Is Sinners a Musical? Yes, And

What makes a movie a musical?

Is it the presence of specific songs driving forward a film’s narrative? Actors singing and dancing, in character, for extended stretches of time? When does a film cross the border line from a film with music, to a true-blue musical?

This debate has come to the forefront this Oscar season, with Ryan Coogler’s masterwork (and 16-times nominated) Sinners at the center of the discourse. Visit your favorite social media site, and it won’t take long for you to find film buffs and theatre lovers bickering back and forth, claiming the smash hit film for their own. Depending on who you ask, Sinners is a breath of fresh air in the vampiric horror space, a delightfully modern gangster flick, a deeply rooted period drama, a visceral coming of age film, or a deftly maneuvered modern musical.

They’re all right.

Sinners is all five genres and more, defying the simplified labels audiences (and marketing teams) tend to cling to when categorizing art. It is a porous film, shifting shape across its narrative as one night of revelry spins wildly out of every character's control. Of the five genres Sinners occupies, much has been written by film pundits of the first four, weaving threads of analysis together while sidestepping the term “musical” whenever possible.

Why? Like most things in American culture these days, you can blame the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In the first half of the 20th century, movie musicals were a massive piece of the film studio pie. Screen stars like Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, and Bing Crosby held massive cultural cache, becoming immortal screen icons for their hard-earned singing-and-dancing talents. Lavishly extravagant and emotionally drenched movie musicals were the spectacle du jour for Hollywood, with studios clamoring for adaptation rights to just about every Broadway hit.

By the end of the 1960s, however, audience tastes had begun to sour on such excess. In the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, younger demographics rejected the theatricality favored by their elders in favor of gritty realism in their entertainment, leading to a seismic shift in the types of films that were produced across the industry. While the 1968 film adaptation of Oliver! won the Academy Award for Best Picture, many film scholars point to 1969’s Hello, Dolly! as the turning point that killed the traditional movie musical in the eyes of film executives and critics alike. The film, starring movie musical maven Barbra Streisand, brought 20th Century Fox to its knees financially as the studio system crumbled across Hollywood. Rather than adapting their approach, many power brokers opted to abandon producing movie musicals altogether.

This was, of course, not absolute. The 1970s contain some of the most inventive entries in the genre's history, with director-choreographer Bob Fosse’s dark approach to Cabaret and All That Jazz regularly cited as two of the best movie musicals of all time. Still, the damage was done in the eyes of the general public: stereotypical ideas of what a movie musical was supposed to be had become entrenched, with many declaring Fosse’s offerings to be exceptions to their "I don't like musicals” rule. In the decades since, movie musicals have been treated as niche offerings, with only the occasional, highly stylized success gaining ground amongst the general population, such as the film adaptations of Chicago and Wicked. For many, musical equals disconnected from reality.

That line of thinking has continued through to today, with many flinching away from labelling Sinners a musical. To some, the label remains exclusively dedicated to song-and-dance films in the style of Rodgers and Hammerstein. While there will always be a place for that type of musical, there is a different type of musical that has grown in popularity over the last 50 years, which Sinners is a part of.

Diegetic musicals.

READ: This Season on Broadway: The Diegetic Songs

Diegesis (the concept of a character knowing they are singing) versus non diegesis (the concept of a character not knowing they are singing) is often the crux of non-theatre fans' perceived dislike of musical theatre. One of the most common complaints against the genre is that it is “unrealistic” for characters to burst into song. Diegetic scenes sidestep that issue entirely, uplifting in-universe performances where the characters are wholly aware that they are performing: consider the Kit Kat Klub performances in Cabaret or The Dreamettes’ concerts in Dreamgirls.

What differentiates diegetic musicals from movies that happen to have music within them is narrative necessity. While diegetic musical characters are conscious that they are singing, their songs are still emotionally and narratively motivated, pushing the plot of the piece forward in a specific way. In movies with music, the narrative would be unaltered if the specifics of a song shifted: for example, Mean Girls (2004 version) would certainly still function as a film if the Plastics had strutted their stuff to a different holiday song than “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Sinners is a stunning diegetic musical. The film, which takes place in the Depression-era Mississippi Delta, blends delta blues, early country-bluegrass, and traditional Irish folk music for a final product that has the potential to be generational game changer, making musicals “culturally cool” in the eyes of the general public in a way that has side-stepped other successful musical films of the 21st century. As Sinners shifts genres throughout its narrative, the film's use of music is likewise chameleonic. Like O Brother, Where Art Thou?, it is clear to this musical theatre historian that Sinners is a full-fledged member of the diegetic movie musical club (for at least part of its run time).

Let’s break it down.

Sinners opens with a voiceover sequence, laying out the central tenet of the film: Across cultures, there are certain individuals who are “born with the gift of making music so true, it can pierce the veil between life and death, conjuring spirits from the past and the future.” These individuals, called Filí in Ireland, Firekeepers among the Choctaw people, and Griots throughout West Africa, hold the power to shape the lives of their people through their music. The central character of Sinners is Sammy, the son of a local preacher who has rejected the power of the Griot in favor of the Christian God. The first music we hear, outside of underscoring, is a choral rendition of “This Little Light of Mine.” Unlike every other song selection within the film, the church youth choir could have been singing pretty much any simple religious song—what matters is that it is dramatically different from the theatrical material that is to follow. 

Immediately after “This Little Light of Mine,” Coogler cuts to Sammy humming an early refrain of what will become “I Lied To You,” his spiritual offering as an unknowing Griot. The song, which allows him to directly address his father in ways he cannot in regular speech, is the inciting core of the film's action. Sammy wants to become a musician, something his preacher father disapproves of. For much of the film's first act, you can watch Sammy develop the song in the background, refining the piece as he is influenced by those he interacts with throughout the day.

Sammy is swept away from the church by his twin cousins Smoke and Stack, two semi-retired gangsters returned home after finding their fortunes in Chicago. The pair have returned home to build a juke joint, a secular space where music, dancing, and drinking could be enjoyed (for a fee). Through the twins, Sammy is introduced to Delta Slim, an elder musician who imparts the painful origins of the blues in a deeply moving sequence, culminating with him improvising melodies as an expression of trauma. Together, the four set up the juke joint alongside other community members, quite literally setting the stage for the second act of the film to play out.

Informed by all he had experienced and learned over the day, Sammy’s performance of “I Lied To You” comes together in what is now widely regarded as one of the greatest moments of movie music in the 21st century so far. The sequence skirts the line between diegesis and non-diegesis, filmed as a series of extended tracking shots that allow viewers to get as close to the real, lived-in moment as possible. As Sammy sings, his power as a Griot is activated, ushering in the spirits of the ancestors as well as the future descendants of everyone in the juke. It’s a moment where space and time compress into a continuum floating above realism, described by Coogler as being borderline hallucinogenic, simultaneously blending the past, present, and future into a shared theatrical experience. The power of that euphoric alignment summons Remmick, a Filí-turned-vampire who has been searching for a conjuring musician to reconnect him to that singularity, which was torn from him by his transformation.

As the sun sets, the film takes a decidedly vampiric turn as Remmick picks off patrons of the juke every time they leave the safety of its confines. Luring his victims through a series of old Irish folk songs—including the oft-covered “Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go?”—it is notable that, unlike Sammy, Remmick is unable to craft new melodies of his own. That ability to create has been sapped from him alongside his humanity, leaving him to rely on the power of the old songs to bring him closer to Sammy’s unrestricted genius.

Remmick’s efforts come to a head in the second largest musical sequence of the film, “The Rocky Road to Dublin.” The supernaturally seductive rallying cry is fraught with tension, every muscle in Remmick’s body locked with effort as he sings and dances toward a catharsis he can no longer experience. Rather than delivering the traditional ending to the Irish slip jig, the Sinners version spins out, decaying into a series of cries that resemble the bawls of a wild animal.

All sense of melodic sense and rhythm is lost as Remmick fails to reach singularity. In its third act, the film sets down the tools of musical theatre to pick up those of supernatural horror, defeating Remmick through supreme violence that threatens to shatter Sammy’s connection to music altogether. Battered, bloodied, and barely alive, Sammy clutches to his broken guitar, fleeing the killing ground of what was the juke. He clings to the truth he found in “I Lied To You,” leaving his father and embarking on a life as a professional bluesman. In other words, he picks up the mantle from Delta Slim and processes his pain into melody.

In its simplest terms, a musical is a story that is told through music. There is no Sinners without the transformative power and narrative of its music. There is also no Sinners without the deeply explored history in its period storytelling, the emotional vulnerability within Sammy’s traumatic coming-of-age, the slick survivalism born from the Twins’ organized crime pasts, or the visceral hunger for life that underpins every good vampire story.

Sinners is now the most nominated film in Oscar history, netting 16 nominations as it shatters the previous record, shared three-ways by 1950's All About Eve, 1997's Titanic, and 2016's La La Land (a more traditional movie musical), which had all received 14 nominations. Only time will tell how many of its 16 nominations it will win, but regardless of its eventual awards season hardware, it should be highly prized as a gleaming example of expanding the boundaries of genre, and the innovation that can happen when barriers are blurred. 

Yes, Sinners is a musical. And.... 

The art of musical theatre can complement other genres outside of its traditionally expected wheelhouse. Traditional movie musicals are still viable, yes, but there is also room to expand the way the genre is perceived. A musical can be so much more than it is stereotyped to be. And this musical theatre historian cannot wait to see what Sinners’ creative courage inspires.