Mississippi town behind the box office hits sinners

Her deep and soul-filled voice echoed across the walls as Edna Nicole Luckett sang the blues on Red’s stage. Juke Union in Clarksdale, Mississippi is the last in the area and is a landmark of past eras in the American Music Age.

She sang, “I grew up in the Delta, sunshine and flat ground, and it lasted for miles.” She sang as she nodded and walked to the beat.

Like many who grew up in the Mississippi Delta, Ms. Luctor listens to locally produced blues music and singing in the church choir. Experiences like her – like the Red – they will get a new moment with the box office success of Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners.

The genre’s film has made over $300 million (£22 million) worldwide, with a budget of $90 million (£67 million) and has attracted attention from the world.

For those who live there – especially those who are still singing the blues – they are welcome, in large part because of Coogler’s careful respect for his own history.

“I protected the representatives of the Mississippi Delta,” Ms. Luctor said.

Clarksdale is where blues legends like Sam Cooke, Johnny Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters start, but its meaning is well known among music lovers.

Like other small towns in the southern United States, Clarksdale faces a struggle. The town has a location of 14,000 people and lost its only cinema in 2003. This means residents can’t even see sinners in their hometown – until now. After a local appeal, Mr. Coogler agreed to bring the film to town for six free shows over the past week.

The allegation was led by Tyler Yarbrough, a native of Clarksdale who wrote an open letter to the director after watching a movie in a nearby town. Sinners, scheduled in 1932, tells the story of the twin brothers played by Michael B Jordan, who returns to Clarksdale after World War I. The film combines elements of musical, horror and period drama, blending the legend of vampire with a meticulous historical study of the era and location of the United States.

Mr Yarbrough wrote: “Under horror and fantasy, your film captures the soul of this place: our history, our struggles, our genius, our joy, our community.”

He told the BBC that he was moved to see the place with careful details.

“It’s time to go back to Clarksdale in our town in the 1930s, so that’s my great-grandmother’s life,” he said. “The history from farm to automatic point joints is fully demonstrated.”

Mr. Coogler, who also produced Black Panther and Creed, said he was his uncle James, a lover of Mississippi who loved Delta Blues, who helped the film.

Although the film was eventually shot in Louisiana, he visited Clarksdale for extensive research.

“I didn’t come here until this script was made,” Mr. Coogler told a crowd of 1,500 on Thursday. “It shocked me – I had to know musicians, I had to know members of the community. It really changed me, just came here for research.”

While some of the remnants of the town depicted in the film are still like many towns in the United States, its storefronts have been cleared and modernized – although it still enjoys a tourist interest in its history.

Some legends such as Clarksdale’s blues legend (Robert Johnson) are colorfully painted on the sides of the building, reminding people of their walking street history.

One of these streets was once the home of Delta Blues Alley Cafe, the Blues Joint owned by Jecorry Miller, burned last month.

Mr. Miller hopes people have a better understanding of the history of life on Clarksdale Street, and the film is a way to master it.

“The movie itself is great for the town – we get nine times the urban population that visits the city every year, and now it’s probably ten or 11 times the visit to Clarksdale,” Miller said. “The people who spend money here are a good thing for us.”

Local residents say attention is more popular because they see themselves and culture in the movie.

Longtime Clarksdale residents appreciated the details during the screening Thursday.

Blues singer Ms. Luckett is listening to it to make sure the characters’ dialect sounds right. She looks at whether the land in the background of the movie is as flat and green as it is in real life.

“That’s it,” she said with a smile.