Legend has it that blues great Robert Johnson met the devil at a crossroads at midnight and traded his soul for a guitar on which he could play anything he wanted. It seems such crossroads find their ways into every life.

John Sayles’ films often deal with an intersection of two (or more) worlds. It may be a personal transition (as in Passion Fish), a matter of race (an important aspect of Sunshine State and Casa de los Babys), the struggle for power (Men With Gun and Matewan), or the past and the present (Lone Star). His newest film, Honeydripper, looks at the transition between past and future.

Set in rural Alabama in 1950, Honeydripper centers on Pinetop Purvis, who runs a small blues bar called Honeydripper that sits at a crossroads. Pinetop is a piano man. Every night he plays while an old blues woman sings the kind of music that has filled Pinetop’s life. The problem is that almost nobody is there to hear any of it. Instead, they are on the other side of the crossroads at a bar with a blaring jukebox. Pinetop hates to think of the end of his era, but it is getting pretty obvious. As his creditors demand payment, Pinetop announces that he’s going to have Guitar Sam playing there. The only problem is that he has no idea if Guitar Sam will show up. But a young guitar player (with an electric guitar) does show up and gives Pinetop some hope.

This is a transition point. In the past, the guitar was just a side instrument. When it gets plugged in, it ushers in a whole new way of doing music. Here is a key transition between blues and rock & roll. There is a meeting between an old, blind blues player (he looks young, but he’s something of a Johnsonesque ghost) and the young man with the electric guitar. They talk of their guitars. The blues man’s is as old as it can be—given to him by the devil himself; the young man’s is new—he made it himself. The old is passing and the new is being born.

The music is one of the real stars of the film—just as much as any of the actors. There are the blues (represented by Keb’ Mo’ and Dr. Mabel John), gospel (the New Beginnings Ministry choir) and the nascent rock & roll (Gary Clark Jr.) all in an intricate give and take—sometimes combating for prominence, other times blending to make new forms.

Such transitions are often hard. Pinetop really would never let a guitar in the place if he weren’t desperate. The new sound, he knows, will push out the way things have been. There is a comfort in the way things have been. Everybody knows their place. Everybody knows what to expect from life.

Part of the rhythm of change that plays beneath the melody in the film is the prospect for a change in racial relations. As we watch the exploitation of African Americans by the local sheriff, we know that the winds of change are already blowing. One minor character is heard telling about the plans of A. Philip Randolph, an early civil rights leader. The issue of race may not be the main theme, but it is a constant presence.

Another complimentary tune underlying the bigger focus is religion. Comments about lost souls and salvation keep popping up in dialogue. Pinetop’s wife, Delilah, goes each night to a religious revival, struggling with her attachment to her life with Pinetop and a sense that she needs saving. Here, too, Delilah is being called to choose between a past and a future. But in her case, it’s hard to tell what is the past—the old time religion, or the past in her family—and what is the future—some eternal life, or a renewed relationship with Pinetop.

We often struggle with change going on around us. We live in a future-shock world. Everything changes before we even know it’s happening. That cusp between the past and the future is an ever-shrinking now. The past calls to us and is very reassuring, but the future is always forcing itself into our now. Sometimes we want to hold on to that past, but often we need to be ready to enter into the future. One of the final lines in the film is: “Time to make room for whoever’s coming next.” It always is.

Often when I watch a John Sayles film, I come away just a bit underwhelmed. But then I begin to think about so many of the little pieces and slowly the complexity begins to blend into much more than I saw at first. That is certainly the case with Honeydripper. That little bar at the crossroads (you have to go to the crossroads for good blues) is situated perfectly to let us see where we’ve been and the possibilities of where we might go.