#jedidiah moore

[pessimisticfanboi]

[axelboneboy]

I’m kinda glad that Remmick attacked the Juke Joint instead of the church because if he did, they probably would’ve given up Sammie. I doubt they’d leap at the opportunity but Jedediah already believes that Sammie’s music is taking him away from god and ‘dancing with the devil’.

If it came down to it his son vs the church, he’d pick the church. I’m saying this as a Christian, I know he would. If remmick just said the right buzzwords and played on their faith enough he would’ve gotten Sammie.

[oneiric-wanderlust]

Sinners BTS • The Church

@brianbartolini

[mhevarujta]

Ι rewatched Sinners at my local cinema and Sammie's first scene is so powerfully filmed and edited. We see Sammie going towards his father's church at the fateful night. And while everything around him is calm, it's a scene out of a horror movie. We get flashes to the fateful night.

As Sammie enters the church and his father tells him to let go of his music, we see flashes of Remmick. Upon my first watch I thought that Sammie was simply too shaken up by whatever happened during that night. But no. Coogler has directed this very carefully.

Sammie has turned to his father for solace, but this is not what he gets. Jedidiah's movements mirror those of Remmick. Both Jedidiah and Remmick are trying to make Sammie part of a 'community'. Remmick's is a literal hive-mind. The vampire WANTED Sammie and his music, but Sammie would not have been free. Jedidiah on the other hand promises a good life, a virtuous life. He's also a good person who has not abused Sammie as he was growing up. And yet Sammie would have to let go of HIS music, which is an integral part of him that makes him who he is. In some ways, religious morality is presented as a means of erasure of individuality no less than the villain of the story.

The scene at the church is shown twice during the movie. The second time, when we see it linearly and without the flashes, it's not as scary. We get the sense of a father who is trying to save his son. But the first time, early in the movie, Coogler wanted to convey to the audience Sammie's own emotions about it. He wanted us to sense his fear and to set the stakes of the story. Because at its core, this is (to an extent, because it's much more than that) a story about a young man seeking freedom and finding it in music. It's about making a leap. It's about choice.

[winter-wise]

I still think one of the most effective scenes in Sinners is right at the beginning.

Sammie, bleeding and filthy and clearly severely traumatised with the instrument he loves smashed in his hand stumbles into a whitewashed church. His father orders his mother not to provide comfort. His father hugs him, but launches into a sermon berating his son for falling into sin and demanding that Sammie give up his music.

He doesn't ask what happened. He doesn't ask for anyone to patch Sammie's cuts. He doesn't ask how Sammie's beloved instrument was broken. He uses Sammie's distress for a sermon. We learn later that he'd wanted Sammie to help with the sermon that day, and it seems that he'll even take holding his son up as a bad example who can come to Christ as a way of helping.

Comfort in the house of god has a price attached.

There was never a version of that story where Sammie stayed. There was never a version where Sammie's father heard the song Sammie wrote for him, so beautiful it could pierce the veil.

[foxglovevibes]

When you realise both of the twins saw their father in Sammie-

When you realise that resemblance was why Smoke immediately pulled his gun on Sammie when he told Smoke that he would have to kill him before he would give up his music, why he emphasised on Sammie not wasting a chance at a normal life, one that he would be able to have because he was the son of a preacher-

When you realise that was the reason why Stack reacted the way he did when he heard Sammie sing for the first time, why he lied to him about where the guitar came from despite being the main person to be so insistent on him performing, why he told Sammie about how Smoke protected him from their father-

WHEN YOU REALISE THAT WAS PART OF WHY SAMMIE'S FATHER WAS SO ADAMANT THAT HE GIVE UP MUSIC, WHY HE EQUATED THE MUSIC THAT CONNECTED THEM TO THEIR ANCESTORS AS INVITING THE DEVIL IN, BECAUSE HE SAW WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS OLDER BROTHER AND WANTED TO KEEP HIS SON FROM ENDING UP LIKE HE DID-

[stressedbeetle]

The jumpscares in the opening scene of sinners are placed so well and are so thought out i love it

The cuts to Remmick happen when Jedidiah (the priest and Sammie's dad) reaches out in similar ways as he did. The jumpscares act as both foreshadowing of what is to come and they show the similarity between Remmick and Jedidiah.

The characters mirror each other because they both present themselves as saviors to Sammie. Because they are both false saviors. They are two sides of the same coin. They both want to lay claim over Sammie's music, his soul. Jedidiah might say he wants Sammie to put the guitar down, but the movie (and the soundtrack song this little light of mine) shows he has no actual problem with the music so long as it is used in favour of his God and christianity.

They both want for Sammie's music to not be his own anymore.

Remmick wants it for himself

Jedidiah wants it for God (and arguable also himself)

[meme-streets]

keep thinking about jedidiah in relation to the rest of the moore family. did the twins' father ever torment him as a kid, too? did he try to protect the twins (stack, mostly) from their father's abuse, or take care of them in the aftermath, in whatever way he knew how? (his reaction to seeing sammie covered in blood amounting to "i told you so" makes me think he wasn't particularly good at it). how much did he even know about it? and does he know smoke killed their father–or does he have a suspicion he can't confirm, and doesn't want to?

does he know that guitar originally belonged to his brother? surely he recognizes it. is he aware that sammie doesn't know who it actually belonged to, and he doesn't want to tell him, or does he think sammie knows and still plays it? does he have no idea what sammie thinks and doesn't even want to think about it? is it part of why he's so unwilling to see sammie become a blues singer, that he can't help but see the ghost of his brother lingering over his son?