STACK NZ Jan-Feb #59

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SIN CITY: A DAMETO KILL FOR
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t’s been nine years since moviegoers last
paid a visit to Basin City: better – and
more appropriately – known as Sin City.
As Obi-Wan Kenobi once said of Mos Eisley
Spaceport, “you will never find a more
wretched hive of scum and villainy”, and the
same applies to comic book artist and writer
Frank Miller’s creation. “Sin City’s where you
go in with your eyes open, or you don’t come
out at all,” notes cocky gambler Johnny
(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in the new film Sin City:
A Dame to Kill For, and viewers will want to
keep them wide open because this long-
awaited follow up delivers an even more
striking visual experience than the innovative
original.
The 2004 film, co-directed by Miller and
Robert Rodriguez, faithfully translated Miller’s
graphic novels to the screen in stark black and
white (with the occasional splash of colour)
utilising a digital backlot and green screen to
achieve a unique look. Close to a decade later,
the pair returned to this hard-boiled milieu with
more advanced technology at their disposal
and the added enhancement of 3D. This time
the sets were entirely digital, with the only
physical props being items like tables, chairs,
doorways and stairs.
“The technology was really more advanced,”
notes Rodriguez, “and all the actors just knew
what they were doing. The first time, no-one
had done green screen really, this was only ten
years ago but people were like, ‘what are we
doing, where are the props?’ And now
they understand.
“I always thought that if any movie could
lend itself to 3D, it would be Sin City because
of the graphic novel quality – with the 3D, you
feel like you are inside a graphic novel,” he
adds.
Returning alongside Rodriguez and Miller
are several familiar Sin City denizens including
the slab-jawed Marv (Mickey Rourke), exotic
dancer Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba), detective
John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), and Dwight
McCarthy (prior to facial reconstruction and
now played by Josh Brolin). Fans will be quick
to point out that some of these characters
were killed off in the first movie, but Miller
explains that he likes to play around with the
chronology of his universe. “I bounce from
one point in time to another so characters can
seem to come back to life when actually, all
I’ve done is go back in time,” he says.
In selecting the Sin City stories that would
make up the new film, Miller and Rodriguez
chose to include a pair of original tales written
exclusively for the screen (The Long Bad
Night and Nancy’s Last Dance), alongside
two ‘prequels’ from the graphic novels (Just
Another Saturday Night and the title story).
“The first movie was all about being
very true to the books and translating them
directly to the screen,” says Rodriguez. “For
the second film we thought, ‘Let’s give them
a surprise so that people can’t just go to the
comic book store, buy the book and know
what’s going to happen.”
The central story, A Dame to Kill For – in
which Dwight encounters the ultimate
femme fatale in the seductive Ava Lord (Eva
Green) – is a Sin City fan favourite, and both
Rodriguez and Miller agreed it should be the
primary tale.
“Built around a tragic romance between
a man and the love of his life, it’s a story
that involves a lot of betrayal
a lot of darkness and a lot
of guilt… all the great stuff
that goes into film noir,”
explains Miller. “It’s a story
that I’m very proud of.”
Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
and Mickey Rourke on the “set”.
I always thought
that if any movie
could lend itself
to 3D, it would be
Sin City because of
the graphic novel
quality
Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez reunite to
bring us four more hard-boiled noir tales from
Miller’s monochrome metropolis SIN CITY, in the
sequel/prequel A DAME TO KILL FOR.