Sinners’ Pale Pale Moon: A Movie About Blood Sucking Monsters…and Vampires Too

Ryan Coogler’s new movie Sinners is about a lot…race, religion, class, culture…but most importantly…music. There will be slight spoilers in this review, but nothing more than you would get from the trailer. SO BE WARNED!!!

With that out of the way, let’s take a closer look at the movie and my favourite track Pale Pale Moon. First of all, the movie is set at the time…legend has it…that Robert Johnson went to the crossroads to sell his soul to the devil in order to be great at the blues. I don’t think this was a coincidence as we follow our main character Sam play the blues against his preacher father’s advice at that time. Sam sees his musical talent as a way to be free from his life of indentured servitude in the south. Lucky for Sam the twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) are back in town to open a juke joint and make some quick money…and they need a main act. One wild night ensues and we have a movie. However, the themes and the music get into issues of appropriation within music from the 70s until now.

The head vampire, who is white, wants Sam for his musical prowess and his songs. You see, the catch is that when you are a vampire your memories are shared amongst the community. In a sense your songs and stories are no longer your own and become the property of everyone. It is hard to not see this as the appropriation debate with artists like Elvis, The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin taking blues tracks and not crediting any of the original African-American artists. We still have this with appropriating dances and sampling largely African-American music with no credit.

Coogler is not totally against African-American culture becoming part of the mainstream, but there are plusses and minuses. For example, Pale Pale Moon was originally written by Brittany Howard formally of the Alabama Shakes and performed by Jayme Lawson in the movie. It is an amazing and energetic rootsy blues track about freedom and suffering. The steel guitar and crowd response gives it a real roots vibe. However, it has also been released as a single by Brittany Howard. So, putting it out for the masses then makes the song part of a collective culture. I think what the movie, the blues and Coogler are saying is that becoming part of the greater community is a good thing, but you need to evaluate what you are losing in the process. For the vampires, they have all been assimilated and appropriated to such an extent that the individual is rendered meaningless. Much like original blues music in the 70s, the music that came out of that improved the collective, but at the expense of the artist’s connection to their work and their culture.

The movie itself has some interesting themes about music and its role in culture, society, religion and freedom. All the musical performances in the movie were top notch and both Jayme Lawson and Miles Caton belting out some incredible vocals. Pale Pale Moon showcases the cultural and community importance of music and is an example of why we need to keep these musical traditions alive.

Listen to Pale Pale Moon