Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Stephen Sloane

Back in the 1940s, the Film Noir genre came into the fore to “shed light” on a cinematic movement containing the post Dr. Caligari-esque mise-en-scene of German Expressionism, even if the term itself didn’t reach public consciousness until the 1970s. These movies contained soft black-and-white shadowy lighting juxtaposed with hard-boiled street-trodden characters that knew nothing but tough choices and a hard time (think Double Indemnity and The Third Man). From the ’70s onward, the Neo-Noir genre became an extension of its parent, incorporating much of its visual style but with color usually usurping black-and-white (The Grifters, Blood Simple, and even Blade Runner come to mind).

Enter Frank Miller’s comic book series Sin City, which was brought to the screen in 2005 by Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and that man Tarantino. Neo-Noir needed a new name, perhaps Neo-neo-Noir, for as the late Roger Ebert stated at the time, “This isn’t an adaptation of a comic book, it’s like a comic book brought to life and pumped with steroids. The movie is not about narrative but about style.” Nine years later, the directors are stretching our visual senses once again with the second round in the series Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. Whereas the first adapted four of Miller’s stories, this offering adapts two and adds a couple of minor plot themes that have purportedly been created for the sake of the film. As some story elements pre-date the 2005 original, A Dame To Kill For can be seen neither as a prequel nor sequel.

Apart from Rodriguez back in co-directing, cinematography, and editing, below-the-line art director Steve Joyner returns (joined with Caylah Eddleblut), so chances are that the viewer can expect a similar flair and visual style as its predecessor. Both Film Noir and Neo-Noir appear to be brought together for both the original and upcoming movies, with black-and-white imagery sporadically meshing together with flashes of vibrant color like a sleek red car, dazzling white eye close-ups, and splashes of blood. Members of the original cast also make their return, including Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, and Rosario Dawson.

Jessica Alba speaks about real life versus her Sin City character Nancy Callahan: “I couldn’t be further from this as a person…I’m a mother of two little girls…when I come here I get to play this badass alcoholic dancer who is seeking revenge. It’s pretty cool – with Mickey Rourke by my side.“ Regarding the reprisal of her role, Alba continues: “There’s a different swagger that Frank and Robert both have, that they didn’t have before. First it was ‘This is so cool, can you believe we’re doing this?’…now, I’m not going to hold back, I’m going to make sure I get every piece of everything that I want to be in here.”

Rosario Dawson reflects on the collective focus of Sin City’s characters: “There’s a posture to characters in Sin City. I wouldn’t say necessarily elegant, but they’ve got such a dignity to them. Everything that they do feels noble to them. They’re on the right path, they’re being honest and truthful with themselves.” She then turns her focus to the structural content that writer Frank Miller adopts, saying, “I just love how many layers are always in this, all the time. When Frank comes in and he describes something on set, you suddenly see how everything’s drawn, you see how everyone’s behaviors really coincide…reading all the books, jumping from each of  the different characters and perspectives…there’s a real grid to it, you see it, you get it, things fit in a certain way…he’s thought it out so perfectly, it’s fun to unravel.”

Seasoned actor Josh Brolin joins the cast as Dwight McCarthy, a main protagonist in the Sin City novels that was originally played in the 2005 film by Clive Owen (the change of actor was apparently necessitated by plot structure). Co-director Rodriguez states regarding his quest to find an actor with the ability to fill the character’s shoes: “He nails it. He just comes in and nails it. We had so much trouble finding an actor who’s a man’s man and that character, you know? We kept pushing for him. He was one of my first choices, but he wasn’t available. He became available and came down and couldn’t have been better. If we made it a few years ago…it was one of those examples of the timing just being right.”

There are talks that Miller and Rodriguez are already turning their attention to a third film in the Sin City franchise. If so, film aficionados can already look forward to more groundbreaking style in the not-too-distant future that may again further and forever shatter the traditional ‘Noir’ mold.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For opens in theaters on August 22.