Essay about sin city (Franck Miller & Robert Rodriguez)

I am going to talk about Sin city, an action, detective and all in all fantastic film released in 2005, directed by Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino (but only for the sequence in Dwight’s car, in which he talks with the policeman Jackie, while he (Jackie) is dead). Sin city was originally a comic, which was adapted to cinema. It shows a dangerous and a corrupt city. The movie is divided into four or rather in three independent stories: each story corresponds to one of the three main characters, who are, Hartigan (played by Bruce Willis) who is wrongly accused of the rape of a little girl whom he protects, Marv (played by Mickey Rourke) who wants to avenge Goldie, a prostitute who has been mysteriously killed, while she was sleeping with him and Dwight (played by Clive Owen) who protects a battered woman (Shelly) and the “old town” (the prostitutes). We will see Sin City’s originality, and why we can say that this film is completely different from what we have seen in cinema until now. First, we will study the context and the aesthetics (the mise-en-scène, the form), and then, the unusual conception of things (the subject).

As I said in the introduction, Sin city was originally a comic (written and drawn by Frank Miller), which has been transposed – and not adapted – for cinema. Indeed, the film is very faithful to the comic.

[...] For all those reasons and elements, we can say that Sin City is really different from what we have seen in cinema until now. It shows that there is not any place in this society for people who want to dispense justice, do Good” but also for people who are a bit “sensitive”, or at least who have some morals and a little humanity. Indeed, Marv is killed, Hartigan sacrifices himself to protect Nancy and Becky is rejected by the prostitutes, because she gave them away to the Mafia because the Mafia threatens to kill her mother. [...]

[...] In addition, Sin City talks about things which are not often treated or at least brought up in cinema in general. Sin City deals with them in a particular way, under a particular angle, as we have began to see with the police, the Church etc. Moreover, the film follows the prostitutes, tackles child rape and murders, shows a battered woman (Shelly, and we remark that Nancy was also beaten up a year before by her ex boyfriend), and two homosexuals. [...]

[...] Indeed, some films draw their inspiration from comics like Batman or Daredevil which are also originally comics made by Frank Miller but they never transposed the identical world and aesthetics of the comic. Here, there is really a marriage between the seventh art and the ninth art. In the film, we find the same pictures as in the comic. Thus, it gives the film a quality of unusual and sumptuous aesthetics. The film is in black and white, but some touches of color were added (red is used for blood, Marley Shelton’s lipstick and dress (at the beginning), the bed and Dwight’s Cadillac, blue is used for Becky’s eyes prostitute), green is used for Jackie’s car, and yellow is used for Goldie’s hair and the Yellow Bastard) to bring a certain to the film and give some aesthetics dynamic once again original (and to be faithful to the comics of course). [...]