my girlfriend is a stripper

[lauralh]

Sin City was serious noir. If you've read any of the detective novels/stories before WW2, then you understand the kind of world these people live in. It's a pre-made mythology, with of course a few added inventions, but in general the good guys are hardly good, just have a sense of what's right. They even admit they are failures at being good people. Whereas the bad guys, well, they're bad and evil and unredeemable and either think they're right or that it doesn't matter. I especially enjoyed the Senator and Cardinal being bad guys, because their weapons were contracts and words and bureaucracy. Hey, I watched Angel, where they had to fight against an evil law firm.

But yeah, even the most pure and innocent people work in strip bars. There's no good in this world, the way we think of good. The priests and police are all in cahoots. The only way to fight back is with violence, and this world abounds in it. Now, I haven't read the comic at all, but considering there was no screenplay writer listed, I'm assuming it was fairly close to it, obviously modified a bit to have the movie arch around it. The plot reminded me of Pulp Fiction, except of course it was better, but you know, the episodic nature connecting people to the beginning, and all that.

There were of course very few plot twists that weren't obvious, but that's because I knew the genre, and I knew the time structure was skewed for each episode, so no one was dead yet at the "end". And the dialogue was cliched, but that's just because it's been 70 years since it was first written. It was the correct choice, I mean. That's how people talk in this universe. Reg called it "the noir mythology" because he's been reading Campbell, but that's not far off the mark. Just like Dogma probably doesn't appeal that much to people who don't know shit about Christian mythology.

Um, yeah, I liked it. I still had to turn away from the more violent scenes, but that's cool. I can't do that with comics, so still not sure if I'm gonna read any of the series. My favorite part was Clive Owen's, even though it wasn't as firmly in genre, just because the whores took care of their own.

Comments

similarity between the comic and the movie:

[velvet.livejournal.com]

Rodriguez used Miller's art (the original comics) as his storyboards. 'Nuff said.

[wanton-bliss.livejournal.com]

In some trashy entertainment magazine, I saw a photo from the film's production where Rodriquez was actively comparing the live actors against the comic panel to make certain the match was as close as possible. He pretty much treated Miller's work like scripture and, on occasion, Miller actually drew NEW panels for shots that didn't already exist in the comics.

Myself, I've never read the comic, but flipped through it after the flick and decided I didn't need to.

Figure Film Noir works better in film anyway.

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

That's what I told my wife when she asked if she should read the books. If you've seen the movie, you've seen the books. It was the best print-film adaptation I've ever seen.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

I just finished the first two. Yeah, the first one was the same, shot for shot, holy shit.

Re: similarity between the comic and the movie:

[tyrven.livejournal.com]

The cool.

Action Adventure

[satanseviltwin.livejournal.com]

I felt the film lacked any noir content whatsoever. It had a noir surface but it didn't have the matching guts. This is primarily due to the film's pacing. It was way too fast paced. Every time the film had an opportunity to let the audience linger on a complex issue it decided to accelerate into violence. In the comicbook this worked to an advantage because of the inherent nature of the format. The film version however just goes way to fast and doesn't give anything of concequence to the audience except well composed and colorful CGI violence. As a result, I think we will be finding this DVD on the rack between Last Action Hero and Speed 2 rather than The Maltese Falcon and Touch of Evil.

Re: Action Adventure

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

pacing?? have you seen The Big Sleep?? That's so fast I had to watch it twice to figure out what the hell happened.

Re: Action Adventure

[satanseviltwin.livejournal.com]

Well, The Big Sleep IS kind of dodgey in the editing department. However, I think it is a good film noir to look at what I am trying to say about the film version of Sin City. The thing about The Big Sleep (and film noir in general) is that it's all about the angles. Every character has an agenda that they are trying to advance without revealing themselves. Thats what makes Marlowe such a great hero. He is the only character in the film that is able to grab ahold of all of those angles and advance his own agenda. Whereas in Sin City all of the agendas for each character are overt and obvious. We all know who killed Goldie and when we find out the why it is just a nasty piece of business. There is nothing mysterious about any of the characters in Sin City in any meaningful sense. They all may look mysterious on the surface but they are quick to show their hands and reveal their intentions. They wouldn't last two seconds in Marlowe's L.A.

To go a bit deeper on the issue of noir I think we also have to look at the broader themes. Both The Big Sleep and Sin City ultimately regard gender relationships. In the case of Sin City it addresses this issue, as it does with all it's ideas, through cliche. In the case of the relationships between men and women Sin City is literally examining "The War Between The Sexes." It is war in a very physical sense. That is to say a war with merciless blood and guts with the only strategy being direct frontal assault until death or exhaustion. Whereas with actual film noir like The Big Sleep the subject of gender relations is more cerebral and the strategies are labyrinthian. The Bogart/Bacall relationship is so complex that you can feel the pressure on the screen. They are simultaneously negotiating binary relationship modes that include male/female, employee/employer, upper class/working class, and lover/lover. It's a complete swarm of wasps. Agian this speaks to why characters like Marlowe are so compelling. They negotiate the labyrinth with a cunning fearlessness that stems from an intellectual rather than physical prowess.

[tyrven.livejournal.com]

I just saw this tonight. I was amazed. I really hadn't wanted to see it but had heard enough good things that I decided to check it out. Plus I've liked a lot of Robert Rodriguez's works. It was incredibly well done.