Black Snake Moan
Craig Brewer on Black Snake Moan
"I tell people I’m like the child of
two divorced parents that are very different," said Brewer. "[Co-producer]
John Singleton’s like the 'Yeah, yeah, go, put the chain on it,' and
[co-producer] Stephanie [Allain]’s more of the, 'Now Craig, let’s
think about this' and I kind of dance in between the two. Really I think
especially both of them, I think really feel that we have an opportunity
to create something knew. There really isn’t a category I could put
Hustle and Flow in. Luckily because it’s rap and
because there are African Americans in it, America can say, 'Well, it’s
a urban film,' which I have a problem with that category. With <B>Hustle</B>
I think people could just put it under that category and not think of it
as a comedy or drama or anything. This movie is a little bit more difficult.
People laugh at this movie and also are moved by the movie and they wonder
if I’m somehow being disrespectful because I have funny moments in
it. I’ve been at funerals in the South where the most inappropriate
sh*t would happen and everybody busts up and then it passes and we’re
back into the wake. This is part of it and we’re attracted to the
grotesque and the outrageous, sometimes they’re members of our family
and hard not to love."
The title itself comes from a personal codename between Brewer and his wife.
Brewer began having panic attacks during the preproduction on Hustle
and Flow, so they named it the Black Snake Moan. "If we would
be somewhere and they would begin to hit, then we would mount that towards
each other and we would have certain ways of getting rid of the anxiety
attacks through each other like if we were apart, I would call her and all
she would talk as if nothing bad is happening. 'Here’s what we did
with your son today,' but when we’re together and the anxiety attack
would hit me, she would lay on my back and I would lay on the floor and
she would put her arms underneath my chest and push down and that pressure
would take away some of that anxiety. For a confident person like myself,
it really messed with me that something could drop me to my knees and have
me think that I am about to die."
From the title incident, writing a script was the
only way Brewer could exorcize the Moan. "There was a night where I
needed to tune out a little bit and I went to my room and lit a bunch of
candles and I stated playing Skip James. I am a big Blues fan and Skip James
had this song called 'Hard Time Killing Floor Blues' and 'Washington D.C
Hospital Center Blues.' Those were the two songs I would listened to over
and over again. I had this vision in my head of me going to my granddad’s
house in the country and going through that front door and this chain was
just sitting past me as I was going into the door and it wrapped this big
old radiator. It was right there in front of the door and I remembered that
I could feel an anxiety attack coming on because I just knew that that radiator
would be ripped out of the wall and remembered that I shouldn’t be
writing about this. I shouldn’t be thinking of any of this because
here it comes, the black snake moan is about to hit me again, and the pain
went away and the radiator held. Looking at this radiator and it was yanking,
and yanking, and dust and rust is flying off this thing like it went away
and I began to feel a little better and I think I was in need of my dad.
I just needed to be yanked back, a little bit."
Now Black Snake Moan means a lot more to the film. "The
fear of the unknown. The fear of Blind Lemon Jefferson born in Texas, died
a horrible death in Chicago when after a gig in a snowstorm he got lost
and froze to death, which really is sad considering that’s how he
always thought he was going to go out. It’s also a very wicked old
song, there’s something even about the scratches and pops in the album
and the simplistic guitar and that just sends chills down your spine. The
most powerful thing about the blues that I’ve found is I think it’s
like rap. I think it’s exorcism. Rap artists dance between reality
and fantasy and I think it’s a very important thing to articulate
those things."
Black Snake Moan is out in theatres now.
Stay tuned for updates.
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