Sin City

[oyceter]

I am extremely unsure as to what I think of the movie. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was also really bloody and I have a very bad stomach for violence and the only reason I watched it instead of squinching my eyes shut for all of it (I only squinched for about half) was because it was so beautifully shot. So my brain was very confused, because every two seconds it was "Ooooo pretty! EW! Pretty! Oh ewww! Ooooo, more pre--- ewwwww!" Also, the gender politics are incredibly messed up, which is not particularly a surprise to me, given that it is Frank Miller and given that it is Frank Miller film noir, but it was still very difficult to watch.

Art-wise, I haven't read the comic, but I bet even after I do, I will think this is the most gorgeous and fitting comic-book adaptation ever. It is beautiful. The colors, the cinematography, the editing and the shades, gah, the shades... I loved how everything was framed, I loved the splashes of red and yellow and etc., I loved how every so often Rodriguez would hold a shot and let it become more and more starkly black and white. And the way the separate stories fit together, everything.

On the other hand, the squick and the gross factor. I mean, ewwwww. Ewwwwwwwww. The only reason I could even watch it, bloody and gross though it was, was because in some places it was so exaggerated and so comic-book-esque and so stylized that my stomach made it through. Well, barely... it's still feeling rather queasy. And so much gratuitous violence, and so much anarchy. I dislike the rule-by-violence world of the movie (I suspect londonkds would as well?), particularly the justification everyone makes about killing everyone in their way just to avenge the death of a beautiful innocent hooker with a heart of gold/prevent the death of a beautiful innocent dancer with a heart of gold/save the women. Did I mention the screwed up gender politics?

I haven't read much Chandler or watched much noir at all, but I'm guessing that this sort of madonna/whore dichotomy is fairly endemic to the genre. Frankly, I'm not actually interested in watching that much more noir because the grittiness of the world really disturbs me after a while. The authorities are all corrupt, violence or feminine wiles are the only means to get ahead, and the only thing a sort-of-good man can do is protect the women and shoot or torture anyone who gets in the way. This worldview is very alien to me. Not too many of the women in Sin City turn out to be evil and conniving, but they're still beauties on pedestals, even if the majority of them are prostitutes.

I did get very excited about one storyline with armed prostitutes -- pretty girls with guns! Yay! But then it rapidly went the way of the other storylines. I'm not sure if this is criticism of the movie, of the book it's based on, or on the genre in general, but it continues to irk me. All the viewpoint characters are your typical weathered, wiseass guys, and there isn't ever a woman's POV. They're all idealized and airbrushed and made into symbols. The same happens with the men, too, but in the direction of violence and kickassedness. I spent a good deal of the movie wondering what a feminist film noir would look like or read like. Someone needs to write that for me... sigh.

Comments

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

my brain was very confused, because every two seconds it was "Ooooo pretty! EW! Pretty! Oh ewww! Ooooo, more pre--- ewwwww!"

That may be the v best (and pithiest) review of SC I've seen yet.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I wrote a feminist film noir-- well, play noir once. It was heavily influenced by Chinatown and was about a woman (not a professional detective--a political campaign worker) who takes a complaint by an apparently crazy woman ranting about poisoned water seriously and starts an investigation which ends up implicating the politician she's working for. Intertwined with that was a plotline about a female serial killer who kidnapped babies and (she was nuts) basically loved them to death. The protagonist was a grown-up crack baby who'd never been adopted, and was seriously depressed.

Basically, I used a lot of film noir tropes about corrupt politicians in a corrupt world, literal pollution and moral pollution, and one slightly grimy knight in armor cleaning up a corner of the city, but made the detective a woman, the images of femininity centered around "woman as good mother/bad mother" and "woman as dependent child/independent adult" rather than "woman as Madonna/whore," and the restoration of order be both political and the integration of the protagonist's dark and light sides. (Not all film noir restores order-- Chinatown doesn't-- but a lot of them do.) Plus examining media portrayals of women and stereotypes of women as opposed to the women we actually see onstage.

I wrote this as my grad thesis, and I could do it better now, but I will say that it played as more integrated than a synopsis makes it sound.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I spent a good deal of the movie wondering what a feminist film noir would look like or read like.

A couple of people have tried, not sure you'll like them though.
Here's a list: In the Cut directed by Jane Campion and starring Meg Ryan. Check out the DVD extra on Behind the Scenes, where the writer explains her desire to write an erotic female noir novel. Is it feminist?
Not so sure.

Blue Steel - stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Ron Silver.

Love Crimes - Scean Young and Patrick Bergin, about a female DA who gets turned on by S&M and ends up killing a photographer who pulls her into his sick twisted game.

Black Widow - Theresa Russell and Debra Winger, Debra Winger hunts down a female killer and in order to trap her, gets incredibly close.

Diabolique - a french film noir featuring female protagonists.

Veronica Mars - is an attempt at female noir, as was Dark Angel.

La Femme Nikita - the french film not the series

It's a small subset of the genre, but you can find them. In all, the female is a tad darker. Actually part of BTVS went into femme noir - S6 had clear overtones of it, the femme fatale being Spike. Female noir tends to be heavier on the sex than the bloodshed. Also tends to be more psychological than physical regarding violence. Example: Talented Mr. Ripley novels written by Patricia Highsmith are far more on the pscyhological twisty side than Hammett and Chandler who write more visually. Actually - that's someone you might try - Patricia Highsmith, she's the queen of the noir novels. Written quite a few short story collections.

Agree with you on the squick and gross factor - I found myself cringing through a good portion of it as well. Not a huge fan of seeing blood spurting and body parts flying on screen. Have skipped many movies because of such things.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

I am of a similar mind about the movie: in awe about the visual art of it, and not very happy about everthing else. well, I loved the second part, and liked the first, but overall the world left me cold.

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

(reposted for editing)

The art in the Sin City comics is hideous. I absolutely hated the first one, and didn't read any more. Because of this:

I'm not sure if this is criticism of the movie, of the book it's based on, or on the genre in general, but it continues to irk me. All the viewpoint characters are your typical weathered, wiseass guys, and there isn't ever a woman's POV. They're all idealized and airbrushed and made into symbols.

It's so utterly woven into the story, and the violence is so extreme and gratuitous, that it made me angry. I was going to write up something on the comic after I read it, but then I figured I'd wait and see how everyone liked the movie. And of course, 99% of people adored it, so I didn't bother. But I can tell you that there is no beautiful art redeeming the morally bankrupt gender assumptions in the book, just lots of scribbly line drawings, hideous, brutish men, and women drawn like porn come to life. Ugh.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it was my comments on Worm that you're thinking of, but Im was trying to get across how alien the philosophy of the book is to your typical modern reader because I didn't think many people have read it. If I'd been writing to people who'd also read it and liked it I'd sound a lot more enthusiastic because I wouldn't be execting anyone to go "How can you enjoy that reprehensible crap?"

I can take a full-bloodedly violent and simplistic story on its own terms, especially if, like I gather Sin City is, it doesn't seem to be overtly representing itself as a mirror of the real world. What I have great problems with is a story which shows characters recognising moral complexity and then thinking "This is too hard, let's just kick some ass." or worse "This is all a sentimental blind alley that makes us soft, let's just kick some ass." Which was what I got from AtS5 (and which, although I have seen it, a lot of reviews of the current 24 are making me suspect it's about) and which reminds me of a lot of political attitudes that really disgust and frighten me at the moment.

[oyceter]

Hee, thanks.

I really shouldn't have eaten that giant scoop of ice cream before the movie....

[oyceter]

Oh cool! Um... do you think I could read it by any chance?

[oyceter]

Thanks for the list! I've seen LFN the movie, which I liked but felt like a repudiation of the noir lifestyle (mostly because the heroine ends up wanting out), but I haven't seen the rest.

[oyceter]

Yeah... it was very confusing because it was so incredibly gorgeous looking, and yet, all the people in it were so ugly psychologically.

[oyceter]

Hrm, ok. It's so strange because the movie visuals are so beautiful. But sick and disturbing and ew, if you do go see it, by no means eat before it or bring in food of any kind. Because... ew!

Ugh. I think I will skip the comic then, thanks. Brutish is so the right word for all the men in the movie, even the ones who were supposedly "good," and it squicked me out so much.

[oyceter]

Hrm, I think it was more your post on why you disliked the finale of Angel and the comparison to some pulp novels (?) that you disliked? From the description you had of the books, it sounded very much like the same nihilistic vision of the world. I'm not sure if Sin City is representative or not, but I very much dislike the vision of the good cop who is willing to kill and maim and whatever to protect innocent women, and how that devotion to women is supposed to be read as touching.

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

o dear.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Um... If you really want to. I think I only have hard copies, if I even have those-- I lost a lot of old work when my laptop got stolen along with the case that had many of my discs in it, and a bunch of my back-up discs turned out to be corrupted-- but I'll take a look when I get back.

I should warn you that, though as I said it's more coherent than it sounds, it's very much early work. As in almost exactly ten years earlier.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I've seen LFN the movie, which I liked but felt like a repudiation of the noir lifestyle (mostly because the heroine ends up wanting out), but I haven't seen the rest.

Actually in true noir, the hero or heroine does want out, but can't get out. They are trapped. Their actions cause them to stay there.

Modern noir films - the hero or heroine wants out and gets out.
In the films of the 30s and 40s - they often didn't get out and stayed trapped.

[oyceter]

Oh no worries... I don't want it to be a bother for you, though of course I would enjoy seeing anything you wrote.