Ryan Coogler reflected on the major risk he took with his music choices in Sinners. The scene has become one of the most memorable from the film.
Speaking with The Los Angeles Times, Coogler talked about taking risks as a filmmaker.
“I remember every movie that made me say, ‘Yo, what the f**k,’” Coogler said. “And I was feeling like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I’ve given people that feeling enough.’ I haven’t taken enough of those risks when I’m making my movies.”
Coogler’s vision was for the audience to have a visceral reaction to Sinners.
“The risk of the scene is that it could rip the audience out of the movie, but in the wrong way,” Coogler explained. “When we would show the movie, the scene would always get a rise out of people. They reacted to it passionately. And we had to be comfortable with that.”
Coogler shared that a great film must have an unforgettable scene.
“Every movie should have its version of that scene, if it can hold it,” Coogler added. “All the choices we made had to commit to getting to it. We had to say, ‘This is maybe the most important scene in the movie. Everything that came before and everything that comes after has to support that.’ Seeing it come together was one of the most rewarding moments of my career.”
Coogler’s epic music scene features a young Sammie (Miles Caton) performing in a juke joint run by twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan).
Sinners went on to be a major success, breaking box office records for an original film, grossing almost $400 million worldwide. The film received widespread critical acclaim, despite initial concerns about the film’s performance.
“I love this film. You know, I loved it before I wrote it, before we made it. And the people that made it with us all loved it, but we didn’t know how the audiences would respond,” Coogler said about the film. “We didn’t know if they would love it as much as we did, but we hoped they would.”