Sinners is a great film. One of the better ones I've seen the past few years (off the top of my head, I would obviously put it behind the two Dune films but it is way up there for recent films). I think it is out of theaters now, but the second viewing definitely showed me its visual depth and density.
It is not flawless -- nothing is -- but its energy and messiness is much of its charm. I wish we had more films like this one that bend and blend genre conventions rather than constantly being "safe."
It is so many things...
Love letter to the delta blues and ol' time country music
Faust legend
Great Depression narrative
Rumination on American racism
Revenge fantasy
Serious adult relationship drama(s)
Vampire horror
Great pump-fake ending
It was nice to see a film dealing seriously with Jim Crow racism with characters bearing the terrible brunt of the discrimination but not letting it define them. They roll their eyes at the oppression and go on with their lives with their families, religion, work, falling in and out of love, and suffering loss. It is banal on some level but makes them feel like real people and adults who have been through a lot. Outside Sammie, who has to grow up fast, these are grown men and women, and they act like it and have earned it given life's toils.
What are a few vampires compared to trench warfare and the Chicago mob?
I think Josh Allen wins the "Justin Verlander Lucky Son of a *****" Award this year.
Interesting theory. We all know the legend of the Devil giving Robert Johnson the blues "down by the crossroads" for his soul. Another great musical film set in the Great Depression (Oh Brother Where Art Thou?) is 100% explicit in the character of "Tommy" picked up down by the crossroads. The Devil, for all his faults, is a straight dealer, and now he's come to collect his due from Sammie.
At the same time, one thing I liked about this film was it spent zero time establishing any "lore" about where the vampires came from, how they work, and how these ones might differ from any other pop culture clichés. It just ******* sent it and threw us all into the fire and that's what makes it great.
I agree with the bullets until the final two and your spoiler section.The vampire stuff didn’t work for me at all, specifically because it seemed shoehorned in. The vampires were not interesting in the slightest and the final fight was rushed and fell outside of my suspension of disbelief.
IMO, they either needed to develop the vampires as characters more OR just make this a mob/klan/local heroes return home/Godfather-esque story.
I agree with the bullets until the final two and your spoiler section.The vampire stuff didn’t work for me at all, specifically because it seemed shoehorned in. The vampires were not interesting in the slightest and the final fight was rushed and fell outside of my suspension of disbelief.
IMO, they either needed to develop the vampires as characters more OR just make this a mob/klan/local heroes return home/Godfather-esque story.
I think a version of this film as you described -- more or less the same but drop the supernatural elements and make it "prodigal sons return and end up fighting the Klan and/or mob" -- could work.
I think that version of the film is more "grounded" but misses some of the deeper thematic connections between my bullets. A major theme of the film is music itself is something supernatural we experience as a species. Music moves the human soul in ways no other cultural medium can. There's a reason music and the daily practices of religion, ritual, and life are indistinguishable from one another. Schools have fight songs. Countries have national anthems. We play somebody's favorite songs at their funeral to say goodbye. The film explicitly makes the point conquest took everything from the enslaved Africans and oppressed Irish but their music. The "burning the house down" is a perfect visual metaphor for what music can do to us and the human spirit.
Music makes us dance, believe, weep, connect with one another, etc.
You could have made "Act III" the Chicago mob come south to take its revenge on Smoke and Stack with a big shootout sequence. Heck, have two, they survive only for the Klan to show up.
A more realistic version doesn't have the connective tissue to the other supernatural elements of the film (and they're already there even before the vampires arrive). If the thesis of the film is already, "Music is magic... and its real" then why not lean into it? There's good magic, and there's bad magic. We all know the long association between the delta blues and its offspring rock 'n' roll and the Devil. Robert Johnson sold his soul down by the crossroads. And now the Devil as he does has come to collect his due.
Yeah, the ending was madcap, but I was hooked and along for the ride at that point.
I think a version of this film as you described -- more or less the same but drop the supernatural elements and make it "prodigal sons return and end up fighting the Klan and/or mob" -- could work.
I think that version of the film is more "grounded" but misses some of the deeper thematic connections between my bullets. A major theme of the film is music itself is something supernatural we experience as a species. Music moves the human soul in ways no other cultural medium can. There's a reason music and the daily practices of religion, ritual, and life are indistinguishable from one another. Schools have fight songs. Countries have national anthems. We play somebody's favorite songs at their funeral to say goodbye. The film explicitly makes the point conquest took everything from the enslaved Africans and oppressed Irish but their music. The "burning the house down" is a perfect visual metaphor for what music can do to us and the human spirit.
Music makes us dance, believe, weep, connect with one another, etc.
You could have made "Act III" the Chicago mob come south to take its revenge on Smoke and Stack with a big shootout sequence. Heck, have two, they survive only for the Klan to show up.
A more realistic version doesn't have the connective tissue to the other supernatural elements of the film (and they're already there even before the vampires arrive). If the thesis of the film is already, "Music is magic... and its real" then why not lean into it? There's good magic, and there's bad magic. We all know the long association between the delta blues and its offspring rock 'n' roll and the Devil. Robert Johnson sold his soul down by the crossroads. And now the Devil as he does has come to collect his due.
Yeah, the ending was madcap, but I was hooked and along for the ride at that point.
I’m actually fine and agree with all of this. I don’t think you need the Vampires (and specifically these vampires) to interweave a supernatural element into the story. You could very easily use the mob/Klan as an allegory to the devil. I think Beloved by Toni Morrison (the book not the movie) actually accomplished this “grounded surrealism” quite well.
In all honesty, I think they put vampires after an original version of the script was complete just to increase tickets sales.
