When a Scene Becomes a Soul-Stirring Experience: Ryan Coogler’s Bold Vision in Sinners
Sometimes, cinema doesn’t just tell a story — it reaches across generations, stirs something in your bones, and for a moment, makes time stand still. That’s exactly what Ryan Coogler set out to do — and nailed — with one of the most ambitious and emotional sequences in his latest film Sinners.
Let’s rewind for a sec. Picture this: a rural Mississippi juke joint, alive with the gritty, electric energy of a live blues performance. A young musician, Sammie (played by rising star Miles Caton), steps onto the stage. But this isn’t just a performance. It’s a portal. The music swells. The camera dances. And suddenly, you’re no longer in one place, one time — you're everywhere. You're with the ancestors. You're with the future. And you're feeling something that words alone could never fully explain.
🎬 Coogler’s approach to this scene? Not your typical filmmaking formula.
From the start, he referred to it as the “surreal montage.” It was a bold, hypnotic blend of music, movement, color, and rhythm — a visual poem. Think West African drums to old Delta blues to modern hip-hop. No dialogue-heavy exposition. No vampire plot twist. Just pure cinema speaking the language only film can speak — that beautiful mix of sound, sight, and soul.
“I’ve had a few of those moments in life,” Coogler said on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, reflecting on the energy of a live performance. “When you're in that room with others who know the art, who get it, the vibe just takes over. It’s like this storm of euphoria, and for a second, you feel outside of space and time.”
And honestly? That’s the magic of it all.
🎥 But the magic wasn’t just on-screen. Behind the scenes, this moment became the heartbeat of the entire film’s production.
Everyone on Coogler’s team, from producers to tech crew, saw something special in that script. As he shared the draft — first with his producing partners Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian, then with Warner Bros. — the response was pure excitement. But it wasn’t until his long-time musical collaborator Ludwig Göransson got his hands on it that Coogler realized he might’ve created something truly unforgettable.
“Ludwig is a pretty chill guy,” Coogler laughed. “But I’ve never seen him this pumped about anything.” That enthusiasm was contagious — and for good reason.
🎵 Let’s talk about Ludwig Göransson’s contribution for a second — it was next-level.
This wasn’t just about scoring a scene. It was about weaving centuries of Black musical history into one seamless, emotional track. The cue was titled “Magic What We Do” (fitting, right?) and built on the original song “I Lied to You,” co-created with Grammy-winning songwriter Raphael Saadiq. Göransson composed solos for every era — blues, hip-hop, folk — and found connective tissue in Caton’s vocal performance.
Want to geek out for a second? Here's what went into the mix:
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A 1932 Dobro Cyclops slide guitar
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The original drum machine beat that helped birth hip-hop
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And of course, Dolby Atmos surround mixing, so the music literally wraps around the audience like a time-traveling soundstorm
🕺 It took months to plan but only a day to shoot. Wild, right?
Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who also worked with Coogler on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, said the scene practically leapt off the page when she first read it. “You could already see it,” she said. “How textured and layered it would feel.” The production team used an 80-pound IMAX camera on a steadicam rig — yeah, a literal beast of a setup — to pull off the mesmerizing one-shot performance.
And that scene where the juke joint catches fire? Not CGI flames slapped on in post. It was a stitched VFX plate shot of a real burning roof, seamlessly blended to heighten the surreal vibe.
🔥 This wasn’t just filming — it was performance art on a cinematic scale.
“The IMAX format lets your eye scan the image,” Durald Arkapaw explained. “It’s not like traditional film where everything’s framed in one neat box. Your eye moves, just like the music does, just like history does.”
And that’s the thing — the camera doesn’t just capture. It swirls. It floats like smoke. It spins like a record. It pulls you into a visual jam session with the past, present, and future.
🎤 What happened on-set was just as powerful as what audiences will see.
Actress Wunmi Mosaku (Annie in the film) recalled a moment that felt bigger than acting. Between takes, she witnessed a candid exchange between Miles Caton and Papa Toto (a character steeped in ancestral wisdom). “It mirrored exactly what Delta Slim (played by Delroy Lindo) says to Sammie in the movie,” she shared. “It was like the ancestors and the future were having a real conversation, right there on set.”
That kind of authenticity? You can’t script it. It’s spiritual.
🎶 Behind the curtain, everything had to click perfectly.
Göransson emphasized just how massive the collaboration was. “Every department had to work together — choreo, sound, lighting, camera — all to create this one seamless piece,” he said. He even used a rough take video to write the score in real time, syncing the music with every camera move.
“It was all happening live,” he added. “Every musical style came in depending on where the camera pointed. It felt like musical history was hitting you from all directions — and we only had one day to get it right.”
That urgency, that now or never energy? It shows. Big time.
🎞️ So what’s the takeaway here?
The surreal montage in Sinners isn’t just a flex of filmmaking skill. It’s a testament to what movies can do that no other medium can. It speaks through motion and light, through rhythm and silence. It’s about honoring legacy while imagining the future. And for a brief moment, it invites the audience to step into a space beyond space — to feel what it means to be connected to something bigger.
“You’re watching this movie through the most beautiful lens,” Durald Arkapaw said. “And then — boom — you step into IMAX and it’s like you're not watching anymore. You’re inside it. Inside the soul of the character. And the experience just deepens.”
Ryan Coogler didn’t just create a scene. He created a moment. A living, breathing tribute to Black music, to storytelling, and to cinema at its most profound.
And honestly? We don’t just watch moments like that.
We feel them.
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