Sleepless Sins
Jun. 8th, 2005 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylSome initial thoughts on Sin City - I'll probably write more as I reflect on it, but I thought I'd lay down some stuff while it's still fresh.
Visuals
The visuals were pretty much stunning. The whole BW thing worked a treat, with most of the shot compositions taken from Millar's original, with clever use of colour - a red dress, a prostitute's blue eyes, the Yellow Bastard - where required. It also gave them a neat way of differentiating Goldie and her twin sister Wendy - Goldie was in full technicolor, while Wendy was in black and white. The digital sets were a nice touch, particularly because they could be full sets in one shot and then they could pared down to Millar's classic outlines in another.
I'll admit to not being entirely convinced by some of the car chase sequences, where the virtual cars had a tendency to look slightly loony toony, while the back projection in a couple of sections was distinctly wobbly. Hitch would have been proud - I once read an analysis of Hitchcock's work which claimed that he deliberately aimed for a slightly woolly, slightly out of sync look when filming back projection sections of car chases (see N by NW for details), but I've never entirely believed it.
Plot
Also stuck very closely to the original Millar. Some things were removed, presumably because they weren't essential to the story, but in general it was almost word for word faithful. And I guess that's where it came a bit unstuck for me. Don't get me wrong - I still liked the movie - but I felt that the characterisation was the weakest part. To quote the Robot Devil in Futurama, "Your lyrics lack subtlety. You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!" It's kinda frustrating how you get all this stream of consciousness stuff from these guys who don't seem to have a lot of insight into their own condition and don't really have a great deal of insight into others. It's also kinda annoying who all the female characters fall in to the tart with a heart category, but hey, I guess that's why it's Sin City and not Virtue City.
More later or something, but now, to coin a phrase, to bed.
Visuals
The visuals were pretty much stunning. The whole BW thing worked a treat, with most of the shot compositions taken from Millar's original, with clever use of colour - a red dress, a prostitute's blue eyes, the Yellow Bastard - where required. It also gave them a neat way of differentiating Goldie and her twin sister Wendy - Goldie was in full technicolor, while Wendy was in black and white. The digital sets were a nice touch, particularly because they could be full sets in one shot and then they could pared down to Millar's classic outlines in another.
I'll admit to not being entirely convinced by some of the car chase sequences, where the virtual cars had a tendency to look slightly loony toony, while the back projection in a couple of sections was distinctly wobbly. Hitch would have been proud - I once read an analysis of Hitchcock's work which claimed that he deliberately aimed for a slightly woolly, slightly out of sync look when filming back projection sections of car chases (see N by NW for details), but I've never entirely believed it.
Plot
Also stuck very closely to the original Millar. Some things were removed, presumably because they weren't essential to the story, but in general it was almost word for word faithful. And I guess that's where it came a bit unstuck for me. Don't get me wrong - I still liked the movie - but I felt that the characterisation was the weakest part. To quote the Robot Devil in Futurama, "Your lyrics lack subtlety. You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!" It's kinda frustrating how you get all this stream of consciousness stuff from these guys who don't seem to have a lot of insight into their own condition and don't really have a great deal of insight into others. It's also kinda annoying who all the female characters fall in to the tart with a heart category, but hey, I guess that's why it's Sin City and not Virtue City.
More later or something, but now, to coin a phrase, to bed.
