Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541514
wanted to go to Clarksdale. Research scouting is something we've done on every film we've made together. I called one of the local Art Directors, Tim Davis, and we headed to Clarksdale, Mississippi. The drive to Clarksdale from New Orleans is not far, about 3 1/2 hours give or take. We drove past fields and fields of harvested cotton. Fields that stretched back over two miles from the road, wide open, big sky. The dirt was a strawberry blonde, not the southern Mississippi blood orange red dirt that you associate with the South. We pulled over. I jumped out and scooped up a handful of dirt and put it in a bag. The cotton field dirt was different. It was dark brown, almost black, Mississippi black mud where anything can grow. There was water everywhere (but strangely it wasn't humid), standing water in roads, yards, fields, parking lots, even if it was dry, it was wet. Board and batten ruled the older architecture; skeletons of ship lap sharecropper cabins speckled the sides of the roads. And, of course, we went to find famed Po' Monkey's Juke Joint. It's not on any map and there seemed to be different ideas about where it was. After following dirt roads and lots of U-turns, I spotted an older man standing outside his old Chevy truck at one of the dirt roads, and yes, it was said to be the crossroads where Robert Johnson met Papa Legba and became the greatest blues guitarist there ever was. I stopped the car, hopped out and ran over to the old man. I asked him if he knew where Po' Monkeys was located. He took a minute and said, "Follow me." He was in his truck and moving down the road before I got back in the A. INTERIOR JUKE JOINT. MARY SEDUCES STACK. A WALL IS NEVER JUST A WALL. SET, COSTUMES AND LIGHTING COMBINE TO MAKE A MOMENT IN THE FILM. PRODUCTION STILL. B. CLUB JUKE KITCHEN. PRODUCTION STILL. C. CLUB JUKE EXTERIOR SIGN. GRAPHIC BY LOGAN LEDFORD. D. INTERIOR JUKE JOINT. GRACE LIGHTS THE MOLOTOV COCKTAIL THAT STARTS THE BLOOD BATH AND ENDS HER LIFE. PRODUCTION STILL. E. SMOKE AND STACK MEET HOGWOOD AT ABANDONED SAWMILL. PRODUCTION STILL. A B C