Sin City
Since I was making a Film Noir and was basing it off of this film, I obviously had to watch and analyse it. We already watched a bit of the film in class however we did not get to finish it, so I decided to watch the whole film and analyse it since the section we watched in class really interested me. Sin City (rated 8.1/10 on IMDb) is a 2005 American neo-noir action crime anthology film written and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, and is based on Miller’s graphic novel Sin City. Sin City also gathered 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. Below are the notes I have taken on the film:
In this shot of John Hartigan crawling in the alleyway we can see that most of the light on him is on the left side of his body, creating a chiaroscuro effect. There is a massive contrast between black and white within this image, with the buildings surrounding the alleyway mostly shadowed in black, signifying that the surrounding atmosphere is very dark and dangerous, which can also be used to describe the storyline of the narrative. Furthermore, this dark alleyway portrays John Hartigan as feeling trapped, like there is no straightforward solution to his problem.
Here we can see the chiaroscuro effect again however this time it does not put emphasis on John Hartigan’s face as his main facial features such as his eyes, nose and mouth are mostly shadowed. This makes him look very suspicious and adds an element of mystery, provoking the audience to think “What is he going to do next?”. This close up only focuses on his face which can be seen through the fact that the background is completely blacked out. We can see from this shot that the main source of lighting is coming from the left side of his face, as it is significantly brighter than the rest of his face. There is some lighting on the right side as well, although this is not as bright to enable the chiaroscuro effect to take place.
In the following two shot below we can see a very interesting colour scheme. As most of the film is in black and white, the choice to make this women’s dress and lips a red colour must illustrate that it is a very important to the storyline, and could say something about her character. Red is considered a colour that implies sexuality, which applies here as the dress she is wearing is quite provocative. Furthermore, this shot is also evidence towards Borde and Chaumeton’s statements about Film Noir, that the genre is “Erotic, strange, dreamlike, ambivalent and cruel”.
In the close up below we can see that everything is in monochrome except for Becky’s eyes, which are a dark blue colour, emphasising that the focus should be on her eyes. We can see from her facial expression that something bad is going to happen, as she has a very scared look on her face. What’s more, during this scene in the film, this shot is a long length shot, which is done in order to build tension. There is a man who offers her a cigarette within the elevator, then there is a match cut that cuts to Becky (the shot below), where the long length shot is placed. It then cuts to black when she hangs up the phone, followed by the man’s voice in a voiceover, ending the short film with an opening ending, as the audience doesn’t know what has happened to her.
This shot is one that really stood out for me, and one I really wanted to recreate within my own film as it hides the identity of the character by only having light on the lens’ of his glasses, which also establishes a sense of mystery about him. You can see from the photo below that almost his entire face is shadowed in black, implying to the audience that he is the villain within the story. This also provokes a sense of fear into the audience as the shadow on his face creates an image of evil, as they do not know what he looks like and what he is thinking.
In this extreme close up of Marv, we only see his eyes as the rest of his face is in shadow. In the background we can see the rain falling down, which could signify the despair and sadness he feels towards the murder of Goldie. This is more commonly known as pathetic fallacy. The fact that the main focus is suppose to be on Marv’s eyes is very important as provokes the audience to think about what he is going to do next, as we can clearly see that there is a very intense look about them. We can also see from this photo that the top and bottom part of Marv’s head is dark compared to the middle part which is brighter. This creates the implication that Marv feels trapped by his dilemma, as this lighting effect looks as if he is in a prison cell (due to the lighting on his face mocking that of prison cell bars).
The close up of Marv here is used to show his facial expression while getting beaten up. We can see from this photo two stand out factors that allow for this shot to be so successful in the way it is used to engage the audience. The first factor is the lighting. We can see that in the background of the shot, applying the rule of thirds, from left to right the background gets brighter. Furthermore, when focusing on Marv’s face, we can see that the lighting on him causes the left side of his face to be brighter than the right, as the right is more in the shadows, possibly illustrating his split personality caused by his condition. Another variable that could engage the audience is the fact that the blood is coloured red within a black and white film, which could symbolise Marv’s determination and strength.
I chose to analyse this shot of razor wire because it was part of a short montage of shots. During this part of the film, Marv lists out the various items he is going to use in order to kill Goldie’s murderer. The montage cuts between shots (keeping them on screen for a second) as Marv says the name of the item. In some cases, there are also sound effects that relate to the item shown on screen, for example, when the razor wire was shown on screen, there was a sound effect of it being unraveled from a spool. This intensifies the atmosphere of violence created by the images, and helps the director put across his message to the audience.
Lighting within a Film Noir is one of the most important components in order to make it successful in conveying its message, and as we can see from this photo, lighting plays a huge part once again. In the background there is a huge contrast between light and dark, as the sky is nearly pitch black, insinuating a very dangerous atmosphere. In the foreground we can see a young prostitute, Becky, walking through the alleyway. Most of her body is shadowed in black, however we can still see parts of her face. However, the main emphasis of this image is the jewellery that Becky is wearing. We can see that she is wearing earrings that showcase the symbol of peace, which is a huge juxtaposition to the storyline of this particular short film. It is also worth mentioning that Becky can be seen wearing a various number of crucifixes around her neck. This is very ironic because prostitution is considered immoral and a sin in the bible, which therefore depicts the world of a Film Noir as very corrupt and dark, the only motivations being money, sex and power.
In this shot here we can see a masked woman with a gun in her hand. The gun in this instance is used as a symbol of authority, as Dwight McCarthy states that in Old Town, the women are the law. This is a common convention of Film Noir, where prostitutes/hookers are the good guys. We can also see from this image that the background is out of focus, emphasising that the audience should pay attention to what is in the foreground, which in this instance is the women with the gun. We can also see that the soft lighting on her enables the audience to see her whole face, which is something that is very common throughout the entire film, as most of the men in the film usually have shadows covering half of their faces.
