Abstract
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.
