much discussion. And it's also not shown on screen a lot.
• 16:33
  Track 2: So I think that kind of helps as well. We get the 1800s, we get the 1950s and
• 16:38
  Track 2: 60s and beyond, but how many movies are focused on the 1930s?
• 16:45
  Track 1: Yeah, unless it's a movie about the Great Depression specifically,
• 16:48
  Track 1: you really don't get much of that for.
• 16:50
  Track 2: Black people specific.
• 16:51
  Track 1: Oh yes okay yes i don't think
• 16:54
  Track 1: i can think of any films that took place during that period of time
• 16:57
  Track 1: right let alone like you said any any real yeah i guess you said great depression
• 17:00
  Track 1: but that often leaves out that entire story from it because it's usually not
• 17:04
  Track 1: told from it's usually told from the white perspective absolutely yeah i think
• 17:09
  Track 1: of like movies like um the the grapes of wrath there's not really any any uh
• 17:14
  Track 1: any of that perspective within it for the most part.
• 17:17
  Track 1: And so that like you, since you mentioned Perlene as one of the characters, I mean,
• 17:21
  Track 1: I don't want to say we need to go through each individual one, although we could,
• 17:25
  Track 1: but I think it's also important to note the context for Smoke and Stack who
• 17:29
  Track 1: fought in World War I and now had then moved afterwards to Chicago to essentially
• 17:35
  Track 1: work kind of in the, you know,
• 17:37
  Track 1: the gangster business and, you know, maybe take both sides.
• 17:39
  Track 1: And the context that you're kind of given is that they've stolen from
• 17:43
  Track 1: both the italians and the irish and have now taken that money back to mississippi
• 17:47
  Track 1: to essentially put it back into the community if you will i mean maybe you i
• 17:51
  Track 1: don't know if you would put it say it that way because it does seem like they
• 17:55
  Track 1: very much want to give something back and have something for their own albeit also like,
• 18:01
  Track 1: turning a profit. And I don't know how you square that.
• 18:05
  Track 1: And maybe also the theme that I was thinking about in that same vein is just
• 18:10
  Track 1: kind of the idea of capitalism and maybe Black capitalism and some of these
• 18:16
  Track 1: things that come into play and how you maybe perceive their motivation.
• 18:22
  Track 2: I mean, so again, I think all of these characters, what's so beautiful about
• 18:26
  Track 2: them and what's so beautiful about that first hour of the film is we're seeing
• 18:31
  Track 2: all of these characters,
• 18:32
  Track 2: they all want freedom and they all seem to find a different path that they think
• 18:40
  Track 2: is going to get them to freedom.
• 18:42
  Track 2: So for Smoke, you know, he says very clearly to Annie that money is power and
• 18:48
  Track 2: that's what he thinks is freedom, you know, and Stack is, you know,
• 18:53
  Track 2: all about, you know, the flashy business in the community and all of that.
• 18:57
  Track 2: And so I think together, yeah, both of them had this idea.
• 19:00
  Track 2: And I think it's still a very popular idea, you know, in the black community
• 19:04
  Track 2: today that black entrepreneurship is going to save us.
• 19:08
  Track 2: It's going to offer us freedom, you know, and we will be replicating the same
• 19:13
  Track 2: systems because again, you can't really make that much of a profit unless there's
• 19:19
  Track 2: some exploitation involved.
• 19:22
  Track 2: You know, but if there some way that you can give back to the community,
• 19:26
  Track 2: then maybe it's all square.
• 19:28
  Track 2: So I think that they did have good intentions.
• 19:31
  Track 2: And I think if you're operating under a capitalistic system,
• 19:37
  Track 2: yeah, you think these are your only options.
• 19:40
  Track 2: You don't want to be the beggar. You don't want to be the person who can't afford
• 19:43
  Track 2: anything. You want to be the person that can give to charity when you feel like it.
• 19:46
  Track 2: And what's the way to do that by making as much money as you can?
• 19:49
  Track 2: And if you can make a black-owned business that services your community and
• 19:53
  Track 2: provides a space of joy and freedom.
• 19:56
  Track 2: You know, even if it's just for a couple of hours, then, hey,
• 19:59
  Track 2: that sounds pretty great.
• 20:00
  Track 2: So I do think that they had good intentions. But like Annie said,
• 20:05
  Track 2: you know, that money comes with blood.
• 20:07
  Track 2: And there's consequences for that.
• 20:10
  Track 1: Absolutely and i think that that also makes me reminds
• 20:13
  Track 1: me i think i briefly mentioned it because this takes place in
• 20:16
  Track 1: clarksdale mississippi and i and they as they're
• 20:19
  Track 1: doing their planning they kind of separate from each other the
• 20:22
  Track 1: two brothers to kind of take on different errands if you will
• 20:25
  Track 1: and one and a stack goes to the town to basically get all the ingredients and
• 20:32
  Track 1: things he needs for his opening night and he goes directly to a chinese-owned
• 20:36
  Track 1: business a couple bow and grace And you also see like a very short glimpse or
• 20:41
  Track 1: a small glimpse of kind of what the town looked like.
• 20:43
  Track 1: And I think you mentioned that, or maybe I mentioned to you before we recorded
• 20:47
  Track 1: is kind of the, one of the ones that I noticed and that I kind of dug into very
• 20:51
  Track 1: slightly was the Jewish storefront that's located there as a,
• 20:54
  Track 1: as a Jewish person myself.
• 20:56
  Track 1: And I was curious kind of how they fit in, but I think you mentioned that there
• 21:00
  Track 1: were things that were left out of that scene.
• 21:02
  Track 1: And I'm, now I'm curious what, what do you, what wasn't there?
• 21:06
  Track 2: So i think um so also the
• 21:09
  Track 2: tamale shop is also there yes yes you know
• 21:12
  Track 2: and i i think all of that is wonderful i think for me what was left out wasn't
• 21:17
  Track 2: necessarily on that strip it was in the club scene like what you know because
• 21:23
  Track 2: you are tracing you know like i mentioned the evolution of blues music which
• 21:27
  Track 2: queer black people were foundational to you know you're showing house music,
• 21:31
  Track 2: which is also, you know, an offspring of the blues, you know,
• 21:35
  Track 2: where are the queer people?
• 21:36
  Track 2: I wanted to see black queer people voguing down.
• 21:40
  Track 2: I wanted to see visible queer people in the space, whether it was in the past
• 21:45
  Track 2: or whether it was, you know, in the future, like you had the twerkers,
• 21:49
  Track 2: give me the Vogue girls, you know, like give me the, let the dolls Vogue down.
• 21:53
  Track 2: Like I wanted to see that. Um, so I think that that's more so what I meant as
• 21:58
  Track 2: far as, you know, the people who were missing.
• 22:02
  Track 2: Um, but yeah, I mean, I think what it shows is that Ryan did a lot of research
• 22:06
  Track 2: on what was going on in this time period.
• 22:09
  Track 2: It's absolutely historically accurate that, um, there were a lot of Chinese
• 22:13
  Track 2: immigrants in the Mississippi Delta.
• 22:15
  Track 2: They were brought there because of, you know, the ending of slavery and needing,
• 22:20
  Track 2: uh, cheap sources of labor.
• 22:22
  Track 2: And because they wouldn't work in the fields and ended up opening these grocery
• 22:28
  Track 2: stores, you know, that's how sharecropping, you know.
• 22:32
  Track 2: Became even more and more of a necessity to an economy that ran on exploiting Black labor.
• 22:41
  Track 2: And so, yeah, it was very interesting, you know, to have this community of people
• 22:46
  Track 2: that had, you know, this Chinese couple that was a part of both communities.
• 22:50
  Track 2: They sold on both sides of the
• 22:52
  Track 2: street and they were able to do that on a foundation of anti-Blackness.
• 22:59
  Track 2: You know, you have them on, uh, owning two businesses, smoke and stack wanted to own one business.
• 23:06
  Track 2: And it took the clan like 24 hours to try to destroy that.
• 23:12
  Track 2: Um, you know, and if it wasn't going to be the clan, you know,
• 23:15
  Track 2: it wasn't the vampires and it wasn't the clan, then it probably would have been,
• 23:18
  Track 2: you know, the gangsters from Chicago.
• 23:20
  Track 2: Like this place was doomed from the beginning.
• 23:24
  Track 2: Um, but yeah, I thought, you know, that was very interesting to show that you're
• 23:28
  Track 2: trying to make a community of people, but when the foundation is anti-blackness,
• 23:32
  Track 2: it becomes dangerous for black people to be in community with, you know,
• 23:37
  Track 2: other races of people who benefit from anti-blackness.
• 23:40
  Track 1: And you could even, well, tell me if this is off base, but you could almost
• 23:45
  Track 1: argue that later on, once, you know, you mentioned the vampires,
• 23:49
  Track 1: the, I forgot to kind of maybe add that context.
• 23:52
  Track 1: I mean, most people probably have listened, have seen the film if they're listening,
• 23:56
  Track 1: most likely, But there were two members of the KKK that were essentially looked
• 24:00
  Track 1: like they were going to be sent to kill them.
• 24:02
  Track 1: And it just so happens that the person who's played by Jack O'Connell Remick,
• 24:09
  Track 1: an Irish vampire, you know, is being chased and goes into their home and kills them or turns them.
• 24:15
  Track 1: And then it leads to them going to their juke joint later on.
• 24:19
  Track 1: What was I going to... Oh, but I think I was going to mention is that the Chinese couple...
• 24:26
  Track 1: In a way, sort of turns on them later on? I've heard a couple of different theories,
• 24:33
  Track 1: whether you would say that they sort of turned on the community or if it was simply just a fear.
• 24:39
  Track 1: I can see you're a...
• 24:41
  Track 2: So here's my interpretation. And I will say that Ryan has come out to say that
• 24:48
  Track 2: Grace should not be blamed.
• 24:52
  Track 2: She was a part of the community. She was seen as family. And he included a Chinese
• 24:57
  Track 2: couple, not just because he had done his research, but he had done his research
• 25:01
  Track 2: because in his wife, Zinzi Kugler, who's also a producer of the film in her lineage,
• 25:07
  Track 2: um, they discovered, you know, her Mississippi ancestors were black and Chinese.
• 25:12
  Track 2: So he was trying to create this idea of like, we're all family,
• 25:17
  Track 2: obviously, because we procreated together.
• 25:19
  Track 2: And the reality is, you know, that's not always the case.
• 25:22
  Track 2: And I think, uh, maybe he should have done some things a little bit differently
• 25:26
  Track 2: if he didn't want, you know, the blame put on Grace in the way that it was.
• 25:30
  Track 2: But I do think when you can, I think the enemy in this film is adjacency to whiteness.
• 25:38
  Track 2: So you have Mary who, and it gets everybody killed essentially because she's,
• 25:45
  Track 2: you know, this, she's passing for white.
• 25:49
  Track 2: She has one eighth ancestry that's black. And so because of the one drop rule at that time.
• 25:55
  Track 2: She would have been considered Black if people knew. She was married to a rich
• 25:59
  Track 2: white man, so she was living her life as a white woman.
• 26:01
  Track 2: And she thought she could go and talk to these vampires and that everything
• 26:05
  Track 2: would be okay because she's white and her whiteness would protect her.
• 26:08
  Track 2: In the same way, you have Grace, who's working both sides of the street.
• 26:13
  Track 2: So, you know, again, I think if you're in a space of privilege and power because
• 26:21
  Track 2: you aren't Black or you aren't as Black as somebody else, or you're not treated like Black people,
• 26:27
  Track 2: then there's going to be room for trouble.
• 26:29
  Track 2: So I think the issue when Mary attacks Stack and turns him into a vampire.
• 26:39
  Track 2: They all think that he's just dead, that Mary has killed him.
• 26:45
  Track 2: He's bled out in front of them. Everybody's really sad.
• 26:47
  Track 2: And Grace is just like, we signed up for a party.
• 26:51
  Track 2: She's telling her husband, like, pack that, wrap it up.
• 26:55
  Track 2: Like, we have a daughter. We have a life. We didn't sign up to,
• 26:59
  Track 2: you know, help Smoke deal with the grief of his brother being killed.
• 27:04
  Track 2: Like, that's not our place. We got other stuff to do.
• 27:07
  Track 2: And Bo, I think if Bo had been there by himself, he would have stayed because
• 27:13
  Track 2: he did have a close, you know, relationship with Smoke that was his actual friend.
• 27:17
  Track 2: I don't know if Grace is really friends with these people, honestly. Yeah.
• 27:20
  Track 2: And so, you know, he's trying to, he's obviously closer to his wife than he
• 27:24
  Track 2: is to smoke. So he's listening to her and saying, yeah, we should probably get
• 27:28
  Track 2: out of here. There's danger afoot.
• 27:30
  Track 2: And I don't know that that necessarily makes Grace a bad person or anything,
• 27:35
  Track 2: but it does mean for the sake of this conversation that she's not,
• 27:40
  Track 2: you know, that's not her, that's not her people.
• 27:43
  Track 2: Like her people are at home. It's her daughter, you know, so she's trying to
• 27:46
  Track 2: get home to her daughter. And if they were all really family,
• 27:49
  Track 2: then her daughter would be the same as her brother Smoke or her brother Stack that was just killed.
• 27:55
  Track 2: You know, we're all we're all family.
• 27:57
  Track 2: But she has you know, she's got her hierarchy and that's fine.
• 28:01
  Track 2: We all have our hierarchy.
• 28:02
  Track 2: So the reality was she wasn't in that moment, you know, thinking of Smoke and
• 28:07
  Track 2: Stack as family that need help during a period of grief.
• 28:11
  Track 2: And Bo, you know, goes to his peril because he kind of agrees with her.
• 28:15
  Track 2: Um, so and then when grace I think the biggest issue for me with grace Uh,
• 28:22
  Track 2: and the lesson I think is that she asked to go outside She asked to go outside
• 28:27
  Track 2: like three four times and you know, everybody stopped her They're trying to save her life.
• 28:32
  Track 2: They're telling her she's in danger. They're telling her beau is probably safe
• 28:34
  Track 2: You don't need to worry about him.
• 28:36
  Track 2: You know, you need to stay inside where it's safe And they should just let her go honestly.
• 28:40
  Track 2: I mean if she's wild she was she was showing signs of wilding out really early
• 28:45
  Track 2: and they should have just let her go.
• 28:47
  Track 2: But they said, no, we need to, we're all, we're all community.
• 28:51
  Track 2: We're all family. We're all going to stick together. And it was to their peril too.
• 28:55
  Track 2: So I do think there is a lesson to be learned that, you know, everybody can't come.
• 29:02
  Track 2: If you can benefit from anti-blackness and you're not actively,
• 29:06
  Track 2: you know, anti-racist, probably not safe. You're probably not safe.
• 29:12
  Track 2: And both Grace and Mary got all the black people killed and i'm going to stand on that.
• 29:16
  Track 1: No i think that's very reasonable and and speaking of
• 29:18
  Track 1: since you mentioned sort of like the family angle the the one of the other
• 29:21
  Track 1: characters we didn't talk about is sammy the preacher
• 29:24
  Track 1: boy who's the son who's the um cousin of
• 29:28
  Track 1: smoke and stack who is essentially brought there because
• 29:31
  Track 1: he has a great talent at blues and
• 29:34
  Track 1: playing guitar and they want him to be one of the you know
• 29:37
  Track 1: like the axe who wanted to kind of let him you know be himself
• 29:40
  Track 1: and kind of almost like a coming out party for him in a way as far as uh you
• 29:45
  Track 1: know playing for the community and then on the complete like opposite side i
• 29:49
  Track 1: know these are really related but then on the other side you have like remick
• 29:52
  Track 1: this irish vampire who is hears him play and now wants to,
• 29:59
  Track 1: take his music he you know uh uh the.
• 30:03
  Track 1: Co-opt his, you know, his music from him. And it's sort of like these,
• 30:08
  Track 1: you know, complete opposite things.
• 30:10
  Track 1: That is what the, the Rebicus wants to enter the, the, uh, the mill and take
• 30:17
  Track 1: their music, take their lives, have them become them and kind of,
• 30:21
  Track 1: uh, you know, assimilate them into this, uh,
• 30:24
  Track 1: white Irish vampire, you know, character.
• 30:28
  Track 1: Whereas on the other side, you have Sammy who is being protected for his,
• 30:32
  Track 1: you know, they don't want him to not just become a vampire, but they don't want
• 30:36
  Track 1: to give away his gift, I think.
• 30:38
  Track 1: And I mean, you wrote a lot about this in your, I think the second one, maybe both.
• 30:46
  Track 2: Yeah. I mean, well, so Sammy actually is representative.
• 30:50
  Track 2: Like, I definitely feel like he is, you know, a metaphor for Ryan talking about our history,
• 30:57
  Track 2: our culture, our music, everything is wrapped up into Sammy,
• 31:02
  Track 2: like a representation of what it means to be a Black American survivor in this world.
• 31:09
  Track 2: It's all wrapped up in all of these things.
• 31:12
  Track 2: He's our youth. He is our future.
• 31:15
  Track 2: And so when Delroy Lindo's Delta Slim puts his arm out in front of Sammy when
• 31:23
  Track 2: Remick is coming for him.
• 31:24
  Track 2: He's like, you can't have him. And everybody's like, yeah, well,
• 31:28
  Track 2: you, you got to go through all of us to get him.
• 31:30
  Track 2: It is a representative like, this is our culture.
• 31:33
  Track 2: These are our people. This is our story. Like you can't have it.
• 31:38
  Track 2: There's not like, we're not going to give this up. You're going to have to kill us.
• 31:43
  Track 2: And so, yeah, I thought that was, uh,
• 31:48
  Track 2: very beautiful, very moving. I feel like I would have been more moved and I
• 31:52
  Track 2: think it would have been even more powerful because Sammy is also the name of
• 31:57
  Track 2: Ryan's great aunt who is married to his great uncle that inspired the film.
• 32:03
  Track 2: And also Ryan has two twin aunts, which is where he got the idea of twins and
• 32:09
  Track 2: what that duality and what that could mean in this story.
• 32:12
  Track 2: So I feel like there were some places where it would have been really cool to
• 32:16
  Track 2: have a Black woman represent these things and have the whole culture be like,
• 32:22
  Track 2: no, we're protecting her.
• 32:24
  Track 2: She's the symbol of all of the things in our culture.
• 32:27
  Track 2: I think that would have been really cool, especially if it had been a queer person as well.
• 32:33
  Track 2: I think all of his points would have hit so much harder. If Sammy were a butch lesbian,
• 32:38
  Track 2: all of his, all of the points, like the points about sinners,
• 32:41
  Track 2: uh, being ostracized from the church and, you know, having a father say,
• 32:47
  Track 2: you need to put this down or you're going like, it just, everything would have
• 32:50
  Track 2: hit so much harder for me.
• 32:52
  Track 2: Um, if that had been the case, but yeah, I, I, I really did appreciate,
• 32:57
  Track 2: you know, all the symbolism.
• 32:58
  Track 2: I think all of the characters are kind of archetypes for, for something.
• 33:02
  Track 2: And yeah, I think that's a sign of a, great writer, great thinker.
• 33:06
  Track 1: Yeah, I mean, that goes back to the book you recommended, the Angela Davis book at the beginning.
• 33:12
  Track 1: It sounds like there's lots of intersectional feminism that was maybe missed in this film.
• 33:18
  Track 2: I think so.
• 33:19
  Track 1: Or at least had a chance to add layers to it as opposed to it being well,
• 33:25
  Track 1: I don't want to say it's completely male-centric because there are strong female
• 33:29
  Track 1: characters in it, but maybe not to the same extent had there been.
• 33:32
  Track 2: Yeah, no, this is a, like, I think the story is very clearly,
• 33:37
  Track 2: you know, it's a, it's a, it's a patriarchal story.
• 33:42
  Track 2: It's a, you know, it's a story about fathers.
• 33:45
  Track 2: Whether it's the father of evil vampire, the master vampire,
• 33:50
  Track 2: it's the church father, it's the evil father that beat the siblings, the twins.
• 33:58
  Track 2: It is. It's a black male patriarchal story and women exist to help them out.
• 34:07
  Track 2: And it doesn't mean that they're not strong people.
• 34:14
  Track 2: I do think it is a sign of a man writing the story for sure,
• 34:19
  Track 2: because I think that just often happens, you know, to the point that there's a whole term for,
• 34:25
  Track 2: you know, called fridging, you know, when women are killed off so that the men can grow and all that.
• 34:30
  Track 2: Like, I just think that there's a way that men can view women in real life that
• 34:37
  Track 2: just pops up in stories where if you're raised to believe,
• 34:42
  Track 2: especially in like a Christian church, that women are created from the ribs
• 34:45
  Track 2: of men, like every man that's ever been born has been born through a woman.
• 34:50
  Track 2: But the idea is we came from them.
• 34:53
  Track 2: Actually, they gave birth to us through their rib. And so they're actually the
• 34:57
  Track 2: creators of life and we are on the, to their side, you know,
• 35:01
  Track 2: to help them out, their helpmates.
• 35:03
  Track 2: So, yeah, Annie is going to put all of her energy, all of her hoodoo magic,
• 35:08
  Track 2: all of her power into a mojo bag to protect smoke. She's not going to wear one.
• 35:14
  Track 2: She's not going to wear one. Why would she? No, no, no. She doesn't need protecting.
• 35:20
  Track 2: Only smoke needs. Smoke is the special person that needs protecting.
• 35:24
  Track 2: And even the magic is not going to work, you know, on the baby.
• 35:28
  Track 2: It's just a coincidence that the baby is also a girl. But anyway,
• 35:32
  Track 2: it's neither here nor there.
• 35:33
  Track 1: I was also just thinking, I don't think, you know, I mean, that's a good point.
• 35:37
  Track 1: I don't even think that the film passes the Bechdel test. I don't think there's.
• 35:43
  Track 2: No, no.
• 35:44
  Track 1: I don't think two women really even have any major conversations at all.
• 35:50
  Track 2: There's one. No, they don't. There's one scene after, you know,
• 35:55
  Track 2: Smoke turns away Remick and the other vampires, and Mary and Annie look at each
• 36:02
  Track 2: other for an extended period of time.
• 36:05
  Track 2: That's as close as we're getting to two women, you know, having a conversation.
• 36:09
  Track 2: It's completely, you know, nonverbal.
• 36:14
  Track 2: So yeah, it absolutely does not pass the Bechdel test.
• 36:19
  Track 2: You know, and then you have Pearlene also who, you know, her whole She dies
• 36:26
  Track 2: because she's trying to protect Sammy,
• 36:29
  Track 2: You know, and then when she gets bitten and he's trying to attend to her She's
• 36:33
  Track 2: just like, no, no, go on You must make it to sunrise Because he's all that matters
• 36:38
  Track 2: All that matters is, you know,
• 36:41
  Track 2: I take it this way, you know, just because it fits into,
• 36:46
  Track 2: if we didn't have so many other stories that were along the lines of sacrifice
• 36:51
  Track 2: everybody so that the black man is the most important and, you know,
• 36:56
  Track 2: then I probably wouldn't feel this way.
• 36:57
  Track 2: But because it just kind of fits into that kind of patriarchal canon, that's how it felt to me.
• 37:02
  Track 2: It felt like as long as Sammy makes it, then the community will live on.
• 37:08
  Track 2: And, you know, Perlene will get a shout out on the name of his club.
• 37:14
  Track 2: And so it's just as good as her being alive to sing her own songs because Sammy's
• 37:19
  Track 2: going to carry that on for her.
• 37:22
  Track 2: And, you know, so I don't know.
• 37:25
  Track 2: Those are my only small, small, small complaints.
• 37:28
  Track 1: Well, I saw also a theory. I'm curious. I don't remember if you waited.
• 37:32
  Track 1: I saw a theory that Perlene was not actually married and that that was sort
• 37:39
  Track 1: of like what she was telling people.
• 37:41
  Track 1: I think the argument that I saw was why would she have been out alone on the town? But I don't know.
• 37:49
  Track 2: Her husband was old. I think it was very common for, you know,
• 37:53
  Track 2: young girls to be married off to much older people.
• 37:56
  Track 2: She obviously was not, you know, in love with her husband.
• 38:01
  Track 2: You know, it seemed like the experience of pleasure sexually with Sammy was a new thing for her.
• 38:10
  Track 2: So, yeah, I don't think she was lying about.
• 38:13
  Track 2: I mean, I don't I saw that, too.
• 38:16
  Track 2: But I mean, I don't think just because she wasn't wearing a ring.
• 38:19
  Track 2: I think Smoke and Annie are married. I don't think they were wearing rings.
• 38:23
  Track 1: No, they weren't. They weren't wearing rings.
• 38:25
  Track 2: I just don't think that was a thing that, you know, people could afford or was
• 38:30
  Track 2: all that significant at that time period for this group of black people.
• 38:35
  Track 2: But, yeah, I think she was probably married. I mean, I think the point also,
• 38:38
  Track 2: too, is like they're sinners.
• 38:40
  Track 2: So, you know, and that's the other thing, too. Like it did just feel very straight.
• 38:43
  Track 2: It felt very, it felt very hetero that like the biggest scandal was oral sex
• 38:51
  Track 2: and adultery and blues music.
• 38:54
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 38:55
  Track 2: Through the Sins, but you know.
• 38:57
  Track 1: Yeah, that's, that's, that's another thing too, is that it's,
• 38:59
  Track 1: it's kind of, you're kind of see that.
• 39:02
  Track 1: And so the opening scene is kind of like one of the last scenes kind of opens
• 39:06
  Track 1: up with kind of like the end and then it kind of takes you back to the day before.
• 39:09
  Track 1: And the way that you're kind of meant to see it is that Sammy has committed
• 39:14
  Track 1: these ultimate sins, that he's a sinful person.
• 39:18
  Track 1: And is it simply because, well, to your point before, you said that if it had
• 39:22
  Track 1: been a woman or a queer character, that would have been such a more stronger point to being a sin.
• 39:28
  Track 1: Whereas him playing music, to me, doesn't feel like...
• 39:33
  Track 1: Enough of a sin? I don't know.
• 39:35
  Track 2: But it's not wrong. So I think in 2025, it would have hit a thousand times harder
• 39:43
  Track 2: for me if those changes had been made.
• 39:45
  Track 2: At that time period, I mean, it's literally called the devil's music.
• 39:49
  Track 2: There is this true story about a man, Robert Johnson, who was a blues singer,
• 40:00
  Track 2: or he wanted to be, he was very bad at it.
• 40:04
  Track 2: And then he all of a sudden comes back and he's able to sing and play the guitar.
• 40:09
  Track 2: And an astronomical change had happened when people described as overnight,
• 40:16
  Track 2: that he had these abilities.
• 40:18
  Track 2: And so there was this huge legend that he met the devil at the crossroads,
• 40:21
  Track 2: the devil tuned his guitar, and he sold his soul. And that's why he ended up
• 40:26
  Track 2: dying because the devil came to collect his due and he died at 27,
• 40:30
  Track 2: very tragically in weird circumstances.
• 40:32
  Track 2: And that became a legend that is still known today.
• 40:36
  Track 2: And blues music is called the devil's music. Like that, that was all real.
• 40:40
  Track 2: And the, but again, I think that's another one of those layers.
• 40:45
  Track 2: Um, I think Jedediah, the pastor father had a different, had a deeper layer
• 40:51
  Track 2: to why he wanted his son to stay away from music.
• 40:55
  Track 2: Um, because that guitar, as we learn at the end is, uh, Elijah and Elias's dad's guitar.
• 41:03
  Track 2: And he was known as an evil man. And so he's thinking, you know,
• 41:07
  Track 2: this is a path you're going to go down to Most musicians wind up like Delta
• 41:12
  Track 2: Slim, you know, alcoholics using alcohol to cope with everything that they're going through.
• 41:18
  Track 2: And, you know, so I think there were some layers there to that for Jedediah
• 41:22
  Track 2: specifically about why he didn't want his son there and the relationship that
• 41:25
  Track 2: he must have had with his brother as well if he knew he was evil and accepted that.
• 41:29
  Track 2: But I think the other thing is in the church.
• 41:34
  Track 2: Pastors were upset because patrons would go to the juke joints on Saturday night.
• 41:41
  Track 2: They'd spend all their money.
• 41:42
  Track 2: And so they'd have no money on Sunday to put it. So it's capitalism.
• 41:48
  Track 1: In the collection plate.
• 41:50
  Track 2: Yes. They didn't have money for the collection plate and the pastors were upset
• 41:53
  Track 2: and they demonized this thing as look what you're putting above God.
• 41:57
  Track 2: This is demonic. This is devilish. And so it came attached to the entire genre
• 42:03
  Track 2: of music and the entire experience of going to these juke joints.
• 42:07
  Track 2: And so there was this element to there. And I think capitalism is a huge villain.
• 42:14
  Track 2: I mean, it's the villain, actually, in this movie.
• 42:18
  Track 2: I mean, you know, white supremacist capitalism specifically is the villain in
• 42:22
  Track 2: this movie because literally everybody who takes the white man's gold in this
• 42:27
  Track 2: movie gets turned into a vampire. Every single person.
• 42:30
  Track 2: That is the first entry point into that.
• 42:33
  Track 2: And it's Smoke standing at the door of his juke joint, knowing that they're in need of money,
• 42:39
  Track 2: knowing that all of the sharecroppers can't even support the business that they
• 42:43
  Track 2: want to come and support because they're paying with wooden nickels because
• 42:47
  Track 2: they're not getting paid real money on these plantations.
• 42:50
  Track 2: They're getting paid in plantation money so that they get stuck in the sharecropping
• 42:54
  Track 2: world and can never get out of it.
• 42:57
  Track 2: So even Smoke, knowing all this and knowing that they're underwater,
• 43:01
  Track 2: that they're going to be out of money in two months, he still says no to this gold.
• 43:05
  Track 2: And that's what ultimately saves him.
• 43:08
  Track 2: And so everybody, I think, who, you know, is against using this money in this
• 43:15
  Track 2: way survives the night at least.
• 43:18
  Track 1: Yeah. Yeah. It felt very significant to use gold too, rather than it could have
• 43:23
  Track 1: just been, you know, American money, you know, but it was very specifically
• 43:27
  Track 1: that it was like this very weird thing.
• 43:30
  Track 1: And you also mentioned like the idea of the like the devil's music and that
• 43:34
  Track 1: it's very clear that you have that through line to to to Remick as this Irish vampire who,
• 43:41
  Track 1: you know, is an incarnation of, you know, the devil himself or from,
• 43:46
  Track 1: you know, in a in a similar way and
• 43:49
  Track 1: he's come to take the music you know
• 43:52
  Track 1: from sammy or in you know you mentioned robert johnson and lots of also lots
• 43:57
  Track 1: robert johnson had some of his music stolen you know by people like bob dylan
• 44:01
  Track 1: and there are other black musicians from the early 20th century who had their
• 44:05
  Track 1: music ripped off by you know elvis was a a big oh like the number one maybe perpetrator of this.
• 44:12
  Track 1: And so you have all of those things. And it's, it's, I think I hadn't considered
• 44:17
  Track 1: the idea of like the devil and Robert Johnson and sort of how,
• 44:21
  Track 1: you know, he could almost, he wanted to take,
• 44:26
  Track 1: Sammy, not just as like his body, but, you know, to take his music and then, you know, re.
• 44:32
  Track 2: He wanted to own it because that's the other thing, too.
• 44:35
  Track 2: If if, you know, and we see this at the end, we see the juxtaposition of Remick and Stack.
• 44:43
  Track 2: Both of these people are missing their who are now gone on to be ancestors.
• 44:49
  Track 2: Stack is missing his brother. He's missing that last day where he saw the sun.
• 44:54
  Track 2: He's missing you know all the the which he
• 44:57
  Track 2: also considers the best day of his life as sammy does and
• 45:00
  Track 2: stack asked sammy to play the guitar
• 45:03
  Track 2: for him so that he could remember and he
• 45:06
  Track 2: does he doesn't get to you know there's no veil piercing
• 45:09
  Track 2: because he's dead and he doesn't have access to his ancestors anymore now that
• 45:14
  Track 2: he's dead and his soul is trapped here but he remembers he can remember that
• 45:19
  Track 2: day it's so beautiful it's so vivid in his mind that's when we get all those
• 45:23
  Track 2: beautiful flashbacks of them making the juke joint that we never actually got to see.
• 45:27
  Track 2: We get to see Smoke smiling with Annie, which we never got to see in the actual,
• 45:31
  Track 2: you know, occurrence of events as it was happening.
• 45:34
  Track 2: And it's not the same, but it is something.
• 45:39
  Track 2: And Remick could have just asked Sammy to play for him. He could have just asked
• 45:44
  Track 2: him, but he didn't want to remember.
• 45:47
  Track 2: He didn't want to connect.
• 45:49
  Track 2: He wanted to own, he wanted to possess.
• 45:52
  Track 2: And that was the, like, that is colonialism. It's like, you know,
• 45:56
  Track 2: you go to Hawaii and you see, and it's so beautiful. And you're just like,
• 45:59
  Track 2: man, this is just wonderful.
• 46:01
  Track 2: This is amazing. What a great experience.
• 46:03
  Track 2: No, I have to own that. I need to stick my flag here.
• 46:07
  Track 2: And I also need to kill everybody that's here so that I can continue to own this.
• 46:12
  Track 2: Like, it's just a completely different worldview, which is, you know,
• 46:16
  Track 2: ironic because, again, he is Irish.
• 46:19
  Track 2: He did have this experience himself. The English came to him and did the exact
• 46:24
  Track 2: same thing to him, forced their religion, forced their language.
• 46:29
  Track 2: Forced their way onto the Irish people, colonized them as well.
• 46:34
  Track 2: And it just goes to show that being a victim of colonization,
• 46:38
  Track 2: being a victim of oppression does not prohibit you from becoming the thing that
• 46:45
  Track 2: you were victimized for.
• 46:47
  Track 2: So I think it was brilliant to make Remick this, to make him Irish and to give
• 46:53
  Track 2: him that ancestry and be able to actually say it in the film.
• 46:56
  Track 2: Yes, this also happened to me too.
• 46:58
  Track 2: And it's not like, yeah, we're the same. We're trauma bonding here.
• 47:02
  Track 2: Like, no, that's, you know, it's emotional mimicry for sure. He's using this to try to.
• 47:08
  Track 2: Manipulate sammy but for the audience it's like an okay i see what you're doing
• 47:13
  Track 2: ryan like i see where we're going.
• 47:16
  Track 1: I think even on top of that that kind of like
• 47:18
  Track 1: adds another layer is that the person who was
• 47:21
  Track 1: hunting remick and then when he
• 47:24
  Track 1: gets refuge by letting being let inside of the
• 47:27
  Track 1: other family's house is the choctaw vampire is
• 47:30
  Track 1: a sorry the choctaw tribe which are you know the indigenous community
• 47:33
  Track 1: so it's almost like a you know
• 47:36
  Track 1: you were saying like this double layer like the irish were
• 47:39
  Track 1: colonized and then remick is doing the exact
• 47:42
  Track 1: same thing and then the person who's actually trying to stop this cycle is actually
• 47:47
  Track 1: the indigenous people of you know of what's now america so it's i really appreciate
• 47:53
  Track 1: that added piece to it and i saw a lot of people saying like i wish there was
• 47:57
  Track 1: a sequel i wish there was this and that like the only thing that i would love to though,
• 48:00
  Track 1: is the story of simply the Choctaw, you know, community more than anything.
• 48:05
  Track 1: Cause that could be, you could have no one else in the film.
• 48:07
  Track 1: It could just be like this other store. I don't know.
• 48:10
  Track 2: That just, I mean, I definitely think that Ryan should executive produce and let some,
• 48:18
  Track 2: writers write that story for sure. I mean, I think that would be really great.
• 48:22
  Track 2: I'd be happy to see that. But I also really liked the fact that they peaced
• 48:25
  Track 2: out when the sun went down, it was like, well, we tried.
• 48:30
  Track 2: See you tomorrow if you're still here.
• 48:34
  Track 1: Yeah, they, well, in a way they're like, we know how this is going to go and
• 48:38
  Track 1: they all, they, I don't know, do they notice that the couple inside are clan
• 48:45
  Track 1: members or do they, is it clear that they see it?
• 48:47
  Track 2: Yes.
• 48:48
  Track 1: They do, they see it through the door, right?
• 48:49
  Track 2: Yeah, he can see it through the door, but also I think that they were able to
• 48:53
  Track 2: find Remick in that house because of the three big vultures that are flying over the house.
• 49:00
  Track 2: House and they actually end up landing to let them know. And that's why the
• 49:04
  Track 2: guy's like, hey, the sun's going down.
• 49:06
  Track 2: There's three vultures inside one way or the other, you know,
• 49:09
  Track 2: whether it's clan or vampires, we got to get out of here.
• 49:13
  Track 2: And, you know, yeah. So they still they they tried to they tried to warn her.
• 49:20
  Track 2: She did not she did not want to listen. And so he said, and God be with you and I'm out of here.
• 49:27
  Track 1: That's that's where my i saw the biggest like connection
• 49:30
  Track 1: i mentioned at the top like the book ring shot which is told
• 49:33
  Track 1: at that period of time or a similar period of time but with you
• 49:36
  Track 1: know the the kkk members are these they're not
• 49:39
  Track 1: necessarily vampires they're more of a monster i
• 49:41
  Track 1: guess you could say in then uh than a vampire but i guess at the same time like
• 49:46
  Track 1: what's the difference they're still there they are a type of you know the fact
• 49:51
  Track 1: that they turn several members of the kkk to become vampires to then prey on
• 49:57
  Track 1: the same people is kind of also one of those perfect metaphors that just,
• 50:02
  Track 1: it hits perfectly.
• 50:03
  Track 2: It is the white liberal metaphor. Honestly, it is.
• 50:08
  Track 2: No, we, we want a fellowship and
• 50:10
  Track 2: love. Like, it's like, do we want to burn crosses and murder everybody?
• 50:14
  Track 2: Or do we want to present this image of like softer, gentler,
• 50:19
  Track 2: you know, colonization? Like that's, I thought that was really brilliant.
• 50:24
  Track 2: Like we really do see the, uh, the two sides of, of oppression there and that
• 50:28
  Track 2: both of these things lead to death, you know,
• 50:31
  Track 2: but one of them is going to try and be nicer about it, you know,
• 50:35
  Track 2: or at least, you know, make you make you feel a little bit better about about going down their way.
• 50:40
  Track 1: But it's almost worse because you're now you're like undead or you're in this
• 50:44
  Track 1: like you mentioned, like the soul is not able to be released.
• 50:47
  Track 1: It's almost like a more horrible end,
• 50:51
  Track 1: like at least in the other case, I don't want to say like, at least you're dead you can
• 50:54
  Track 1: be you know remembered you you're you know your loved ones can
• 50:57
  Track 1: visit you or you know like we saw when smoke goes to visit his the baby like
• 51:02
  Track 1: in this case you're now trapped forever until you get staked or you know i guess
• 51:08
  Track 1: uh you know you walk out into the sun walk out into the sun yeah which is uh i.
• 51:14
  Track 2: Think ryan is making that point i i do think that you know soul death,
• 51:20
  Track 2: you know, is, and there's a
• 51:22
  Track 2: lot, I mean, there's a lot of people who are walking around, you know, um,
• 51:27
  Track 2: the UN ambassador, uh, under Biden, who's raising her hands,
• 51:32
  Track 2: uh, against genocide, uh, against, um, the ceasefire, um, soul dead,
• 51:39
  Track 2: Kamala Harris, soul dead, Barack Obama, soul dead.
• 51:42
  Track 2: Like, I feel like there's a lot of people in prominent positions who have accepted
• 51:48
  Track 2: this idea of kinder, gentler,
• 51:50
  Track 2: let-me-get-ahead Black capitalism as freedom and liberation who will come to
• 51:57
  Track 2: find or understand at some point, hopefully they will come to understand that this was a soul death.
• 52:04
  Track 2: There is a different way that they could have gone down and that choosing to
• 52:11
  Track 2: align with oppressive forces is not going to bring you liberation and it's not
• 52:18
  Track 2: going to bring you peace and it shouldn't um.
• 52:20
  Track 1: Yeah we.
• 52:21
  Track 2: See that you know we see that with stack and mary at the end that he you know
• 52:24
  Track 2: they don't have peace they're still alive but stack says the best day of his
• 52:28
  Track 2: life was the last day that he saw the sun you know so.
• 52:31
  Track 1: He's just he's living but he's not really like living you
• 52:35
  Track 1: know i don't know like quote in quotation marks or something and this
• 52:38
  Track 1: maybe it's like slightly off not exactly this
• 52:41
  Track 1: but one of the things that i thought was in i think it was the first
• 52:44
  Track 1: piece you wrote the on your sub stack was kind of the idea of like the danger
• 52:48
  Track 1: of the cookout invite oh yeah and this remind this this kind of conversation
• 52:53
  Track 1: kind of reminds me of it because of the you know this kind of this liberal kind
• 52:57
  Track 1: of version and these different you know um sort of uh you know,
• 53:03
  Track 1: Well, I'll let you describe, let's describe that part and kind of,
• 53:05
  Track 1: you know, maybe how that fits here too.
• 53:07
  Track 2: Well, I mean, I think we see like, you know, when Remic is outside and he's
• 53:11
  Track 2: singing picked old Robin clean, like it's very scary and creepy and not good.
• 53:18
  Track 2: Even when they're singing the soft, you know, ballad as Mary's being kind of
• 53:24
  Track 2: drawn in, it's still a little bit creepy, you know, like their harmonies are
• 53:28
  Track 2: nice and it's a, it feels like it's, there's something underneath here that's not great.
• 53:32
  Track 2: But when Remick turns all the black people that come outside the club,
• 53:37
  Track 2: you know, and they start singing.
• 53:40
  Track 1: Is it the Rocky Road to Dublin?
• 53:43
  Track 2: Yes, on the Rocky Road to Dublin. When he is out there and he's singing the
• 53:47
  Track 2: Rocky Road to Dublin, they are jamming.
• 53:50
  Track 2: I mean, like, it's there's a chorus.
• 53:53
  Track 2: There is rhythm. It's like gospel choir behind him.
• 53:57
  Track 2: You know, they're ad-libbing. um you know there's this
• 54:00
  Track 2: whole really really just disturbing scene of
• 54:03
  Track 2: him in the middle and all of the black people just like anointing
• 54:06
  Track 2: him like we do in church and it's just oh very very disturbing but that's literally
• 54:11
  Track 2: what's happening you know he's siphoning all of their you know gifts and talents
• 54:15
  Track 2: and everything and the music becomes more lit like there is something to and
• 54:20
  Track 2: you know there is a long history and i think ryan talks about this a lot too
• 54:24
  Track 2: he's a huge fan of irish music Like,
• 54:26
  Track 2: he knows all the Irish folk songs and all of that, you know, that culture.
• 54:29
  Track 2: And I think a lot of Black people do. A lot of Black people enjoy Riverdance.
• 54:34
  Track 2: Like, there's a lot of commonality between, you know, Irish people and Black
• 54:38
  Track 2: people in America, like, and the stuff that we've experienced.
• 54:41
  Track 2: And so, yeah, when we get together, it is a party.
• 54:45
  Track 2: It is super lit. It's great, you know. But again, if it requires,
• 54:49
  Track 2: like I think about Ludwig Gorenson, who is the Swedish man, who is the white
• 54:54
  Track 2: Swedish man that composed this film, composed all of Ryan's films.
• 55:00
  Track 2: It kind of feels like that, you know, it's all great and wonderful when you've
• 55:05
  Track 2: got, you know, the legendary Baba Mal teaching you and introducing you to all
• 55:10
  Track 2: of these African sounds when you're working on the Wakanda,
• 55:13
  Track 2: the Black Panther score.
• 55:16
  Track 2: Because I don't think he did Wakanda Forever, actually.
• 55:19
  Track 1: No, I don't think he did.
• 55:20
  Track 2: Yeah. No, I think he did. He did do Wakanda Forever. He didn't do Creed 3,
• 55:25
  Track 2: but he did the original Creed.
• 55:29
  Track 2: And Ryan didn't direct Creed 3, so that's probably why he didn't do it.
• 55:33
  Track 2: But when he's working on the Black Panther score, and he's got Baba Mal teaching
• 55:37
  Track 2: him all this stuff, and he's going all around Africa, and he's learning from
• 55:40
  Track 2: all these different musicians, and she's sucking up their sounds.
• 55:44
  Track 2: You know, who was on the Academy Award stage with him accepting the award for best score?
• 55:53
  Track 2: It was him by himself. That award says Ludwig Goranson. It doesn't say Baba
• 55:58
  Track 2: Mal. It doesn't say any of these other people.
• 56:01
  Track 2: And I think that's where the cookout starts to get tricky.
• 56:10
  Track 2: It gets tricky because, again, you invite everybody to the cookout.
• 56:13
  Track 2: And then who gets to write the book about cookouts.
• 56:17
  Track 2: You know, it's who gets to profit from that culture.
• 56:23
  Track 2: You know, there's even this book about the history of Black people making the
• 56:28
  Track 2: blues called The Devil's Music that was written by a white man.
• 56:32
  Track 2: I mean, it's just like there it's it's everywhere. It just it really is everywhere.
• 56:39
  Track 2: And so I think when you have an anti-Black society, when you have an anti-Black
• 56:45
  Track 2: world, it is very difficult to have a cultural exchange.
• 56:51
  Track 2: You know, like you hear so many stories about indigenous people in this country,
• 56:55
  Track 2: you know, and elsewhere who were inviting of the stranger, because that was
• 57:01
  Track 2: our culture to be inviting strangers in to,
• 57:05
  Track 2: you know, be welcoming, you know, to teach, you know, you had the Moors over
• 57:09
  Track 2: in Europe who went over there and taught people how to bathe and,
• 57:13
  Track 2: you know, have good hygiene practices. And like, what happens?
• 57:16
  Track 2: What happens is oppression, murder, theft, you know, you have all of these,
• 57:21
  Track 2: you know, great philosophers and mathematicians and all of these things and
• 57:26
  Track 2: people in history that we now know, we know their names.
• 57:29
  Track 2: And they went over to Africa and stole their information and came back like
• 57:33
  Track 2: it was brand new. So in a world that's built on capital, that was largely built
• 57:40
  Track 2: that way by Europeans, you know.
• 57:44
  Track 2: It just, it means that every, there's a scarcity mindset.
• 57:48
  Track 2: It's just different. It's, it's just, it's a different worldview.
• 57:50
  Track 2: If you have a mindset of scarcity, then, you know, everything has to cost and
• 57:57
  Track 2: there, there will never be enough.
• 57:59
  Track 2: And so you have to own this thing because, you know, it'll run out otherwise,
• 58:04
  Track 2: and then you'll never have it again.
• 58:06
  Track 2: And so I'm, it's, it's just a completely different worldview.
• 58:09
  Track 2: Like you look at so many indigenous cultures and it's, it's so giving.
• 58:13
  Track 2: It's so community oriented.
• 58:15
  Track 2: It's all like you sharing resources because we have an abundance.
• 58:19
  Track 2: There's on this planet, enough resources literally right now for every,
• 58:23
  Track 2: in the city of Los Angeles, where we have a huge, you know, disproportionate unhoused population.
• 58:29
  Track 2: We have the most empty houses, you know, the most empty apartment.
• 58:34
  Track 2: I mean, entire condominiums that are sitting empty as people are living on the
• 58:39
  Track 2: street and being criminalized for being homeless.
• 58:41
  Track 2: It's just, it's a worldview issue that has created capitalism and this idea
• 58:47
  Track 2: that we can't all have everything that somebody has to have the most.
• 58:52
  Track 2: And, you know, it has to be me. It can't, it can't be if I don't want to be
• 58:57
  Track 2: down there with everybody else.
• 58:59
  Track 2: So I just, you know, have to have to take and it's just, I don't know. It's very sad.
• 59:06
  Track 1: Well, and it seems like it very much, All of those themes, I think,
• 59:10
  Track 1: are very well created and crafted into the narrative.
• 59:14
  Track 1: And as we've talked about this whole time, I think what makes the film,
• 59:18
  Track 1: I think, so rich and so worthy of watching it, you know, multiple times and
• 59:23
  Track 1: seeing all those things is that there's lots of different layers to it.
• 59:27
  Track 1: And it wasn't just a like, oh, I'm just going to make this cool vampire movie.
• 59:30
  Track 1: Like, no, it's far more than that.
• 59:33
  Track 1: Like, there is very, as you've mentioned, like the research and his family history
• 59:36
  Track 1: and all these things. It's not just like a movie that got slapped down,
• 59:40
  Track 1: you know, from like Disney, like some kind of Disney, you know,
• 59:43
  Track 1: slop or something like that.
• 59:44
  Track 1: It has all of this, um, richness to it.
• 59:48
  Track 2: And I think that honestly is what's so beautiful about this movie and what it
• 59:54
  Track 2: shows, you know, in that juke joint scene when you have the music that brings the ancestors back.
• 1:00:03
  Track 2: This movie is a conjuring. Like, I feel like so drawn to and I keep going back.
• 1:00:09
  Track 2: Like, I felt compelled and I really have not felt this way since probably Moonlight.
• 1:00:14
  Track 2: Moonlight was the last time that I had to go to the movie. I saw Moonlight 10
• 1:00:18
  Track 2: times in the theater, nine times in its original run, and one time in February
• 1:00:23
  Track 2: this past year when they put it back in IMAX for one day.
• 1:00:28
  Track 2: And so I like this. It's a conjuring, not just for us to go,
• 1:00:34
  Track 2: you know, you spend our money to go see this movie.
• 1:00:36
  Track 2: But I think specifically for him, he's talked about,
• 1:00:40
  Track 2: you know, if the music that his great uncle was playing was conjuring his past
• 1:00:46
  Track 2: and he would play the music his great uncle loved to conjure his great uncle
• 1:00:50
  Track 2: once his great uncle passed,
• 1:00:52
  Track 2: then this movie too is an opportunity to bring him back to life so that he could say a proper goodbye.
• 1:00:58
  Track 2: You know, you have Buddy Guy, legendary blues singer at the end playing Sammy
• 1:01:03
  Track 2: in his 80s, and you have Stack who just, you know, reaches over and gives Sammy a hug.
• 1:01:09
  Track 2: And Ryan has talked about breaking down in tears because he didn't understand.
• 1:01:15
  Track 2: That was a, you know, an improv moment from Michael B. Jordan to just give him a hug in that moment.
• 1:01:20
  Track 2: And, you know, Ryan was like, oh, I never got to say goodbye to my great uncle.
• 1:01:25
  Track 2: And this is doing that. so to
• 1:01:28
  Track 2: me this is just like the best of what art
• 1:01:31
  Track 2: can do it can bring people back to you it can you know help them live on forever
• 1:01:38
  Track 2: and which is that's the blues it it brings people back to you it helps them
• 1:01:42
  Track 2: live on um and it helps you get through another day and chart a path forward
• 1:01:48
  Track 2: so it's uh very powerful and.
• 1:01:50
  Track 1: It reminds me just we didn't mention it but just as i think as like another
• 1:01:53
  Track 1: moment of both improv and like a very beautiful moment is when Delta Slim, played by Delroy Lindo,
• 1:01:59
  Track 1: an incredible performance, is then they're in the car and he has that little
• 1:02:03
  Track 1: moment where he starts to tap the side of the car and wasn't originally in the
• 1:02:06
  Track 1: script and he sort of had to beg, you know, him to keep it in, which they did, and it,
• 1:02:11
  Track 1: it's it's such a beautiful moment and like that's a moment where that that whole
• 1:02:15
  Track 1: scene and the story that he tells of his friend getting you know lynched um
• 1:02:19
  Track 1: just trying to get out with some money and it's yeah it's um it's all all those
• 1:02:25
  Track 1: like little tiny stories are all these are just i think what adds to that like richness too it's.
• 1:02:30
  Track 2: When you have a team that you trust like with the actors that he selected to
• 1:02:35
  Track 2: to do this and you have somebody that like delroy linda who's literally putting
• 1:02:40
  Track 2: into the smallest 30 seconds,
• 1:02:45
  Track 2: just showing you how blues is created.
• 1:02:48
  Track 2: It came straight out of the cotton fields. It came straight out of Black trauma.
• 1:02:52
  Track 2: And you put it into that holler, that wail that he's having as he's remembering
• 1:02:57
  Track 2: his friend being lynched and castrated in this horrific way for absolutely no
• 1:03:05
  Track 2: reason other than anti-Black racism.
• 1:03:07
  Track 2: And he's wailing about that. And he turns that into a song.
• 1:03:10
  Track 2: You can't co-opt that. I mean, you can imitate it. You can, you know,
• 1:03:15
  Track 2: do your impression. But this is what it like.
• 1:03:18
  Track 2: This is what it comes from. So that's really brilliant, too.
• 1:03:21
  Track 2: And then I just saw today, the editor of the film was talking about how at the
• 1:03:28
  Track 2: beginning of the film, this wasn't the original beginning, you know,
• 1:03:32
  Track 2: wasn't supposed to be a bunch of jump scares between, you know, the pastor.
• 1:03:36
  Track 2: Sammy's father doing his hand movements and Remick doing, you know,
• 1:03:40
  Track 2: a flashback, PTSD flashbacks.
• 1:03:42
  Track 2: And then we get all these jump scares of this vampire and like what's going on and all that.
• 1:03:46
  Track 2: And so that came about because, you know, the editor saw the similarities between
• 1:03:52
  Track 2: the hand movements that the pastor is making and the hand movements that Remick was making.
• 1:03:57
  Track 2: It's telling the same story that both of these, you know, white.
• 1:04:02
  Track 2: And violent institutions are trying to co-op Sammy and tell him what to do with
• 1:04:07
  Track 2: his gift and own that gift.
• 1:04:09
  Track 2: And so the editors making this connection is also adding to the horror because
• 1:04:14
  Track 2: you're getting those jump scares really early.
• 1:04:16
  Track 2: But also just being able to see that whole through line. You have a team like that.
• 1:04:20
  Track 1: That's crazy.
• 1:04:21
  Track 2: You really can't lose. You really can't lose. So, yeah, everybody's bringing
• 1:04:24
  Track 2: their A game and just get a work of art.
• 1:04:27
  Track 1: Yeah, from from top to bottom, the cast to the direction to the score,
• 1:04:31
  Track 1: the cinematography, you know, it's just it's, you know, it's really it's it's
• 1:04:38
  Track 1: the first one I think I've seen multiple times in the theater and I can't remember how long.
• 1:04:42
  Track 1: And just because you're like, oh, well, I want to see another film or,
• 1:04:45
  Track 1: you know, you just you're not going to go, whatever it is.
• 1:04:47
  Track 1: So all of those all of those things. So if you got to this point in the podcast
• 1:04:52
  Track 1: and you hadn't seen it already, or you only seen it once, you, you know, it's coming.
• 1:04:57
  Track 1: You should go see it again. Or, you know, a couple more times,
• 1:05:00
  Track 1: bring a friend, you know, actually I'll tell the story.
• 1:05:03
  Track 1: I might cut this out, but I was at, I was out, um, on the yesterday or no, on Sunday.
• 1:05:09
  Track 1: And I overheard a conversation of three sort of like 40 year old white men trying
• 1:05:13
  Track 1: to convince one of them to go see Sinners.
• 1:05:16
  Track 1: And he's like, no, it's not a sci-fi movie. and then
• 1:05:19
  Track 1: they're like asking like oh what's a sci-fi movie and he says oh it has
• 1:05:22
  Track 1: to have like flying cars or aliens and like but it has vampires and
• 1:05:25
  Track 1: he's like well i don't think i want to see it and he's listing off the entire
• 1:05:29
  Track 1: all the films that kugler had directed he's like well maybe i'll go see it with
• 1:05:34
  Track 1: you and i i don't know for some reason i just found it sort of a i don't know
• 1:05:38
  Track 1: what it was about that happening that i just thought like go see it like what's
• 1:05:42
  Track 1: what's the what's the problem.
• 1:05:44
  Track 2: I will say I was in a conversation against my will with an Israeli and then
• 1:05:53
  Track 2: Australian white woman, a friend of mine at the time.
• 1:05:58
  Track 2: And they were talking about, you know, going to see sinners.
• 1:06:01
  Track 2: And, you know, they know they knew I had seen it a bunch of times and I'd written
• 1:06:04
  Track 2: about it and we were all talking about it.
• 1:06:06
  Track 2: And the Israeli woman is like, you know, I just can't understand how you could
• 1:06:12
  Track 2: just oppress people just based on their skin color. And I was just like,
• 1:06:17
  Track 2: she's trolling me. She has to be trolling me.
• 1:06:20
  Track 2: And so eventually she did pull me into a conversation, which,
• 1:06:24
  Track 2: again, I'm at a private club out here in L.A.
• 1:06:28
  Track 2: All these white people are around. I'm not, you know, even wanting to be in
• 1:06:33
  Track 2: a conversation like this. But, you know, if you say something untrue around
• 1:06:37
  Track 2: me, I just got to speak up.
• 1:06:39
  Track 2: So she's talking about how people say that Israel is an apartheid nation and
• 1:06:44
  Track 2: she just knows that's not true.
• 1:06:45
  Track 2: And I was like, well, actually, and I've been there and this is what I saw.
• 1:06:49
  Track 2: And so, of course, she gets really upset.
• 1:06:51
  Track 2: And she knows that I had a Palestinian tour guide who was an Israeli citizen,
• 1:06:56
  Track 2: but Palestinian person.
• 1:06:57
  Track 2: Ethnicity and nationality, and, you know, was able to take us back and forth
• 1:07:03
  Track 2: across through the border walls there into the West Bank.
• 1:07:06
  Track 2: I'm telling her everything that I saw. She's getting very, very, very upset.
• 1:07:10
  Track 2: And she's saying, like, you know, well, you only heard one side of them story.
• 1:07:15
  Track 2: You didn't even hear the other side. I feel like I hear the other side of the story all the time.
• 1:07:18
  Track 2: But please, when you go see Sinners, don't walk out of that movie saying you
• 1:07:21
  Track 2: didn't get to hear the perspective of the Klan.
• 1:07:24
  Track 2: Somebody's going to be mad. So just, you know.
• 1:07:27
  Track 1: Yeah, well, Well, it's, well, that's, that's all, I mean, I,
• 1:07:30
  Track 1: I, I have to almost, I can't, having that conversation just makes me like,
• 1:07:34
  Track 1: I can feel like my blood pressure rising of having to be in that situation would
• 1:07:38
  Track 1: be, uh, it was very unpleasant.
• 1:07:40
  Track 1: But I think about it too, like this person who is like having their friends
• 1:07:44
  Track 1: tell them to see it, like I almost, in a way, I almost want to be like,
• 1:07:47
  Track 1: maybe you shouldn't see it.
• 1:07:47
  Track 1: Like, I don't think you're actually going to probably enjoy it if your mindset
• 1:07:51
  Track 1: going into it is probably steeped in like, oh, it's a black director.
• 1:07:55
  Track 1: It's about, you know, black people and it's a black movie, so I'm not going to see it.
• 1:07:58
  Track 1: I think that that's probably and and i
• 1:08:01
  Track 1: what's interesting is this is maybe the last thing to
• 1:08:04
  Track 1: ask this is sort of like the i don't
• 1:08:07
  Track 1: like the discourse around this movie and like some of the articles that
• 1:08:10
  Track 1: were written kind of trying to downplay the success of the film and do you think
• 1:08:14
  Track 1: that the like the success of the movie was like in spite of people not wanting
• 1:08:19
  Track 1: to see it because of for like perhaps racial reasons that this is like a you
• 1:08:23
  Track 1: know i'm quotes black movie and so people didn't want to see it because of that,
• 1:08:28
  Track 1: and yet it still succeeded beyond?
• 1:08:30
  Track 2: I think we have statistically, you know, proven that Black art travels, you know.
• 1:08:40
  Track 2: People want, you know, I was just in Cape Town, South Africa,
• 1:08:44
  Track 2: and literally every Uber that I was in was playing Black music from different
• 1:08:51
  Track 2: genres, from different time periods.
• 1:08:53
  Track 2: I mean, like, We're all over the place Our music, our stories Specifically black
• 1:08:58
  Track 2: American stories And that's largely because of American imperialism Which is its own The.
• 1:09:06
  Track 2: Horrible thing. But a part of that comes with, you know, people having access
• 1:09:13
  Track 2: to a version of a public Black American culture that has been extremely successful.
• 1:09:19
  Track 2: You know, the McKinley Corporation, their consulting firm,
• 1:09:23
  Track 2: they did studies on this that was released last year,
• 1:09:26
  Track 2: that film studios leave $10 billion on the table every single year by not having
• 1:09:36
  Track 2: Black American stories told on their slates.
• 1:09:41
  Track 2: That is just a factual thing. This is not some DEI consulting firm.
• 1:09:49
  Track 2: This is as white bread as you could possibly be conservative policy center that's
• 1:09:56
  Track 2: coming out with this saying, hey, you're leaving a whole lot of money on the table.
• 1:10:00
  Track 2: So it literally is, that's why, you know, in a lot of leftist spaces,
• 1:10:06
  Track 2: when there's this conversation about, you know, it's just, it's class, it's not race.
• 1:10:11
  Track 2: We're intersecting here because it specifically is when you can leave $10 billion
• 1:10:16
  Track 2: on the table, because you would rather not make $10 billion than to have Black
• 1:10:22
  Track 2: people telling their own stories.
• 1:10:24
  Track 2: You know, that is a very intentional thing.
• 1:10:27
  Track 2: Yeah, you can look at what was written about Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a
• 1:10:32
  Track 2: Time in Hollywood in 2019, which had the same exact budget as Ryan Coogler's
• 1:10:37
  Track 2: movie Sinners in 2024 had when they were going into production.
• 1:10:43
  Track 2: And Ryan's movie did better. It did substantially better in its first weekend.
• 1:10:49
  Track 2: It won number one, whereas Quentin Tarantino's movie came in second place to
• 1:10:55
  Track 2: like some animated movie that I can't even think of right now.
• 1:10:58
  Track 2: But I mean, I'm just like the cultural impact, everything.
• 1:11:01
  Track 2: It was just, it's been a chasm of difference. And it has not,
• 1:11:06
  Track 2: they still wanted to downplay that success.
• 1:11:09
  Track 2: And I think, yeah, it's absolutely,
• 1:11:12
  Track 2: specifically anti-Black racism is the reason for that, because they were very
• 1:11:18
  Track 2: afraid of what his deal would mean, even though his deal is the exact same deal
• 1:11:22
  Track 2: that Quentin Tarantino had for the exact same budget of a movie,
• 1:11:26
  Track 2: where he would own the rights in a couple decades,
• 1:11:29
  Track 2: where he would have final cut.
• 1:11:32
  Track 2: Where he would have first dollar gross. It's scary when a black man does it, apparently.
• 1:11:37
  Track 1: That's all it is. Yeah, that was the next thing I was going to say.
• 1:11:40
  Track 1: It's not... Quentin Tarantino can do it, but it can't be, you know, someone who's not...
• 1:11:45
  Track 2: It's not going to destroy the system when Quentin Tarantino does it.
• 1:11:48
  Track 2: Oh, he obviously has earned that.
• 1:11:50
  Track 2: Ryan Coogler has more than... I mean, he's got $2 billion in box office.
• 1:11:53
  Track 1: I was going to say, he's probably outgrossed Quentin Tarantino by like...
• 1:11:56
  Track 2: It's not even close. It's not even close.
• 1:12:00
  Track 2: So, you know, I definitely think, too, with the fact that he shot this on both
• 1:12:04
  Track 2: IMAX and on 65 millimeter film, you know, he needs to be in the conversation
• 1:12:08
  Track 2: of auteurs at this point.
• 1:12:11
  Track 1: Um, a hundred percent.
• 1:12:12
  Track 2: You know, you know, cause he's got both, he's got the commercial success,
• 1:12:15
  Track 2: he's got the artistic success and it's scary.
• 1:12:17
  Track 2: It's scary when black people do stuff like this, but you know, so that's all it is.
• 1:12:21
  Track 1: No. And I, I, I, I can't wait to see, I know that the rumors is that he said
• 1:12:25
  Track 1: he wants to make a X files thing,
• 1:12:28
  Track 1: you know, I mean, I'm just excited to see what else he's going to do,
• 1:12:30
  Track 1: whether it'd be also perhaps
• 1:12:32
  Track 1: producing i think you mentioned before like producing other stories other black
• 1:12:35
  Track 1: stories so all these things i hope the hope the success of this is not just
• 1:12:40
  Track 1: isolated and it actually leads to other films other productions other artists
• 1:12:46
  Track 1: get to be recognized other actors so all those things.
• 1:12:50
  Track 2: I hope it's all original. I don't, they're like, oh, he's got to do X-Men now
• 1:12:53
  Track 2: because he was talking about how much X-Men influenced.
• 1:12:56
  Track 2: I don't want to see another Marvel movie. I'm fully honest.
• 1:13:00
  Track 2: I think that if he, I think perhaps if he had had more liberty away from the
• 1:13:06
  Track 2: MCU, Black Panther would have been a different story and Wakanda Forever would
• 1:13:10
  Track 2: have been different stories.
• 1:13:11
  Track 2: I think because of the fact that it fits into this military industrial complex
• 1:13:17
  Track 2: of movies coming out of Marvel and Disney,
• 1:13:20
  Track 2: that he had to do some things that were pretty blatantly not cool,
• 1:13:25
  Track 2: especially for a black man from Oakland.
• 1:13:28
  Track 2: Why is the CIA in Wakanda?
• 1:13:31
  Track 2: Why is that happening?
• 1:13:32
  Track 1: I don't want to say he had to pay his due, but in some ways,
• 1:13:35
  Track 1: I feel like he almost had to prove himself in this MCU universe.
• 1:13:39
  Track 1: And I think now he's shown that I can make an original story from my own personal
• 1:13:44
  Track 1: life from history and turn it into a- And it's his best one. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:13:48
  Track 2: But I think that's a lesson for everybody too. You know, Ryan locked in on his own personal ancestry.
• 1:13:55
  Track 2: There's a lot of people who have made their entire careers cosplaying as other
• 1:14:00
  Track 2: people from completely different cultures and, you know, or telling stories
• 1:14:06
  Track 2: about other people that's not them. And you can do that and that's fine.
• 1:14:09
  Track 2: There's something that unlocks when you
• 1:14:13
  Track 2: get into your ancestor when you get into your ancestral
• 1:14:16
  Track 2: bag when you dig back into your own history and
• 1:14:19
  Track 2: bring something like there's just a it's a different level of of power and connection
• 1:14:25
  Track 2: and community that you are are tapping into and it's just gonna be a thousand
• 1:14:33
  Track 2: times better than anything anything else like but.
• 1:14:37
  Track 1: Yeah but brooke uh really appreciate you coming on and uh talking about,
• 1:14:41
  Track 1: sinners i think i've been uh you know looking forward to this and thank you
• 1:14:46
  Track 1: so much for uh for coming on thanks.
• 1:14:48
  Track 2: For having me.
• 1:14:49
  Track 1: Of course and uh and people and also i haven't read it yet because i'll link
• 1:14:53
  Track 1: to your thing but you had written a bunch about the about andor too which i
• 1:14:57
  Track 1: haven't read yet and i need to read that i.
• 1:14:59
  Track 2: Haven't written so i'm.
• 1:15:00
  Track 1: Doing my.
• 1:15:00
  Track 2: Deep dot yeah it's coming out tonight.
• 1:15:02
  Track 1: So i'm i.
• 1:15:03
  Track 2: Need to to i just wrote a little you know you need to watch this show.
• 1:15:07
  Track 1: So I do a weekly wrap-up kind of thing.
• 1:15:11
  Track 1: I was afraid that it might have already mentioned the three,
• 1:15:14
  Track 1: the last three episodes. I probably won't get to watch them tonight.
• 1:15:16
  Track 2: No, that's what I'm saying. I'm not, no spoilers. I had to sign a waiver from Disney.
• 1:15:22
  Track 2: There's no spoilers here. So that piece will go live tomorrow.
• 1:15:26
  Track 1: Got it. Okay.
• 1:15:26
  Track 2: Ish.
• 1:15:27
  Track 1: Yeah. I'm going to try hard to, I'm going to, because it comes out at 9 p.m.
• 1:15:32
  Track 1: Eastern when the last three episodes, and it will be late to watch all three,
• 1:15:36
  Track 1: but I don't know how I'm going to start the first one and not watch all three.
• 1:15:39
  Track 1: So that's my favorite show on TV. So I have to watch it.
• 1:15:43
  Track 2: It's worth it. You should get screeners. You have a podcast.
• 1:15:47
  Track 1: I get screeners for some films, but I didn't get them for this.
• 1:15:50
  Track 2: I had to ask.
• 1:15:52
  Track 1: Oh, maybe I should.
• 1:15:53
  Track 2: No, I was notified in March, but I hadn't been keeping up with the show.
• 1:15:57
  Track 2: So I just never was like, yes, give me the screeners.
• 1:16:00
  Track 2: And then I got bullied into watching it over the weekend.
• 1:16:03
  Track 2: And so I was like, can you please give me the screeners? And they did.
• 1:16:05
  Track 2: And I just binged it all and Rogue One and everything this past weekend.
• 1:16:09
  Track 1: Yeah, I've already watched the first season a couple times. I did a few episodes on the first season.
• 1:16:15
  Track 1: But yeah, we don't need to get into Andor. That's a whole other...
• 1:16:19
  Track 1: We can spend a whole other hours on that. That's like the best show. But Brooke...
• 1:16:23
  Track 2: It's so good.
• 1:16:23
  Track 1: I know. Anyone should listen to or check out your substack about Sinners and
• 1:16:29
  Track 1: other films and other media and your website.
• 1:16:32
  Track 1: And Brooke, thanks again for being here.
• 1:16:34
  Track 2: Thanks for having me.
• 1:16:35
  Track 1: Of course. And you've been listening to Left of the Projector,
• 1:16:38
  Track 1: and we will catch you next time.