Sin City (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Sin City |
| Original title | Sin City |
 | |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2005 |
| length | approx. 119 US Director's Cut : 147 UMD ( PSP ): 124 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Robert Rodriguez , Frank Miller , guest director: Quentin Tarantino |
| script | Frank Miller |
| production | Elizabeth Avellan |
| music |
John Debney , Graeme Revell , Robert Rodriguez |
| camera | Robert Rodriguez |
| cut | Robert Rodriguez |
| occupation | |
| |
| chronology | |
|
Successor → |
|
Sin City is an adaptation of the Frank Miller comic book of the same name from 2005 . Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. The film accompanies various characters through their brutal everyday life in the fictional city of Basin City, which is nicknamed Sin City - City of Sin . The plot is told in several surreal stories that are largely independent of one another.
action
Note: In the Recut version, the individual stories are summarized and told one after the other, starting with That Yellow Bastard , followed by The Customer Is Always Right , Sin City (The Hard Goodbye) and The Big Fat Kill .
The Customer Is Always Right - Part 1
A woman attends a party and retires to a terrace by herself. A strange man comes up to her and talks to her. After a short time he explains that he has been watching her for a long time. They kiss and he kills them very quietly with a silenced shot. He's a hit man.
That Yellow Bastard - Part 1
The police officer John Hartigan is nearing retirement. On his last day at work, he wants to rescue eleven-year-old Nancy Callahan from the violence of a sex offender. However, the perpetrator is Roark Jr., the son of Senator Roark, who has influence over the police and protects his son from arrest. When his partner Bob tries to persuade him to drop the matter, Hartigan knocks him down and manages to get Roark jr. deliver. He shoots his hand and genitals and saves the girl, but is ambushed by his partner Bob. Roark jr. but also carries serious injuries.
Sin City (The Hard Goodbye)
The ex-convict Marv meets the prostitute Goldie, who is looking for a protector because a serial killer is up to mischief in the red-light district. For him she is his dream woman. She wants to bind him to her and spends the whole night with him. When Marv wakes up, he discovers that Goldie was murdered. He is frustrated and swears bitter revenge on their killer. What makes it more difficult for him is that the police are working against him and have already been informed of the crime. He goes into hiding briefly with an acquaintance, his probation officer Lucille, who supports him.
Marv forces several people who knew about the crime, right up to a clergy, to point after point and thus finally obtain the whereabouts of the alleged murderer - a farm on the outskirts. He went there, but was overwhelmed and knocked out. When he comes to, he finds himself in a dungeon with Lucille. He now learns from her that the wanted serial killer lives here, kills the prostitute and devours their corpses together with his wolf . He keeps their heads as trophies. The murderer has already eaten Lucille's left hand, as Marv reports. From the dungeon, Marv watches as Cardinal Roark, Senator Roark's brother, meets the serial killer named "Kevin". When the two drive away, Marv manages to break out with Lucille. As soon as they are free, the police cut them off. Lucille surrenders and is shot by the police. Once again frustrated, Marv storms out of the undergrowth and is able to take out the police group, armed with an ax.
He now decides to look around Goldie's environment for more information. This leads him to the Oldtown district, which is dominated by the red light district. There he is shot down by a woman who looks like Goldie. It turns out that it's her twin sister, Wendy, who thinks he's Goldie's killer. But he can convince her of his innocence and receives support from Wendy and her friends. He drives back to the farm with Wendy and tries again to catch Kevin. After a tough fight, Marv manages to defeat Kevin. He saws off his extremities and leaves him to his carnivorous wolf. With Kevin's head severed, he makes his way to his spiritual father, Cardinal Roark. He confesses to him that he is also a cannibal , who commissioned the murder of Goldie and that the police put him on his neck. Marv then also kills Cardinal Roark, but is caught and gunned down by a special squad. After recovering, he is sentenced to death by the electric chair for a forced confession . But since he was able to avenge Goldie's death, he is satisfied and accepts his death sentence.
The Big Fat Kill
Shellie is bullied by her former boyfriend, Jack Rafferty. When he suddenly meets her new friend Dwight McCarthy, he withdraws. Dwight is the ex-boyfriend a thorn in the side, which is why he pursues him and wants to eliminate him completely. However, he does not know that Rafferty works as a police officer. Shellie notices Dwight's intention too late and cannot warn him in time.
Rafferty wants to have some other fun and ends up in Oldtown with a few friends. An old agreement says that Oldtown cooperates with the police and in return exercises executive power itself . Since Rafferty does not identify himself as a police officer and is very drunk, he is turned away there. When he then threatens with his weapon, he is surprised by the katana fighter Miho, who causes a bloodbath and kills Rafferty and friends.
When Dwight, the leader of Oldtown Gail, and her fellow prostitutes ransack the bodies, Dwight discovers Rafferty's cop badge. Because they violated the agreement, the prostitutes fear a confrontation with the police. For this reason, Dwight wants to cover up Rafferty's murder and discreetly dispose of the bodies in a tar pit. In Oldtown, however, it is not yet known that there is a mole who is secretly passing the matter on.
After Dwight arrives at the tar pit with the bodies despite a police check, a band of rival mercenaries stand in his way. They overpower Dwight, sink him and his car in the tar pit and steal Rafferty's head as evidence of murder. While Gail is taken hostage by the gang in Oldtown and Becky turns out to be the unknown mole, Miho frees Dwight from the tar pit. Dwight and Miho manage to kill the mercenaries and get Jack's head back. Back in Oldtown, Dwight negotiates with the enemy gang and trades Jack's head for Gail. However, Dwight has hidden a bomb in Jack's mouth, which he detonates by remote control. This is the signal for the assembled prostitutes to destroy the gang. Becky escapes, however.
That Yellow Bastard - Part 2
The shot Hartigan is rescued in an emergency operation. In order to incapacitate him and to avenge his son, Senator Roark blames him for some serious sexual offenses. After his hospital stay, he is charged with rape, found guilty and sentenced to jail. Since Nancy knows the truth, she is prevented from testifying. In order to remain anonymous, she wrote a letter to Hartigan under the pseudonym Cordelia every week for eight years . Suddenly there are no letters and Hartigan is very worried. In prison, he is visited by a disfigured Yellow Bastard and then finds an envelope with a severed finger, which appears to be Nancy's finger. In order to be released, Hartigan makes a confession that is not true.
So he is released shortly afterwards and immediately looks for Nancy. Eventually he struck gold in a bar where Nancy works as a dancer. She is now 19 years old. He realizes too late that the severed finger was just a trick and that he led the Yellow Bastard straight to Nancy. The Yellow Bastard is Roark Jr., who is fully recovered, but suffered severe side effects from medication and is severely physically disfigured. Still, he wants to finish what he started eight years ago and brings Nancy under his control. Hartigan manages to save Nancy and Roark Jr. to kill, but in order not to put Nancy in danger again, he commits suicide.
The Customer Is Always Right - Part 2
Becky is about to leave a hospital after her treatment and enters an elevator on the phone with her mother. There she is unexpectedly approached by the hit man who killed a woman at the beginning of the film. Becky freezes in shock and ends her phone call.
background
Stylistic devices
Like the comics that served as the model, the film is in black and white. A few elements (such as eyes, cars, lips, blood, clouds or the “Yellow Bastard”) are shown in color ( Colorkey technique). This effect was achieved by shooting the film in color and only later converting it to high-resolution black and white. Almost all of the scenes were shot in front of a green screen, the only set created for the film is a bar that is used in multiple scenes.
The film scenes were almost exclusively taken from the comics true to the original. The cuts are sometimes very hard, and there are hardly any camera pans , tracking shots or camera zooms in the film . Some scenes are shown as a silhouette . Another common cutting element is the weft-reverse shot . The figures hardly move, instead they and the camera are positioned in such a way that the resulting images look like individual images from a comic.
In order to bridge periods of time and actions, the picture often remains black for some time. The thoughts of the respective main characters are expressed in voice-over comments, which corresponds to the thought bubbles in the comics. For the viewer, the overall impression arises of seeing a comic with human actors.
structure
The film takes on three storylines from a total of seven comics and a short story:
- Sin City, Book 1: The Hard Goodbye (Eng .: Sin City - City Without Mercy)
- Sin City, Book 3: The Big Fat Kill
- Sin City, Book 4: That Yellow Bastard (Eng .: That cowardly bastard)
- Sin City, Short Story: The Customer Is Always Right (found in Book 6: Booze, Broads & Bullets)
Awards
- Sin City was awarded the Technical Grand Prize for visual implementation at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival .
- In 2007 the Recut Edition received the DVD Champion in the Special Edition category .
Boycott of German cinemas
Buena Vista International - the German theatrical distributor of the film - aimed for a short evaluation window for use in the cinemas (evaluation in the home entertainment sector should already start in December 2005) and demanded a high rental fee. The three big German cinema chains Cinestar , CinemaxX and UCI refused to show the film in their cinemas under these conditions.
The film opened in 200 German cinemas on August 11, 2005. After further negotiations between the theatrical distributors and the movie theater owners, an agreement was reached, and from August 13, Sin City began showing in the previously boycotted cinemas. By August 18, 2005, all cinemas should have been equipped with a film copy.
Despite the low use of film copies and the high age rating, Sin City achieved box office earnings of 1,876,231 euros with 281,276 viewers on the first weekend in Germany. In total, over 1.15 million people in Germany saw it in cinemas.
Reviews
Critics praised the film's outstanding visual and stylistic design, but also criticized the insubstantiality and superficiality of the comic stories.
“With the help of digital trick technology, director Robert Rodriguez transfers the gloomy mood from Miller's black and white hardboiled comic series into his film images. The game with light and shadow generated on the computer makes' Sin City 'like a hyper-real mix of film noir and German expressionism à la' Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari 'work. And the often extreme changes of perspective that take place almost every second give the feeling of looking through a screen-sized comic strip. Tricks like this make the theatrical version of Miller's ultra-brutal study of archaic feelings such as hatred, honor and passion a fascinating masterpiece of digital filmmaking. Conclusion: Breathtaking concept film, whose overstylized CGI look congenially implements the original. "
“Three dark pulp stories full of sex, murder and machismo as the most successful form of a comic model in the medium of film so far: the nested episodes unfold in an emphatically cool, sexy, brutal and cynical way, turning their silhouette-like anti-heroes into a largely monochromatic parallel world catapult. The cinematic "Comic noir" captivates with a fascinating artificial surface, which wonderfully fulfills the promise of digital postmodernism, but at the same time is massively offensive due to its nihilistic attitude. "
“Where Miller does without the background, the film does what its heroes say, the actors now say, and the voiceover by the protagonists, borrowed from film noir, fits perfectly. Nothing, but also no line, is invented in Sin City, and yet the film looks like it is all of a piece. There is no better way to film comics. "
“Technically and aesthetically without a doubt the most brilliant, most innovative comic adaptation that has ever been seen in the cinema, the film plunges down into the gloomy ravines of Basin City, a black and white, rainy hell populated by cannibalistic psychopaths, corrupt police officers, the sons of pedophile politicians , trigger-happy latex hookers and die-hard dudes who survive even the toughest lead ball hailstorms. […] In any case, your own imagination had no chance for 123 minutes, which resulted in an acute skull vacuum. People without a comic affinity could also call the whole thing silly. "
“When filming Frank Miller, the king of modern urban comics, there is no either / or. There is nothing left but to bring your thing onto the canvas as it is drawn on paper. The full hardness, black and white (with a few monochrome flickering moments of color), in brutal, time-tearing shots. Morituri total, a terrific mixture of sadism and masochism, plus traces of perversion, from cannibalism to pedophilia. "
Others
- Like all of Rodriguez's other films since Spy Kids , Sin City is no longer recorded on film, but on Sony digital cinema cameras from the HDCAM range .
- After Rodriguez had written the score for Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 2 (for a fee of one US dollar), Quentin Tarantino took over the direction of a scene here, also for one US dollar. It's the scene in which Dwight drives to the tar pits to dispose of Rafferty's body.
- Frank Miller has a cameo as a pastor who is questioned by Marv in the confessional.
- The swords Devon Aoki uses as Miho are the same ones some Crazy 88 members used in Kill Bill . Quentin Tarantino kept this in his garage and made it available for filming.
- Miho uses a "throwing star" in the shape of a swastika . This symbol is also used on the forehead of a henchman of the Irish mercenaries.
- The song from the trailer is called Cells (Instrumental Version) and comes from the band The Servant .
- The Blu-ray was released on July 16, 2009 in Germany. It is approved for ages 18+ and has a playing time of 124 minutes.
- There is also a recut version of the film, in which the storylines are not interwoven but are told one after the other. It also has some additional details and is about 20 minutes longer than the theatrical version.
continuation
On April 12, 2012, pre-production for Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For began , with the protagonists from the first part in the cast. The screenplay is based on the comic of the same name by Miller and was written by him together with William Monahan . Filming began in November 2012. The theatrical release took place on September 18, 2014.
Web links
- Sin City in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Sin City at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Sin City at Metacritic (English)
- Sin City in the online movie database
- Sin City in the German dubbing file
- Comparison of edited versions Theatrical Version - Recut Extended , RTL II from 16 - Not suitable for young (theatrical version) of Sin City at Schnittberichte.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Sin City . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2005 (PDF; test number: 102 463 K).
- ↑ Stephen Krensky: Comic Book Century: The History of American Comic Books Lerner Pub Group, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8225-6654-0 , p. 91.
- ↑ Special effects and star-studded adaptation of Frank Miller's cult comic , Cinema.de
- ↑ Sin City. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ "Six correct numbers with additional color"
- ^ Stern report from the screening of 'Sin City' in Cannes
- ↑ Kisses me deadly : Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino and the delirium of "Sin City"
- ↑ Recut version
- ↑ Sin City: A Dame to Kill For Begins Production
- ↑ Casting Update and More on Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
- ^ Early Sales Art for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
- ↑ Very tough, new "Sin City 2" XXL trailer , kino.de, accessed on August 27, 2014.