Sin City: Welcome to Town

SIN CITY

Tour Guide
Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.

Sin City: Welcome to Town

Welcome to Sin City. This town beckons to the tough, the corrupt, the brokenhearted. Some call it dark. Hard-boiled. Then there are those who call it home. Crooked cops. Sexy dames. Desperate vigilantes. Some are seeking revenge. Others lust after redemption. And then there are those hoping for a little of both. A universe of unlikely and reluctant heroes still trying to do the right thing in a city that refuses to care.

Their stories – shocking, suspenseful and searing – come to the fore in a new motion picture from co-directors Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, and special guest director Quentin Tarantino.
With verve and invention, Miller and Rodriguez plucked the stories of Sin City right off the comic book page. Then, using cutting-edge digital filmmaking, they pasted these ultimate urban tales of louts, lugs, heroes and hussies to the screen without losing any of the comic’s silhouetted look and staccato rhythms. SIN CITY is brought to life through light and shadow - through clipped dialogue, stylized performances and visual invention.

Three Tales from the Dark Heart of Town

The central story follows Marv, a tougher-than-nails street-fighter who has always played it his way. When Marv takes home a Goddess-like beauty named Goldie, only to have her wind up dead in his bed -- he scours the city to avenge the loss of the only drop of love his heart has ever known.

Then there’s the tale of Dwight, a private investigator perpetually trying to leave trouble behind, even though it won’t quit chasing after him. After a cop is killed in Old Town, Dwight will stop at nothing to protect his friends among the ladies of the night.
Finally, there’s the yarn of John Hartigan – the last honest cop in Sin City. With just one ticking hour left to his career, he’s going out with a bang as he makes a final bid to save an 11 year-old girl from the sadistic son of a Senator . . . with unexpected results.
SIN CITY is directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez based on Miller’s graphic novel of the same name. The film stars Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Elijah Wood, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carla Gugino, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Nick Stahl, Marley Shelton, Powers Booth and Rutger Hauer. Produced by Elizabeth Avellan and executive produced by Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein.

Sin City: Town History (Est. 1991 by Frank Miller)

Sin City is a town that exists – literally and figuratively -- in black and white, a world every bit as stark and hard-edged on the outside as it feels on the inside. Only the rarest flashes of blazing color light up this city. Likewise, it is a place of deep contrasts. Contrasts between the corrupt, the power-hungry and the unredeemable on the one hand, and those still clinging by their fingernails to morals, hopes and broken-hearted dreams of love on the other. An imaginary metropolis drawn to be not just bad, but bursting at its seams with raw impulses and emotions.

The city was born in 1991, emerging from the heated imagination and skilled pen of modern comic book master Frank Miller. It was to become one of the most critically acclaimed graphic tales of its generation. Miller, a vital player in the modern revolution in comic book storytelling, had previously won fans -- and a dose of literary acclaim -- working on Marvel Comics’ Daredevil and the influential Batman graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns. His mark on pop culture continued with the creation of such popular characters as the ninja assassin Elektra and the futuristic samurai Ronin.
He was already an iconoclast, but his stories from Sin City broke all previous molds.
There are no superheroes in Sin City. Just tough-guys, hard cases, guns, girls, lovers and losers trying to make it through the dark, dark night. All exploding off the page in white-silhouetted drawings that riveted many who had never been comic book fans before.

From Pulp Origins to Digital Destiny

Sin City descended from the great American pop culture tradition of pulp tales. Like hardboiled crime novels and noir films of the 40s and 50s, Miller took the comics into an off-limits realm: the dark heart of the city. Here was the quintessential American urban frontier rendered with true grit. A place where the dialogue always snapped, outlaws were perpetually fighting the system, and a current of heated rage and sexual desire buzzed just under the cool surface.

Miller’s men were built like thick blocks of muscles, his women were drawn with pure seductive voluptuousness and his city was one of infinite alleyways, winding staircases and cold, steel monoliths. His stories were filled with hardboiled thrills, but also drew on classic myths and tragedies to tackle themes of human loss and yearning.
The success of the fictional town was unmistakable. Miller’s acclaimed books were honored with the prestigious Eisner Award and National Cartoonists’ Award.
But if there was one thing Miller didn’t want to do, it was to entertain the idea of a Hollywood movie. He knew enough about them to know he would likely have to compromise his vision - the tightly woven vision that had made Sin City such an irresistible place to visit in the first place.
Miller: “In the beginning, I felt that it couldn’t work. Not that the stories wouldn’t work in the form of a movie, but that the movie industry as I understood it wouldn’t be able to process my material without turning it into something it wasn’t.”
Meanwhile, he was about to meet up with Robert Rodriguez. Miller: “I had simply thought, ‘I’ve got a good life drawing the comic books, and there’s really no need to let anybody have my baby.’ And I held to that thought until this Rodriguez guy started bugging my attorney, and then my editor, and then hunting me down like a wild dog, until essentially . . . well . . . I was seduced.”
Rodriguez has never been averse to risk – his diverse body of work has ranged from the ultra-low-budget classic “El Mariachi” to the horror film “From Dusk Til Dawn” to the hit “Spy Kids” franchise. He had been enamored with Sin City ever since he opened page one of the comic.
Rodriguez: “At the comic book store the SIN CITY books just jumped off the shelves because they are so visually bold and don’t look like anything else there. The minute I read them, the stories grabbed me, I loved the idea of all these linked morality tales and love stories revolving around this one dark city, which becomes a character itself.”
The filmmaker loved the books so much he wanted to literally translate a raw, unaltered vision of Miller’s SIN CITY to the screen - translate, not adapt. With everything he had learned about digital cinema, he was certain he could take each frame of Miller’s books – with every fat, black line, crisp silhouette and desperate character fully represented – and turn them into moving pictures.
“When I read the books, I felt that they were fantastic exactly as they were. I loved that the dialogue didn’t sound like movie dialogue, that the visuals didn’t look like anything you usually see in movies. It was so much more unpredictable than any screenplay. So I wanted to bring Frank’s vision on the screen as it was. I didn’t want to make Robert Rodriguez’s SIN CITY. I wanted to make Frank Miller’s SIN CITY. I knew that with the technology I already knew how to use – lighting, photography, visual effects – we could make it look and feel exactly like the books.”