Little White Lies Issue 107

The late, great Chadwick Boseman’s final scene in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther presented a smirk slowly appearing across the face of the triumphant King T’Challa. He is asked by the members of the United Nations what the nation he leads, Wakanda, could possibly offer the rest of the world. It is a moment where Coogler himself seems to peer out from behind the camera, aware of the richness of talent at his disposal, ready to bask in the glory of a world waiting to see just what he has in store for them. A few years prior to this, on a snowy January day in Utah in 2013, writer/director Ryan Coogler first declared himself a force to be reckoned with. His debut feature, Fruitvale Station, unveiled at the Sundance Film…

Oakland-born director Ryan Coogler is always conscious of his roots. With a filmography in which each work threads the needle between franchise legacy and personal struggle, his characters are usually in some kind of communion between the past, or with a previous generation (or both). One of the most touching moments of 2015’s Creed sees Coogler employ editing to convey the spirit of the main character’s father reaching him for a brief moment. 2018’s Black Panther takes things a step further and features a tangible realm for the protagonist’s deceased ancestors. His new film, Sinners – technically a vampire movie, but one that chafes against simple categorisation – is a sort of communication with his own family, via its Mississippi setting. The director spoke about the film’s origins and how…

One of things that allows Hollywood to remain ahead of the game when it comes to the surfeit of visual media available to audiences now is that they have a monopoly on honest-togoodness movie stars. And it’s double your pleasure in Ryan Coogler’s Prohibition-era set Sinners, as AAA-lister, Michael B Jordan, takes on the dual role of twins Smoke and Stack, returning from a stretch in the big city to the Mississippi homestead where they discover some gnarly business going down. The Jordan/Coogler partnership began in 2013 with the multi-garlanded drama, Fruitvale Station, and has continued via Creed and a deuce of Black Panther movies. And as classic actor/director partnerships go, this one’s up there with the likes of De Niro and Scorsese, Wayne and Ford, and Mifune and Kurosawa.…

Oscar Micheaux Years active: 1919 – 1948 Pioneering and prolific, Micheaux produced and directed more than 45 ‘race’ films – movies with African American casts, aimed at African American audiences, which challenged Hollywood’s negative portrayals of Black people. Micheaux’s Within Our Gates (1920), a silent, searing depiction of racial violence, is the earliest surviving film directed by an African American. Spencer Williams Jr Active: 1928 – 1962 Another pioneer of African American cinema. Williams’ The Blood of Jesus (1941), a modern morality play in which a Baptist woman is tempted by the devil in purgatory, was a commercial hit and, in 1991, was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry. Gordon Parks Active: 1964 – 1987 Enter blaxploitation: Parks’ 1971 crime thriller Shaft was seminal, with its box…

Featuring! MILES CATON RUTH E CARTER JACK O’CONNELL HAILEE STEINFELD WUNMI MOSAKU AUTUMN DURALD ARKAPAW LUDWIG GÖRANSSON HANNAH BEACHLER It comes as no surprise to hear that Sinners is a film that was ripped from the heart. Being able to count himself as one of the most reliable and resourceful directors in the world – and, more than that, a reliable hit-maker to boot – Ryan Coogler delivers an original story that’s steeped in arcane lore, cinematic references points and trenchant personal connections. It tells of two twins, Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B Jordan, who return from Chicago to their homestead of Mississippi, start up a local juke joint and make some money. But forces stronger than that of capitalism make their task much tougher; a vampiric…

Casting the world’s biggest superstars in your movie is one thing, but then plucking the correct person for the correct role out of relative obscurity is also quite the fine art. Miles Caton, a celebrated young gospel-soul singer, was spotted on stage by Ryan Coogler and given his first bite of the apple in the vital role of Sammy in the new film, Sinners. Sammy is an upstart blues minstrel whose guitar is freighted with mystic powers. LWLies: What was your first encounter with Ryan Coogler’s cinema? Caton: Yeah, Black Panther has gotta be number one. I saw that movie when I was 13 years old. That movie was crazy because I love Marvel, so to see his take on the Black Panther and the way they just made that…