About

Sin City is an American neo-noir crime anthology film produced and directed by Frank Miller
and Robert Rodriguez. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name, mostly based on
the first, third, and fourth books. The film was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in
competition and won the Technical Grand Prize for the film's "visual shaping".

Storyline
Very pessimistic in nature, the film is despairing, full of scepticism and outright rejects any
ethical or moral belief system. It questions the very existence of life, truth, morality and religion.
All four stories in Sin City have the common theme of of police corruption and crime.

True morality does not exist within Sin City- each of the main characters brutally kill innocent
victims and other characters, completely recklessly and uncaringly, while searching to find
meaning in their lives. They kill to no avail; two main characters die at their own hand and the
others simply continue living their dark, twisted lives and personal achievements are “keeping
the police out of their ‘business’." Which is understandable considering how corrupt the police
are in Sin City making the audience take the anti police stance as well. The police are often
taking bribes or have dark secrets- for example Hartigan's partner- Bob- took the money to
betray Hartigan protecting Roark Jr and framing Hartigan as a child rapist and serial killer. One
of the leading antagonists, Roark, is a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who uses his
power and influence to spread corruption across the state for his self-serving needs. His
understudy, Kevin, is a cannibalistic serial killer who feeds upon the prostitutes of ‘old town’,
believing he will inherit their souls as he cleanses the evil from the streets .

The combination of pessimistic overtones with the extreme use of shadowing, gothic style, and
high contrast created a very dark and sinister film. Rodriguez was very conscious of this and
therefore the setting became overwhelmed with black to further develop the story. The
construction of a completely fictional environment in Sin City creates a sense of uncanny by
visually moving beyond something that is comprehensible. In doing so, one can portray
environments that are manifested by extreme representations, with impossibly dense and
saturated atmospheres.

Characters
https://youtu.be/1EVCeraKKO8

'Loves stink' is the scene I'll be using to analyse these characters.

Dwight, is the hero, the first time we see Dwight's character he is shown topless, revealing how
he is Shellie's new lover. The two shot with Dwight standing behind Shellie shows the significant
height difference which suggests to us how he is her protector. When talking he stands with a
blank expression upon his face and speaks in a monotone way, this reveals how he is not at all
scared of Jackie or worried about what could potentially happen. In the bathroom when we first
see him he is shown through a reflection, which is a common shot used in thrillers him
appearing and Jackie not noticing also implies a smoothness that his character has, she doesn't
have to be on edge while around him. As he is holding Jackie's head into the toilet he is shown
through a low angle with powerful music playing, this shows the strength that his character
actually has but also paints him in a more intimidating light. He comes off as the stereotypical
hero saving his damsel in distress.
Shellie is the 'love interest' of the film and her character is shown to have many different sides to
her, at the beginning Shellie stands confidently with her hands on her hips and is dressed in
extremely revealing clothes portraying her as an object to the male gaze, the revealing clothes
give connotations of her being a sex object although this on the other hand could be showing
that she is a powerful independent women but that would be contradicted by how next we see
start to get emotional as she begins to talk about how Jackie treats her and talks about how he
is abusive towards her 'no one wants to flirt with the waitress who's face is all purple and
swollen up with bruises', this tells us she isn't so confident as one might think and also gives us
insight into Jackies character. This starts to paint her out to be more of a damsel in distress as
then the next time we see her we see panic shown in her face through a close up and a
shakiness to her voice as Jackie threatens to break the door down, showing the audience she is
scared of him, adding to the negative opinions they already have of him. After Jackie hits
Shellie, she is shown through a high angle to be sat on the floor with blood on her face, this
resembles her vulnerability and weakness again adding to her being a damsel in distress
although we then see Shellie through a higher angle when she stands up to herself to Jackie's
friends, this signifies how they don't faze her and she is not scared of them bringing back
towards that she is a confident women who can look after herself at times.
Jackie Boy is shown in darkness throughout the whole of this scene, he has dark clothing and
black hair which covers his face, this long hair shows a lack of interest about his appearance
which shows him as a stereotypical hero. To begin with his facial expression is mainly covered
by shadows which gives off connotations of mystery and darkness around him, it makes the
audience see him as a threat despite how in fact he is shown to be a coward throughout- he
shows up to Shellie's house with his group of his friends, showing how he doesn't think he can
fight his own battles with an attempt to out number Shellie, he also uses empty threats such as
'smash the door down' something which he never goes through with. He is also never shown in
a low angle which represents power, implying he has a lack of it. When Jackie first encounters
with Dwight they are shown in a two shot where Jackie's face is covered with darkness and
Dwight is shown in the light this connotes the juxtaposition between Dwight's character and
Jackie's- proving how Jackie is bad where as Dwight is good. A close up is also shown of
Jackie's face where the fear is blatant and for the first time he knows he has no control.

https://youtu.be/SltVROfRE4c
'Fair trade' is the scene I will be using to analyse these characters
John Hartigan is shown as an older man 'pushing' sixty, he's a police detective of Basin City and
is portrayed as one of the few good ones shown in this scene where he is stopping child-killer
Roark Junior from raping and killing his fourth known victim, eleven-year-old Nancy Callahan. At
the start of the scene Hartigan is shown getting shot in the arm by Roark Junior, falling onto his
knees but with seeing the girl been taken away her pushes himself back up telling himself 'It's
nothing, barely a flesh wound. On your feet old man' this is him brushing off what one assumes
is a painful injury to save Nancy, this gives connotations to the audience that he is a strong man
and how he prioritises others over himself. He then runs after Roark jr following to the edge of
the dock, instead of shooting first he tries to speak it through with Roak Jr even after being
patronised by the Villian he still only shoots Roak's ear. He tells Nancy to 'cover her eyes' which
shows the audience of his protective nature, not wanting the child to see the the violence that
was about to happen this shows the audience that Hartigan has humanity and is smart enough
to assure Nancy's safety. The wide shot of him standing over Roak Jr gives off connotations of
power. Until he is shot in the back by his partner, multiple times but yet again he stays standing,
although bent over and in pain his mind is still on keeping Nancy safe showing how his
selflessness. The line 'Old man dies, little girl lives. Fair trade.' puts empathises on his good
nature and selflessness showing him to be an honourable hero.

Cinematography/Editing
Use of colour
The movie is mostly black and white with high contrasting, mysteriously dark shadows, often
covering people’s faces, and the whites are blindingly white although the film was shot in colour
and then remastered in black and white to not only portray the classic Noir style but also to refer
back to the art style of it's comic source martial hence why there are instances throughout the
movie when more colorful colors are incorporated. The color blue is seen once in the movie as
the colour of Jackie Boy’s car. Yellow also only shows up once in the form of Roark Jr.’s skin,
towards the end of the movie. There are only a few points in the movie when everything has full
color. The times when things were full color were around the gang of female strippers and in the
bar that’s in their part of town. The most prominent color in the movie, by far, is the colour red.
Red is used to colour everything from a dress, to a bed, and even police lights. Although red is
used for a number of things, it is mainly used to colour blood of the three main characters-
Dwight, Marv and Hartigan. According to colour theory the colour red is the colour of passion
and drama, the colour red is also known to make the audience more alert, as the film surrounds
themes of sinning I think it's fitting that they used this colour the most as red gives off
connotations of both wrath, lust and corruption. Colour is used as an indication of violence to
come, the women in the red dress who is killed, the prostitute with her yellow hair and red bed
whose death results in the brutal beating of many, the yellow monster who prays on young girls
raping and killing them. Colour is also used to indicate forth-coming bloodshed. The red, blue
and green flashing lights on the drive to the tar pit just before a brutal fight, the greens eyes of
the priest who eats the flesh of prostitutes, the blue eyes of the prostitute that double cross her
peers and gives them over the gang, and lastly the yellow eye of the gangster whose entire
gang is slaughtered. In this dark movie violence is foreshadowed by color, and color is also
used to amply the effects of violence. Blood is highly stylized being either depicted as red, black
and or white. Blood is red on those characters that are enraged and that have the potential to
fight, while it is either white or black on those who are not fighters.
Sound
Almost every sound is over the top- the tires of the cars squeal unnecessarily loud, the gun
shots sounds are louder then they normally are in film, and bladed weapons sound like whistles
cutting through the air when they are swung or thrown. The over the top sound effects just add
to the feel of the movie, which is itself a little over the top.

Style
The style of the movie is one of Film Noir, it has an old school mystery feel to it because of it all
being in black in white. Not to mention almost every person in the movie smokes a cigarette,
mostly the main characters, which adds to the style that the directors were trying to achieve- all
of the old Film Noir movies everyone smokes which gives connotations of the time period it was
set in before it became known how bad smoking is for your lungs and before the anti-smoking
movement began. The directors also incorporated old karate film feel to it also, by way that
people fight really reminded me of an old karate movie and at point of the movie there is a girl
named Miho who jumps off a building and glides down with a katana, landing perfectly and
unharmed. Every fistfight in this movie was also shot in this style, when a punch would land the
recipient would go flying across the room and into the wall, much like the classic over the top
karate films. Most of the film was shot on a digital back lot, which gave Rodriguez creative
control over every aspect of this film, giving it the desired violent and disturbing overtone that is
witnessed upon every viewing.