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Sin City (film)

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Sin City
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Written by
  • Frank Miller
  • Robert Rodriguez
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyRobert Rodriguez
Edited byRobert Rodriguez
Music by
Distributed byMiramax Films
Release dates
Running time
124 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$40 million[2]
Box office$158.8 million[2]

Sin City (also known as Frank Miller's Sin City)[3] is a 2005 American neo-noir crime anthology film written, produced, and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name.[4]

Much of the film is based on the first, third and fourth books in Miller's original comic series. The Hard Goodbye is about a man who embarks on a brutal rampage in search of his one-time sweetheart's killer, killing anyone, even the police, that gets in his way of finding and killing her murderer. The Big Fat Kill focuses on an everyman getting caught in a street war between a group of prostitutes and a group of mercenaries, the police and the mob. That Yellow Bastard follows an aging police officer who protects a young woman from a grotesquely disfigured serial killer. The intro and outro of the film are based on the short story "The Customer is Always Right", which is collected in Booze, Broads & Bullets, the sixth book in the comic series.

The film stars an ensemble cast led by Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Benicio del Toro, Brittany Murphy, and Elijah Wood, and featuring Alexis Bledel, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rosario Dawson, Carla Gugino, Rutger Hauer, Jaime King, Michael Madsen, and Nick Stahl, among others.

Sin City opened to wide critical and commercial success, gathering particular recognition for the film's unique color processing, which rendered most of the film in black and white but retained or added coloring for selected objects. The film was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in competition and won the Technical Grand Prize for the film's "visual shaping".[5][6]

Plot

"The Customer Is Always Right (Part I)"

The Salesman steps out of an elevator and walks onto a balcony overlooking Basin City, where The Customer awaits. He comforts her, the two talk and share a kiss, and he shoots her. After she dies, he ponders what she was running from before mentioning that he will cash her check in the morning.

"That Yellow Bastard (Part I)"

On the docks of Sin City, aging police officer John Hartigan tries to stop serial child-killer Roark Junior from raping and killing his fourth victim, eleven-year-old Nancy Callahan. Junior is the son of Senator Roark, who bribes the police to cover up his son's crimes. Hartigan's partner, Bob, tries to convince Hartigan to walk away, but Hartigan knocks him out. Fighting off the pain caused by his bad heart, Hartigan confronts Junior, and shoots off his ear, right hand and genitals. Bob then arrives and shoots Hartigan in the back, revealing himself to be on Senator Roark's payroll. As sirens approach, Nancy comforts Hartigan as he passes out, as he reasons that the death of an old man is a fair trade for a young girl's life.

"The Hard Goodbye"

After a one-night stand, Marv awakens to find that Goldie, the woman he slept with, has been murdered. Realizing he has been set up, he escapes the police that have arrived to arrest him, vowing to avenge her death. Marv interrogates several informants, working his way up to a corrupt priest who reveals that the Roark family was behind the murder. After killing the priest, Marv is attacked by a woman who looks like Goldie. Marv goes to the Roark farm where he is subdued by silent stalker Kevin and imprisoned. Marv awakens to find his parole officer, Lucille, has also been captured after looking into his story, and she tells him that Kevin is a cannibal and that his victims, including Goldie, are prostitutes. Marv and Lucille escape their holding cell, but she is shot by the leader of a squad of corrupt cops. Marv kills the squad, interrogates the leader, and finds out that Cardinal Patrick Henry Roark arranged for Goldie's murder.

Marv goes to Old Town, Sin City's prostitute-run red-light district, to learn more about Goldie, and is captured and tortured by her twin sister, Wendy, whom Marv previously dismissed as a hallucination. He convinces her that he is not the killer and she resolves to help him avenge Goldie. They return to the farm, where Marv attacks and slowly dismembers Kevin, before feeding him to his own pet wolf. He brings Kevin's head to Cardinal Roark, who confesses to his part in the murders, before Marv brutally murders him too and is immediately captured by Roark's guards. Marv is blackmailed into confessing to the murder of Cardinal Roark and the women Kevin killed, and sentenced to be executed. Wendy visits him the night before and pretends to be Goldie as a way of thanking him for avenging her sister and the next day, Marv is executed via electric chair.

"The Big Fat Kill"

Dwight McCarthy is with his waitress girlfriend Shellie, when her drunken ex-boyfriend, Jackie Boy, and his friends show up at her apartment. After Jackie Boy hits Shellie and goes to the bathroom, Dwight ambushes him and threatens to kill him if he doesn't leave Shellie alone. Angry and embarrassed, Jackie leaves Shellie's flat, with Dwight following them to make sure he does not take his anger out on another girl. Dwight follows them into Old Town, where he reunites with his former lover, Gail, and tries to warn her of what may happen. When Jackie Boy threatens a young prostitute, Becky, with a gun, Miho, Old Town's enforcer, single-handedly kills the entire group. As Dwight checks Jackie Boy's corpse, he realizes that he is Detective Lieutenant Jack Rafferty, a hero cop of Basin City Police. If the police learn how he died, their truce with the prostitutes will end and the mob will be free to wage war on Old Town.

Dwight takes the bodies to a tar pit to dispose of them, but is attacked by mercenaries who want to retrieve Jackie's head as proof that he has been murdered. After Miho saves Dwight from drowning in one of the tar pits, the pair kill the remaining mercenaries, retrieve the head, and return to Old Town. However, they find out that Manute, an enforcer for mob boss Wallenquist, has kidnapped Gail to force Old Town to surrender, and that Becky has betrayed them. Dwight offers to trade Jackie Boy’s head for Gail's life, and meets Manute's group in an alley. After handing the head over, Dwight detonates a grenade hidden inside of it, while the prostitutes of Old Town gun down Manute and his gang and injure Becky.

"That Yellow Bastard (Part II)"

As Hartigan recovers in hospital, he learns from Senator Roark that Junior is alive but in a coma, and that Hartigan will be framed for his crimes, although he refuses to confess. Nancy promises to write Hartigan a letter every week while he is in prison, which she does for the next eight years. After the letters abruptly stop arriving and a severed finger is sent instead, Hartigan worries that Nancy has been found, so he confesses to the crimes so that he can be paroled. Bob meets Hartigan at the prison gate and drives him to the city. Hartigan locates Nancy's apartment, which has been ransacked. A pack of matches leads Hartigan to Kadie's Bar, where he finds that Nancy has become an exotic dancer. Hartigan realizes that everything was a set-up for him to reveal Nancy's location, he tries to discreetly leave, but is recognized by Nancy.

As they leave, they are pursued by a disfigured yellow man whom Hartigan is able to wound, causing him to crash. As they retreat to a motel, Nancy confesses her love for Hartigan, who rebuffs her advances, citing their age difference. The yellow man, who is revealed to be Roark Junior, disfigured from surgeries after Hartigan shot him, overpowers Hartigan and takes Nancy to the Roark farm to torture her. Hartigan is left for dead, but manages to escape and tracks them down to the farm where he emasculates Junior with his bare hands and then beats him to death. Knowing that Senator Roark will never stop hunting him for killing his son, he sends Nancy away and commits suicide, once again reasoning that the death of an old man is a fair trade for a young girl's life.

"The Customer Is Always Right (Part II)"

Becky, wounded from the shootout in the alley, is leaving the hospital and talking to her mother on a cell phone. In the elevator, she encounters The Salesman, dressed as a doctor, who offers her a cigarette, and refers to her by name. Realizing The Salesman is preparing to kill her, Becky tells her mother she loves her before hanging up.

Cast

Frank Miller makes a cameo appearance as a priest, while Robert Rodriguez makes a cameo appearance as a member of the SWAT team.

Production

Proof of concept

After his negative personal experience working in Hollywood on RoboCop 2 and 3, Miller was reluctant to release the film rights to his comic books, fearing a similar result. Rodriguez, a long-time fan of the graphic novels, was eager to adapt Sin City for the screen. His plan was to make a fully faithful adaptation, follow the source material closely, and make a "translation, not an adaptation".[7] In hopes of convincing Miller to give the project his blessing, Rodriguez shot a "proof of concept" adaptation of the Sin City story "The Customer Is Always Right" (starring Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton). Rodriguez flew Miller into Austin to be present at this test shooting, and Miller was very happy with the results. This footage was later used as the opening scene for the completed project, and (according to Rodriguez in the DVD extras)[citation needed] to recruit Bruce Willis and others to the project.

Digital backlot

This is one of the first films along with Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Casshern, and Immortel (Ad Vitam) to be shot primarily on a digital backlot. The film employed the Sony HDC-950 high-definition digital camera, having the actors work in front of a green screen, that allowed for the artificial backgrounds (as well as some major foreground elements, such as cars) to be added later during the post-production stage. Three sets were constructed by hand:

  • Kadie's Bar, where all of the major characters make an appearance at least once and also the only location in which all objects are in color.
  • Shellie's apartment. The front door and kitchen are real, while bathroom and corridors are artificial.
  • The hospital corridor in the epilogue. Although the first shot of walking feet was done on green screen, the corridor in the next shot is real. The background becomes artificial again when the interior of the elevator is shown.
Becky (Alexis Bledel) walking down a street. An example of the film's neo-noir atmosphere.

While the use of a green screen is standard for special effects filming, the use of high-definition digital cameras is quite noteworthy in this film's production. The combination of these two techniques made Sin City at the time (along with Sky Captain, which was produced the same way) one of the few fully digital, live-action films (since then, digital has grown in popularity). This technique also means that the whole film was initially shot in full color, and was converted to black-and-white.

Colorization is used on certain subjects in a scene, such as Devon Aoki's red-and-blue clothing; Alexis Bledel's blue eyes and red blood; Michael Clarke Duncan's golden eye; Rutger Hauer's green eyes; Jaime King's red dress and blonde hair; Clive Owen's red Converse shoes and Cadillac; Mickey Rourke's red blood and orange prescription pill container; Marley Shelton's green eyes, red dress, and red lips; Nick Stahl's yellow face and body; and Elijah Wood's white glasses. Much of the blood in the film also has a striking glow to it. The film was color-corrected digitally and, as in film noir tradition, treated for heightened contrast so as to more clearly separate blacks and whites. This was done not only to give a more film-noir look, but also to make it appear more like the original comic. This technique was used again on another Frank Miller adaptation, 300, which was shot on film.

Filming

See also: Shot-for-shot

Principal photography began on March 29, 2004. Several of the scenes were shot before every actor had signed on; as a result, several stand-ins were used before the actual actors were digitally added into the film during post-production.[7] Rodriguez, an aficionado of cinematic technology, has used similar techniques in the past. In Roger Ebert's review of the film, he recalled Rodriguez's speech during production of Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams: "This is the future! You don't wait six hours for a scene to be lighted. You want a light over here, you grab a light and put it over here. You want a nuclear submarine, you make one out of thin air and put your characters into it."[8]

The film was noted throughout production for Rodriguez's plan to stay faithful to the source material, unlike most other comic book adaptations. Rodriguez stated that he considered the film to be "less of an adaptation than a translation".[7] As a result, there is no screenwriting in the credits; simply "Based on the graphic novels by Frank Miller". There were several minor changes, such as dialogue trimming, new colorized objects, removal of some nudity, slightly edited violence, and minor deleted scenes. These scenes were later added in the release of the Sin City Collectors DVD, which also split the books into the four separate stories.[9]

Music

Main article: Sin City (soundtrack)

The soundtrack was composed by Rodriguez as well as John Debney and Graeme Revell. The film's three main stories were each scored by an individual composer: Revell scored "The Hard Goodbye", Debney scored "The Big Fat Kill", and Rodriguez scored "That Yellow Bastard". Additionally, Rodriguez co-scored with the other two composers on several tracks.

Another notable piece of music used was the instrumental version of the song "Cells" by the London-based alternative group The Servant. The song was heavily featured in the film's publicity, including the promotional trailers and television spots, as well as being featured on the film's DVD menus.

"Sensemayá" by Silvestre Revueltas is also used on the end sequence of "That Yellow Bastard". Fluke's track "Absurd" is also used when Hartigan first enters Kadie's.

Credits

Three directors received credit for Sin City: Miller, Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino, the last for directing the drive to the pits scene in which Dwight talks with a dead Jack Rafferty (Benicio del Toro). Miller and Rodriguez worked as a team directing the rest of the film. Despite having no previous directorial background, Miller was substantially involved in the film's direction, providing direction to the actors on their motivations and what they needed to bring to each scene. Because of this (and the fact that Miller's original books were used as storyboards), Rodriguez felt that they should both be credited as directors on the film.[citation needed]

When the Directors Guild of America refused to allow two directors that were not an established team to be credited (especially since Miller had never directed before), Rodriguez first planned to give Miller full credit. Miller would not accept this. Rodriguez, also refusing to take full credit, decided to resign from the Guild so that the joint credit could remain.[10]

Release

Critical reception

The film opened on April 1, 2005 to generally positive reviews. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 78% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 242 reviews with a "Certified Fresh" rating, with an average score of 7.4/10. The site's consensus states: "Visually groundbreaking and terrifically violent, Sin City brings the dark world of Frank Miller's graphic novel to vivid life."[11] On Metacritic the film has a score of 74 (citing "generally favorable reviews") based on 40 reviews.[12]

Roger Ebert awarded the film four out of four stars, describing it as "a visualization of the pulp noir imagination, uncompromising and extreme. Yes, and brilliant."[8] Online critical reaction was particularly strong: James Berardinelli placed the film on his list of the "Top Ten" films of 2005.[13] Several critics including Ebert compared the film favorably to other comic book adaptations, particularly Batman[14] and Hulk.[15] Chauncey Mabe of the Sun-Sentinel wrote: "Really, there will be no reason for anyone to make a comic-book film ever again. Miller and Rodriguez have pushed the form as far as it can possibly go."[16]

Several reviews focused predominately on the film's more graphic content, criticizing it for a lack of "humanity". William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer described it as a celebration of "helpless people being tortured ... I kept thinking of those clean-cut young American guards at Abu Ghraib. That is exactly the mentality Rodriguez is celebrating here. Sin City is their movie."[17] Other critics focused on especially negative elements: "scenes depicting castration, murder, torture, decapitation, rape, and misogyny."[18]

The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis claimed that the directors' "commitment to absolute unreality and the absence of the human factor" made it "hard to get pulled into the story on any level other than the visceral". Credit is given for Rodriguez's "scrupulous care and obvious love for its genre influences" but Dargis notes "it's a shame the movie is kind of a bore" where the private experience of reading a graphic novel does not translate, stating that "the problem is, this is his private experience, not ours".[19]

In a more lighthearted piece focusing on the progression of films and the origins of Sin City, fellow Times critic A. O. Scott, identifying Who Framed Roger Rabbit as its chief cinematic predecessor, argued that "Something is missing – something human. Don't let the movies fool you: Roger Rabbit was guilty," with regard to the increasing use of digitisation within films to replace the human elements. He applauds the fact Rodriguez "has rendered a gorgeous world of silvery shadows that updates the expressionist cinematography of postwar noir" but bemoans that several elements of "old film noirs has been digitally broomed away", resulting instead in a film that "offers sensation without feeling, death without grief, sin without guilt, and, ultimately, novelty without surprise".[20]

Box office

Sin City grossed $29.1 million on its opening weekend, defeating fellow opener Beauty Shop by more than twice its opening take. The film saw a sharp decline in its second weekend, dropping over fifty percent. Ultimately, the film ended its North American run with a gross of $74.1 million against its $40 million negative cost. Overseas, the film grossed $84.6 million, for a worldwide total from theater receipts of $158.7 million.[2]

Accolades

Mickey Rourke won a Saturn Award, an Online Film Critics Society Award, a Chicago Film Critics Association Award, and an Irish Film & Television Award for his performance. The film was in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, and Rodriguez won the Technical Grand Prize for the film's visual shaping.[5] Graeme Revell's work in the film was honored with a Best Film Music Award at the BMI Film & TV Awards.[21]

Sin City was nominated at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards in three categories: Best Movie, Best Kiss for Clive Owen and Rosario Dawson, and Sexiest Performance for Jessica Alba, winning the latter.[22] The film also received three nominations at the 2005 Teen Choice Awards:[23] Choice Movie: Action, Choice Movie Actress: Action/Thriller for Jessica Alba and Choice Movie: Villain for Elijah Wood.

Home media

The Region 1 DVD was released on August 16, 2005. The single-disc edition was released with four different slipcovers to choose from and featured a "behind-the-scenes" documentary. Then, on December 13, 2005, the special edition DVD was released, known as the "recut, unrated, extended" edition. On October 21, 2008, a Blu-ray edition, which is region free, was released by Alliance in Canada. On January 29, 2009 a United States Blu-ray release was confirmed for April 23, 2009. It is a 2-disc edition featuring both the film's "theatrical" and "recut, unrated, extended" versions.

The special edition was a two-disc set, featuring both the 124-minute theatrical release, along with the 142-minute "recut, unrated, extended" edition (this edition restored edited and deleted scenes that were missing from the theatrical edition). Bonus material included an audio commentary with director Rodriguez and Miller, a commentary with Rodriguez and Tarantino, and a third commentary featuring the recorded audience reaction at the Austin, Texas Premiere. Also included were various "behind-the-scenes" documentaries and features, as well as a pocket-sized version of the graphic novel The Hard Goodbye. Shortly after, the same DVD/book package was released in a limited edition giftbox with a set of Sin City playing cards and a small stack of Sin City poker chips not available anywhere else.

The initial Region 2 release only features a 7-minute featurette on the film. HMV stores had limited quantities of the four slipcases. Amazon.co.uk released another limited edition which housed the film, and the three books it is based on, in a hard case. In October 2007, the "recut, unrated, extended" edition was finally released in the United Kingdom. Although it does not feature the reproduction of "The Hard Goodbye" book, it does come in Steelbook packaging. This version of the film was initially exclusive to HMV stores, but is now available at most retailers in the United Kingdom.

Sequel

Main article: Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

A sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,[24] was released on August 22, 2014. Production for the sequel began in October 2012 with Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller directing a script co-written by them and William Monahan.[25] The film was based mainly on A Dame to Kill For, the second book in the Sin City series by Miller, and also included the short story "Just Another Saturday Night" from the Booze, Broads, & Bullets collection, as well as two original stories written by Miller for the film, titled "The Long Bad Night" and "Nancy's Last Dance". Actors Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson and Jessica Alba all reprised their roles in the sequel, amongst others. The sequel was not as critically or financially successful as the first film.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Mandell, Andrea (May 5, 2014). "GTY premiere of "Sin City" - Arrivals". USA Today. Retrieved July 18, 2014.
  2. ^ a b c "Sin City (2005)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved September 2, 2012.
  3. ^ McDonagh, Maitland. "Frank Miller's 'Sin City'". TV Guide. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  4. ^ J.C. Maçek III (August 2, 2012). "'American Pop'... Matters: Ron Thompson, the Illustrated Man Unsung". PopMatters.com.
  5. ^ a b "Festival de Cannes: Sin City". Festival-Cannes.com. Retrieved December 6, 2009.
  6. ^ "Cannes Film Festival (2005)". IMDb. Amazon.com. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  7. ^ a b c "'Sin City' – Trivia". IMDb. Amazon.com. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  8. ^ a b Ebert, Roger (March 31, 2005). "'Sin City' Review". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  9. ^ Miller III, Randy. "Frank Miller's Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated". DVDTalk.com. Retrieved September 23, 2012.
  10. ^ "Rodriguez Quits DGA". ContactMusic.com. Retrieved November 28, 2011.
  11. ^ "Sin City". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 19, 2013.
  12. ^ "Sin City Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved September 19, 2013.
  13. ^ Berardinelli, James. "Review: Sin City". ReelViews.net.
  14. ^ Ebert, Roger. "'Batman' Review". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  15. ^ "'Hulk' Review". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  16. ^ "'Sin City' Review". Film-Finder.com. Archived August 2, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ Arnold, William (April 1, 2005). "Comic-book world of 'Sin City' gleefully revels in a disturbing gorefest". SeattlePI.com. Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  18. ^ "Teen's nose bitten off in row over 'Sin City'". The Sydney Morning Herald. July 18, 2005. Retrieved July 4, 2010.
  19. ^ Dargis, Manohla (April 1, 2005). "A Savage and Sexy City of Pulp Fiction Regulars". NYTimes.com. Retrieved September 2, 2012.
  20. ^ Scott, A. O. (April 24, 2005). "The Unreal Road From Toontown to 'Sin City'". NYTimes.com. Retrieved September 2, 2012.
  21. ^ "BMI Honors Composers of Top Movies, TV Shows and Cable Programs at 2005 Film/TV Awards". BMI.com. May 18, 2005. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
  22. ^ "2006 MTV Movie Awards". MTV. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
  23. ^ "FOX Announces Nominees for "The 2005 Teen Choice Awards"". The FutonCritic.com. June 1, 2005. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
  24. ^ Brew, Simon (April 13, 2012). "Sin City 2 has a title and a start date". Den of Geek. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
  25. ^ "'Sin City 2' Adds Jaime King and Jamie Chung". Hollywood Reporter. November 17, 2011. Retrieved November 1, 2012.
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