By Dennis Atkins
Buddy Guy didn’t take much convincing to accept a role in the Oscar-winning, Grammy-winning, and BAFTA-winning film Sinners, but he did need to understand why he should participate.
The film’s driving force—writer, producer, and director Ryan Coogler visited Guy, now 89 years old and touring with his new record Ain’t Done With The Blues, at his famous Chicago club, Legends, to make his case. As it turned out, it wasn’t a hard sell. Guy recounted, “Well, he came in there, and I don’t know how to say no to something that has to do with the blues,” in an interview with the Australian roots magazine Rhythms.
He also shared a touching story about how the public reacted to his small but significant appearance in Sinners when he visited his local grocery store.
“I’ve been going to a grocery store for about 35 years, but the checkout girl didn’t know me,” he explained. “But when she saw the movie and I walked up to her with my paper and food, she just started screaming. “I said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ She just pointed at my nose and said, ‘You’re in a movie. You’re in a movie.’ I said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know it was going to make you scream like that.’
“Then she really recognized who I was. Now I have kids coming up to me saying, ‘You’re in the movie.’ So, I said, ‘Well, I guess that might help the blues a little bit.’”
This delightful story highlights why Buddy Guy, the last of the great bluesmen from his era, continues to perform and why being recognized by a checkout girl is a significant moment for him. Guy recalls that as his contemporaries—like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, and Little Walter—were passing away, they urged him to keep the blues alive.
These great artists, on whose shoulders Buddy Guy built his fame, represented not just the music itself but also the cultural heritage of the blues and the memories of when the blues was a vital part of daily life.
Although the blues is not as prevalent today, having transitioned from juke joint to juke joint and street corner to street corner, it remains very
much alive. This was evident in our part of the world in late February, when the packed audience at The Triffid in Brisbane was mesmerized by Mississippi’s own Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.
One significant way the blues is being revitalized is through *Sinners*, a film that has reached the pinnacle of modern popular culture, winning four Oscars, three major British awards, the BAFTAs, and two Grammys.
At the Oscars, it was evident that Sinners had the potential to win even more awards. The competition for Best Picture and Best Director was fierce, and it was narrowly edged out by Paul Thomas Anderson’s modern life allegory, One Battle After Another.
In the history of Hollywood, only one film can be compared to Sinners, and that is Sounder, a 1973 production that explored poverty and hardship in rural Louisiana during the Great Depression. Sounder featured a rural blues soundtrack performed by Taj Mahal, blending spiritual songs with the folk traditions of sharecropping and call-and-response styles. Although Sounder did not win any awards in 1973, it provided an important, often overlooked look at the historical echoes of African American life and the musical influences that accompanied it.
Apart from Sounder, only two other films have deeply examined the history of black music in the United States: the biopic Lady Sings the Blues, centered on Billie Holiday, and an adaptation of the hit play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, inspired by the singer Ma Rainey.
In 1973, Lady Sings the Blues received five nominations but did not win any awards, despite Diana Ross’s performance being a favorite for the Oscar, which ultimately went to Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Similarly, the Ma Rainey film garnered five nominations, winning two for design, makeup, and hairstyling.
Despite this historical context, Sinners has introduced a new generation to blues music in a compelling and powerful way. While watching the film, it’s clear that Coogler is not only a student of cinema but also deeply understands the essence of blues music. The film resonates like a blues song, echoing themes of a segregated South with the lingering pains and animosities from a civil war that had ended nearly 70 years prior.
The backdrop of Sinners is Clarksdale, Mississippi, known as the home of the blues. This old rural town is literally divided by railroad tracks, with a right side (primarily white) and a wrong side (primarily black). Twin brothers, with the distinctly African American names Smoke and Stack, return to Clarksdale from Chicago. Having experienced the relatively liberated lifestyle of the North, they arrive with wallets full of money and dreams of opening a vibrant juke joint for drinking, dancing, eating, gambling, singing, and playing the blues.
The musical heart of the story comes from a young preacher’s son, Sammie (played by Miles Caton, an R&B singer turned actor), who plays the blues guitar with authenticity and passion. Michael B. Jordan carries off the roles of both twins and won the Best Actor Oscar for his powerful performance, making him one of a handful of African American men to achieve this honor. It is also notable that Jordan collaborated with a predominantly black cast, under the direction of African American filmmaker Ryan Coogler.
Additionally, cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw made history as the first woman and the first woman of color to win an Oscar for her work.
During her acceptance speech, Arkapaw encouraged the women in the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles to rise and claim their place, and they all did just that. In the film, the twins purchase an old storage shed from a rotund Southern white man, a Jim Crow boss who is later revealed to be the Exalted Cyclops of the local Ku Klux Klan Klavern. After a series of setup scenes, the movie shifts to a moment where the blues reflect unresolved feelings rooted in hardship, endurance, death, and suffering.
The music and Clarksdale’s black population have yet to experience the closure and release they crave. As the music and primal dancing come alive at the juke joint, the film enters a new dimension. It showcases the blues as a form of survival and heritage, breathing life into future possibilities while loosening the burdens of the past. The dark, menacing theme of white supremacy and the violence directed towards black people emerges when a group of fair-skinned vampires arrives. The remainder of the movie devolves into a chaotic narrative filled with murder and unbridled hatred: salvation promised by the blues materializes years later, when young Sammie has transformed into an old bluesman (played by Buddy Guy) in a Chicago bar.
Sinners may not appeal to everyone—particularly those who aren’t fans of vampire films—but it embodies what Buddy Guy believes keeps him performing as he approaches his 90th birthday: it keeps the blues alive and introduces this wonderful musical genre to young ears, eyes, and hearts.
Sinners was produced by Proximity Media, distributed by Warner Brothers, and is available for purchase and streaming on Apple TV.