Sin City (film)
| Sin City | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Robert Rodriguez Frank Miller Quentin Tarantino |
| Written by | Frank Miller Robert Rodriguez |
| Produced by | Robert Rodriguez Elizabeth Avellan Frank Miller |
| Starring | Bruce Willis Jessica Alba Mickey Rourke Clive Owen |
| Distributed by | Miramax |
Running time | 126 min. |
| Budget | $40,000,000 (estimated) |
Sin City is a 2005 action/drama movie based on the graphic novels of the same name, directed by Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez also gave Sin City creator Frank Miller a directing credit on the film, crediting his visual style and its influence on the resulting film. The Director's Guild of America refused to allow Rodriguez the co-crediting of Miller and as a result, Rodriguez resigned the Guild in protest.
The movie is set for release to cinemas across the US on April 1, 2005 by Miramax. The tagline for the film, Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything, is a quote from the graphic novels.
Originally, creator Frank Miller did not want to release the movie rights of Sin City, because of a poor Hollywood experience in the early 1990s (namely the second two Robocop movies). But when director Robert Rodriguez shot a short movie of the Sin City story The Customer is Always Right (starring Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton, who did this for Rodriguez as a favor), and Frank Miller approved of the footage, the movie was underway. Supposedly Rodriguez also used the short film to convince the actors he wanted for parts to play those. Reportedly, most were quite impressed.
The movie is primarily based on four Sin City stories:
- Sin City (The Hard Goodbye)
- The Customer is Always Right from The Babe Wore Red and Other Stories
- The Big Fat Kill
- That Yellow Bastard
Filming techniques
The Sin City movie employs the use of high-definition digital cameras, having the actors play in front of a green screen, allowing the background to be added later during the post-production stage. While the use of a green screen isn't noteworthy, the use of high-definition digital cameras is. The combination of these two techniques makes Sin City one of the few fully-digital live action motion pictures. This technique also means that the whole movie was initially shot in full colour, and was converted back to high-quality black and white. This technique makes it possible to give colour only to certain subjects in a scene, such as eyes, lips, or clothing.
Trivia
- Following Rodriguez's scoring of Kill Bill: Vol. 2 for $1, Quentin Tarantino directed a portion of the film for $1. Tarantino had previously advocated film over the digital techniques used for Sin City, and was interested to get to work with the digital cameras preferred by Rodriguez.
- Frank Miller appears in the film as The Priest.
Cast
- Jessica Alba — Nancy Callahan
- Rosario Dawson — Gail
- Michael Clarke Duncan — Manute
- Carla Gugino — Lucille
- Josh Hartnett — The Salesman
- Jaime King — Goldie/Wendy
- Michael Madsen — Bob
- Brittany Murphy — Shellie
- Clive Owen — Dwight
- Mickey Rourke — Marv
- Nick Stahl — Junior/Yellow Bastard
- Benicio Del Toro — Jack Rafferty
- Bruce Willis — John Hartigan
- Elijah Wood — Kevin
- Devon Aoki — Miho
- Alexis Bledel — Becky
- Rutger Hauer — Cardinal Rourke
- Powers Boothe — Senator Rourke
- Marley Shelton — The Customer
- Arie Verveen — Murphy
- Frank Miller — Priest