10 Fascinating Facts About Black Panther (2018)
7. The Film Was Coogler's Most Personal Yet
Ryan Coogler is one of the most talented young auteurs of his generation. Working as both a writer and director, Coogler's greatest gift is how he is able to make each film he makes feel intricately personal and emotional.
His first film, Fruitvale Station, was about the tragic shooting of Oscar Grant, a young man who lived and died in Coogler's hometown of Oakland. His second film, Creed, took the entirety of the Rocky franchise and viewed it through the lens of an outsider looking in. In doing so, he crafted a film about a man trying to live up to the legacy of a father he never knew and recontextualized the entirety of the franchise. As Coogler himself pointed out on many occasions, he was only able to do so because of he and his own father's very personal relationship with the Rocky films.
So it's no coincidence that Black Panther feels just as personal to him. Whether it be chronicling the tale of men (T'Challa and Erik) trying to do justice by their fathers' legacies or the simple idea of embracing African history and culture. As Coogler put it;
“One of the things that sometimes comes with being [of African descent] is being made to be ashamed of being African and ashamed that your people live in these beautiful huts and ashamed that some of your people are running around with no shoes on and that when the music plays, we dance like no one's watching. But that ... is beautiful and we can be proud of it.”