ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Ryan Coogler's latest blockbuster movie, "Sinners," is set in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Movie critics have acclaimed the film as one of the best of the year, but people who live in Clarksdale can't watch it without leaving town. Joseph King with the Gulf States Newsroom reports that one man is trying to change that.
JOSEPH KING, BYLINE: Tyler Yarbrough is showing me around his hometown, Clarksdale, Mississippi. He is passionate about Clarksdale, and it shows with his work as a director of a nonprofit in the Mississippi Delta.
TYLER YARBROUGH: Our mission is to make sure that every family, no matter of ZIP code, have access to good food. In the Delta, we're working to intertwine community economic development and public health to strengthen our food environment.
KING: But Yarbrough also likes to watch movies and made sure to catch Ryan Coogler's latest hit, "Sinners."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SINNERS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) This gift can bring fame and fortune.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, singing) Will somebody take me...
KING: This musical horror film is set in Clarksdale in the early 1930s. Today, Clarksdale is a small town. Its population is hovering right at 14,000. It's a place where people know each other. It's also known as the birthplace of the blues. There are murals around town of Muddy Waters and Sam Cooke - all musicians from the Delta. Then there's Robert Johnson.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME AND THE DEVIL BLUES")
ROBERT JOHNSON: (Singing) Me and the devil was walking side by side.
KING: He played here in the 1930s. His mural show him playing the guitar in what looks like him with demons clawing at his feet - a nod to the legend that he made a deal with the devil to become famous. Elements of this are in the movie "Sinners," according to its director Ryan Coogler, who spoke with WHYY's Tonya Mosley on Fresh Air.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
RYAN COOGLER: The other piece that the vampire involved is the Faustian deal. I was very interested in that.
TONYA MOSLEY: Like this crossroads, like the devil...
COOGLER: Yes.
MOSLEY: ...The deal the devil...
COOGLER: That's right.
MOSLEY: ...Kind of thing.
COOGLER: Yes. Robert Johnson is who's most associated with that fable.
KING: The movie also ties in Mississippi's history of sharecropping. That's where Yarbrough really connected with it.
YARBROUGH: And there's moments in the film where they're, like, in a truck picking up one of the sharecroppers. And I'm thinking about, wow, like, OK, this is my great-grandmother's life, who's still living, breathing. It's important to be transported to their time and place.
KING: He had to drive 80 miles to see the movie because there are no theaters in Clarksdale. He knew most people in town wouldn't be able to do that. So he penned an open letter to Coogler and the "Sinners" cast with hopes of getting the movie screened in Clarksdale. And now, Warner Bros. is coming, he says.
YARBROUGH: They've agreed to bring down a projector to - like a cinema-grade projector. They've agreed to pretty much building out, like, a screen. I think they're trying to really get people to experience the full theatrical, cinematic experience as it was intended.
KING: And people are excited about the movie coming to town, like Nicole Ross. She's a new mom.
NICOLE ROSS: With the movie - the closest movie theater being about two hours away, I would have to make a whole day out of it and find extended childcare and all of that, and I just don't have the time.
KING: She works with students at Coahoma Community College. This is 1 of 6 possible venues that could host a screening. Ross says it will give people in Clarksdale a reinvigorated sense of pride.
ROSS: So I think the screening here - it would be cool to invite, like, local blues artists to kind of celebrate them and how much they mean to Black culture in America.
KING: The screening is expected to happen in the coming weeks. And Yarbrough wants this to be more than just watching a movie. He wants it to be a recognition of the rich history found in the Mississippi Delta.
For NPR News, I'm Joseph King in Clarksdale.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I LIED TO YOU")
MILES CATON: (Singing) I lied to you. I love the blues. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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