What’s black and white and red/read all over?

The 40s and early 50s were a time of transition for the movie industry. With the hardships of the war behind them, films in colour began to take over from the black and whites. The technology had been available for a while, but financial restrictions and artistic preference had left monochromatic films with the upper hand. However, from the late 40s colour films became commonplace, finishing off the much beloved genre of film noir. There was the occasional artistic decision in favour of black and white of course, Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980) or Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993) for example, but for the 50 years, colour reigned supreme in Hollywood.

Half a century on and another major transition, that of ‘real images’ to computer generated ones, has brought a black and white film noir to our screens again. Like Schindler’s List before it, Sin City is not solely shades of grey. Certain objects are highlighted, particularly in red, to enhance their significance.

The effect is such dazzling cinematography that Sin City will surely win that particular Oscar, and possibly the best director statuette for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller as well. Miller is credited with being the creator of the comic book series Sin City on which the film is based, and he and Rodriguez have seamlessly fused together three of cinema’s most incompatible genres, film noir, horror and comic book films. Moreover, just as it seemed the recent comic book revival had no-where else to go. (2003’s American Splendour and 2004’s The Incredibles seemed to have pushed the genre to its creative limits, whilst the mainstream channel was running dry with pitifully lame efforts such as Hell Boy). Sin City takes the genre to a whole new level. Every single minute of it feels like a comic. The use of black and white, is the most obvious device, but the stylised scenery, occasional silhouetted images , and the grotesquely exaggerated characters, enhance the effect of comic book, without becoming cartoonish. For many people this will be the first time they have ever seen a black and white film in the cinema, but given the brilliance of Sin City’s breathtaking photography, it is sure to inspire tributes and cash-ins in equal number.

Sin City itself exhibits a huge range of influences. It’s no coincidence that Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino guest directed a scene. Aside from the ultra-violence that typifies both films, Sin City also uses several inter-connected shorter stories weaved together into a single non-linear narrative, exploring a criminal underworld. Sin City even stars Bruce Willis. Willis plays Hartigan, the city’s last good cop, seeking to save a girl from a child abuser. The other main stories find Mickey Rourke’s Marv, who is seeking revenge against the killers of the prostitute he loved, and Clive Owen’s Dwight, who is protecting a waitress and a gang of prostitutes. All three stories converge briefly in a strip bar where the three man go unaware of each others presence.

It’s had to imagine that anyone could be unaware these characters' presence. Sin City deliberately caricatures it’s world and the dubious heroes and villains who inhabit it – exaggerating them and it into a mythical realm. This coupled with the monochromatic cinematography give the film a surrealist dreamy quality.

The ultra violence of Sin City has been much criticised, and many will find it hard to stomach. At the same time, Rodriguez and Miller are at pains to remind us that none of it is real. When the blood is shown in true colour, then it stands out against the artificiality of the grey background; When it is shown uncoloured, then rather than appearing as a very dark grey, as would be normal in a black and white film, it spurts and flows in pure white – again a poignant reminder that this is a place that is far from reality. The penultimate act of the film shows Hartigan (Willis) killing the child abusing son of the corrupt mayor who has seen him locked away for 8 years. His blood runs yellow reflecting the bile Hartigan feels for the character whilst exaggerating his inhumanity. The blood is more gross than disturbing, as if Hartigan is releasing the puss from a boil that has tarnished even this depraved society. (It is interesting that despite the depravity of the city, only the child abuser is coloured in such a way, indicating that it is the worst ‘sin’ of all).

In other places the violence is far more cartoonish. Such techniques draw attention to the fact that, documentaries aside, cinema violence is never strictly real. It is always just special effects. Ironically for a film criticised for its on screen ultra -violence, it is the violence that occurs off screen that is far and away the most disturbing, cynically using easy targets such as child abuse and cannibalism to repulse its audience.

The off-screen violence is not the only thing that can be called unpleasant however. The misogyny that flows through the film is thoroughly repellent. Miller and Rodriguez clearly intend their audience to identify with their three (male) protagonists. Their primary method of doing this is the use of voiceovers, which relay their internal dialogue. But the identification goes further. The use of the black and white dreamy cinematography, extreme situations and the surrealist imagery mean that the viewer is encouraged to identify on the level of dream and fantasy – specifically male fantasy. The stories are told from their point of view, the camera is rarely off them, except for the occasional establishing shot. They are the men at the centre of their worlds. Sin City is a place where every female character fits a stereotype, either to appeal to male sexual fantasy, or to bolster the collective male fantasy. So there are the gun totting, underwear clad prostitutes, the strip club dancer, the prostitute who gave herself away for free. Whereas, in real life, sex industry workers range from young children trapped at an early age, through to those in middle age, in Sin City they are all twenty-something stunners. Not one of them looks like a client has ever repeatedly beaten her, or that they are working to feed an addiction. Of course these realities aren’t true for all workers in the sex industry, but it’s true for precisely none of those in Sin City. Of course not all the women in Sin City work in the sex industry, and for a split second there is a glimmer of hope as are introduced to a female parole officer. Alas no. The split second is brought to an abrupt halt as we discover that she fulfils another icon of male fantasy – the beautiful naked lesbian. The one female character who doesn’t slot simply into place as an erotic cliché, Britany Murphy’s barmaid Shellie, simply reveals one of the more disturbing attitudes of the film instead.

Shellie is first introduced as her abusive, and now drunken lover Jackie Boy, attempts to rekindle their relationship by hammering down the door with his mates – unaware that dubious ‘hero’ Dwight (Clive Owen) is also present. When the inevitable bout of domestic violence occurs Dwight waits for revenge rather than intervene, pausing only momentarily to ask if Shellie is OK. "I’ve had worse" she quips. It is precisely such trivialising of violence in the home which has allowed it to breed to such horrific levels in western culture. Even Shellie herself is not allowed by the writers to take it seriously. Instead she ‘proves’ what a ‘great gal’ she is by dismissing it with a joke. Whilst the incident is seen as wrong, its main function is to cast Jackie Boy in such a bad light that we feel no sympathy for him as he stumbles into an ambush of his own making. The attack on Shellie shows Jackie Boy to be a coward, but has nothing to say on its effect on her. The domestic violence doesn’t really matter except to the responses it produces in / to the male characters.

Dwight pursues Jackie Boy and his gang fearing they might attack the prostitutes of the Old Town. You see despite their guns, martial arts and disciplined organisation they need a real man to protect them, and once Dwight saves them from the ensuing problems his ex-girlfriends realises the mistake she made in giving him the elbow. Very touching.

The other major storyline has a similarly worrying subtext. Bruce Willis’ character, Hartigan, is framed for sexually abusing a young girl he actually saved from s serial paedophile. The girl writes to Hartigan every week as she grows up until one day the letters end so he confesses to get out of prison to save her. But when he finds her she is in love with him – her devotion has taken on an aspect of sexual desire, even though she hasn’t seen or heard from him since she was 11. As discussed above, the audience is encouraged to identify with Hartigan, specifically in the realm of fantasy – and here the fantasy is about an 11-year-old girl getting feelings for her ‘hero’ which blossoms into sexual urges once she reaches adulthood. Miller and Rodriguez almost certainly didn’t intend for their work to be understood in such a way, but it certainly appears to say far more than they intended.

It’s a fact of life that talent and opportunity often falls to those who simply don’t deserve it. Milos Forman’s 1984 film Amadeus focussed its attention on the devout, but merely competent Salieri outraged by the God given genius of Mozart despite his disreputable character. The last decade has produced a modern day equivalent n Eminem, who, for all his urban eloquence says very little you would like to hear. Cinema too has had its talented black sheep. DW Griffith may have birthed the modern cinema era with his groundbreaking Birth of a Nation (1915), but it is tragically marred by such overt racism that it stoked the dying flames of the Klu Klux Klan.

Sin City pales in comparison to the evils of Birth of a Nation. Its shortcomings are less intentional than the result of a misguided shot at nihilism. The humanity on display is almost entirely corrupt, depraved and selfish. There is no way out. The successes of a few vigilantes are a futile attempt to make the world a better place before it, mercifully, crushes them.

Sin City is possibly the most post-modern movie to date. Its style and dazzling imagery contain nothing but a deeply pessimistic view of humanity. The film draws on huge range of influences, reinventing genres as it combines them. Most of all Sin City strains to evoke the film noirs of the 40s and 50s, with its beautiful black and white cinematography its world weary hero. Sadly it also desires a world of male dominance, to a degree that was most definitely absent even in the 1940s. Perhaps Miller and Rodriguez are making statements about our still unequal world, by exaggerating the gulf between men and women, just as they have exaggerated everything else in the nightmarish world of Sin City. Perhaps they are trying to take the money of those who accept such a world whilst secretly laughing in their faces.

If not we can at least be left gasping at the ridiculous, outrageous generosity of a God who lavishes such incredible generosity on people who just simply don’t deserve their talent.

(Sin City is rated 18 on the grounds of just about everything, and contains many scenes that viewers may find offensive. The views expressed above are solely those of the author and not those of Open Heaven Church)