Sin City
There is no justice without sin.
Sin City (2005)
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Production
Budget
$40 000 000
Revenue
$158 733 820
Director
Scenario
Composer
Producer
Elizabeth Avellan
Actors
Bruce Willis
Hartigan
Jessica Alba
Nancy
Clive Owen
Dwight
Mickey Rourke
Marv
Rutger Hauer
Cardinal Roark
Benicio del Toro
Jackie Boy
Alexis Bledel
Becky
Short description
Sin City is a crime thriller set in Basin City, a violent metropolis where corrupt police, gangsters and desperate people cross paths. The film tells several interlocking stories from its darkest corners. Marv, a hardened street fighter, sets out for revenge after Goldie, the only woman he has loved, is killed. Dwight, the secret lover of a waitress named Shellie, intervenes when a brutal detective threatens Gail and the women who run the old town. Detective Hartigan, worn down by his job, is determined to protect Nancy, a dancer he has grown close to. Revenge, redemption and the hope of doing the right thing drive the characters through a city that offers little of either.
Robert Rodriguez directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Frank Miller and Robert Rodríguez, adapting Miller's graphic novels, with Quentin Tarantino also credited as a director. It was Rodriguez's eleventh film as director, following Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, and Tarantino's eighth, after Kill Bill: Vol. 2. The large cast of eighty credited actors includes Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Rutger Hauer and Benicio del Toro.
Made for about 40 million dollars, Sin City took in roughly 159 million worldwide, a strong return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 8 out of 10 from around 819,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 7.5 out of 10 from over 9,000 votes, indicating broad audience approval. A critics' rating of 7.7 out of 10 from 256 reviews places it close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller did not create storyboards, as they said Frank Miller's graphic novels served as ready-made storyboards for the film.
- A keen-eyed viewer may notice that the license plates of Nancy's (Jessica Alba) and Wendy's (Jamie King) cars are LEV 311. Frank Miller often assigns this number to his favorite female character, as it is a reference to his wife Lynn Varley's birthday, March 11th.
- During the filming of the movie, Robert Rodriguez organized a concert at one of the local clubs. Robert's band played as the opening act, with Bruce Willis and his band 'The Accelerators' as the main headliners. In addition to the 'Sin City' cast and crew, actors and the crew of 'Fog' (2006) also attended the concert. All proceeds from the concert went to charity.
- In the graphic novel “That Yellow Bastard”, the Yellow Bastard drove an Atlantic ’57C Bugatti. However, in the film, he drives a 1936 Cadillac Limo. The filmmakers changed the car model after it turned out that renting the Bugatti would cost $230,000 for four days of filming.
- The director's cut of the film has a runtime of 147 minutes.
- Steve Buscemi was the original candidate for the role of Yellow Bastard.
- Initially, Robert Rodriguez asked Hans Zimmer to compose the music for the film, but Hans was unable to participate because he was working on 'Batman Begins' (2005). He recommended John Debney and Graeme Revell as composers, and they wrote some of the music for the film.
- Miho doesn't even blink when blood splashes on her face. To achieve this effect, Robert Rodriguez first filmed Devon Aoki with her eyes open, then filmed her with her eyes closed at the moment fake blood was splashed on her. During editing, these two shots were combined.
- Filming of the movie began in January 2004. The opening scene of the film was shot in 10 hours.
- When Hartigan (Bruce Willis) enters "Cady's Bar", Shelly (Brittany Murphy) has a beer called "Chango" on her tray. This is a fictional brand of beer that can also be seen in Robert Rodriguez's films "Desperado" (1995) and "From Dusk Till Dawn" (1995).
- After several unsuccessful Hollywood attempts to adapt comics to the big screen, Frank Miller, the author of "Sin City," refused to grant his rights to anyone. Robert Rodriguez was a long-time fan of the comic and decided to secretly film a portion of the film without the author's knowledge.
- Different special effects studios worked on each novella, and different composers wrote the music for them.
- When Jessica Alba signed the contract to star in the film, she did not realize how explicitly her character was depicted in the comics. The original script contained scenes with Nancy nude. However, Jessica flatly refused to disrobe in front of the camera. Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller believed that her character would lose nothing by not appearing nude.
- It is no secret that Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are close friends. They often appear in each other's productions for a purely symbolic fee. For example, Robert recorded the soundtrack to "Kill Bill 2" (2004) for just $1 USD. Quentin reciprocated by filming one of three segments of "Sin City" (the scene with Clive Owen and Benicio del Toro) for the same $1 USD.
- Michael Madsen was considered for the role of Marv.
- During the filming of the scene with the conversation between Becky and Jackie-Boy, Alexis Bledel walked in place, and the car also didn't move.
- Ultimately, after a complete falling out with representatives of the guild, Robert Rodriguez demonstratively resigned from it: "It's better to do it now than to look for compromises and subsequently create precedents that could come back to haunt the guild after some time. I don't think the association will lose much with my departure."
- The film is divided into three parts, each with its own title: "The Hard Good-Bye," "The Big Fat Kill," and "That Yellow Bastard."
- After Micho pulled Dwight out of the mud, a girl in a hat emerges from a nearby car and walks to meet them. This is Dallas. Her role was played by Robert Rodriguez's own sister.
- Initially, Quentin Tarantino was supposed to direct the scene on the bridge in the «That Yellow Bastard» story, but that didn't happen because Quentin had to preside over the Cannes Film Festival.
- With the exception of the chapter "The Customer is Always Right," a character in the film utters the title of one of the novellas.
- Despite the fact that Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller initially assumed that all the filmed material would not make it into the theatrical version of the film, they still shot three novellas in their entirety. The full version of each novella can be viewed in the director's cut of the film.
- All scenes with Bruce Willis were filmed in ten days. If the film had been shot conventionally (without computer graphics), it would have taken five weeks.
- Jessica Simpson auditioned for the role of Nancy Callahan.
- The same swords used in Quentin Tarantino's 'Kill Bill' (2003) were used during filming. This time, instead of Uma Thurman, Devon Aoki is their owner.
- Following a conflict with the American Directors Guild, Robert Rodriguez had to step down as director on the set of "John Carter of Mars," which promised to be a rather powerful franchise, as, in the event of a successful release of the pilot project, around 6-7 new films were planned based on this story.
- Although the film was based on the novellas "The Hard Goodbye," "The Big Fat Kill," "That Yellow Bastard," and the short story "The Customer is Always Right," the film also contains a small episode from the novella "A Dame to Kill For," in which Dwight (Clive Owen) contemplates that Marv should have been born a couple of millennia earlier.
- Jamie King was the first to audition for the role of Goldie/Wendy. Ultimately, she landed the role.
- Number of corpses: 41 (according to the director's cut), not including deaths that occurred off-screen.
- According to Robert Rodriguez, he does not consider this film an adaptation of Frank Miller's novels, but rather a transfer from the literary language to the cinematic one. Therefore, the screenwriters are not listed in the credits, only Miller is mentioned as the creator of the graphic novels.
- Jessica Alba wanted to enlist a professional choreographer, as the plot required her to dance in a strip club, but Rodriguez insisted on performing the dance solo.
- In early 2004, Robert Rodriguez invited Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton and filmed a short segment titled "The Customer Is Always Right." After that, he arranged a meeting with Frank Miller and showed him a fragment of his work: "If you, Frank, like what I've done, this scene will be how the movie begins. If not, you can show this short film to your friends as a kind of bonus." Frank was delighted, and the right to continue filming was secured. Furthermore, Rodriguez showed this fragment to all actors auditioning, and almost all were shocked by what they saw.
- The opening scene of the film, featuring Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton, is taken from a short story, "The Customer is Always Right," which is part of the collection "Babe Wore Red." The epilogue – the scene with Hartnett and Alexis Bledel – does not appear in Frank Miller's comics and was written specifically for the film.
- The cars used in the film: ’55 Porsche Spyder Convertible (Wendy’s car), ’59 Cadillac Convertible (Dwight’s car), ’55 Buick Convertible (Hartigan’s car), ’55 Chevy Police Car (police cars in the film), ’57 Chrysler Imperial (Jackie-Boy’s car), ’41 Chevrolet (Dallas’s car), ’62 Jaguar XKE (Roark’s car), ’57 Ford Thunderbird (the car Dwight uses to transport bodies), ’57 Chevy Nomad (Nancy’s car), 1937 Cadillac (Yellow Bastard’s car), 1990 Mercedes 420 SEL (the car Marv took from the priest), 1968 Chevrolet Corvair (Marv’s car), 1949 Chevrolet (taxi), ’89 Ferrari (Schlubb’s car).
- Interestingly, the music to which Jessica Alba's character dances was added during the editing process.
- The film was shot entirely against a green screen. This allowed Robert Rodriguez to avoid waiting for an actor's agreement to participate in the film and instead film them separately, then "combine" them into a single frame. For example, the following actors never met on set: Mickey Rourke and Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke and Elijah Wood (fight scenes involving them were filmed using stunt doubles for one or the other actor), Bruce Willis and Brittany Murphy, Mickey Rourke and Rutger Hauer.
- The bar at Kadie's was not intentionally made in black and white. The filmmakers wanted to emphasize the uniqueness of the scenes taking place there.
- Nick Stahl, in Yellow Bastard makeup, could barely hear anything and often worked without hearing his own voice.
- Hartigan has a Beretta M93R pistol. The exact same model was used in the RoboCop films. Frank Miller wrote the screenplays for "RoboCop 2" (1990) and "RoboCop 3" (1993).
- Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Douglas, and Kate Bosworth all applied for roles in the film, but were forced to leave the project for various reasons.
- In some scenes of the film, one can notice the cover of the novella "Booze, Broads, and Bullets."
- Although several actors resembled their characters, a large amount of makeup had to be applied to some of them. These included Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Benicio del Toro, and Nick Stahl.
- As is known, Quentin Tarantino directed one of the scenes in the film. Frank Miller confessed that the day Tarantino filmed his scene was the most interesting day of his life. According to him, watching Tarantino work on set, he finally understood what a director's responsibilities are. This is because, according to Frank, it's very difficult to understand what a director should do when working with Robert Rodriguez, as Rodriguez performs a multitude of different tasks simultaneously.
- Filming and the majority of post-production took place at Robert Rodriguez's studio, which is located across the street from his home.
- Despite the film being presented to viewers in black and white, some details are specially colored in bright colors. During production, these details were specifically matched to the color of the screen against which the filming took place.
- Mickey Rourke was the first actor officially cast in the film. Jamie King was the first actress officially cast in the film.
- All the cars used in the filming are real. The same applies to the weapons.
- Despite the film being entirely shot against a green screen, some sets were still built: Cady's Bar. According to Robert Rodriguez, the bar was built because the crew needed somewhere to hang out during breaks, and he and Frank Miller needed somewhere quiet to sit and discuss the script. Shelly's apartment, specifically the kitchen. The reason for this was that the scene taking place in the kitchen involved many people, each of whom was constantly in motion. Therefore, to avoid complicating things for the special effects team, this set was built. The hospital at the end of the film.
- In the film, we can see firsthand the "co-director" and the idea's originator, Frank Miller – he played an episodic role as a priest. Robert Rodriguez (one of the bar patrons) and Quentin Tarantino (also a bar patron, sitting near Marv) can also be spotted in minor episodes.
- Adrien Brody auditioned for the role of Jackie-Boy.
- Brittany Murphy wore six-inch (15.24 centimeter) heels in all of her scenes.
- Clive Owen didn't memorize his monologue in the scene where Dwight and Jackie-Boy are driving in the car. He simply read it off the page.
- According to Robert Rodriguez, the scene in which Yellow Bastard tortures Nancy was made exactly as it is presented in the comic book: much longer in duration and more brutal. Robert did not include the full version of this scene in either the theatrical or director's cut of the film, as, according to him, even in the world of "Sin City," the scene turned out to be too violent.
- Everyone knows about the short film Robert Rodriguez used to convince Frank Miller to make the film, but few know that in this short film, Rodriguez also created the opening credits consisting of the surnames of actors he intended to cast. Surprisingly, the vast majority of actors whose surnames were mentioned in these credits agreed to star in the film.
- This is one of the few films currently made that was shot entirely against a blue (green) screen. All the sets and interiors were added to the frame during the editing process.
- Bruce Willis was Robert Rodriguez's initial choice for the role of Hartigan.
- All scenes with Mickey Rourke were filmed in 2-2.5 weeks; with Benicio Del Toro – in 4 days; Jamie King – 1.5 days; Brittany Murphy – 1 day.
- The role of Hartigan was offered to Michael Douglas, the role of Senator Roark to Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe.
- Throughout the film, Marv wears three different coats.
- Devon Aoki had never practiced martial arts before. All her training took place under the supervision of Frank Miller.
- The story “That Yellow Bastard” was deliberately divided into two parts in the film. The scene with Hartigan on the bridge was placed at the beginning of the film in order to introduce all the main characters within the first forty-five minutes.
- In one scene, Wendy beats Marv, resulting in his entire face becoming bloodied, but the blood consistently remains only on his cheek, periodically disappearing and reappearing across his face with each change of shot.
- Benicio Del Toro suggested that his character pull a pistol out of his severed hand with his teeth, and then put the hand in his pocket.
- The filming of the chase scene (Yellow Bastard pursuing Hartigan and Nancy) took only one day. If the film hadn't been shot against a green screen, filming the same scene would have taken three weeks.
- Elijah Wood's chin shape was slightly adjusted using special effects.
- Robert Rodriguez stated that his own style and vision of the material differed somewhat from Frank Miller's, and therefore he insisted that Miller receive the same rights on set and become a "co-director." However, this situation led to a conflict with the Directors Guild of America, which does not allow a film to have more than one director.
- Initially, it was planned that each novella would be preceded by a title card with its name, but this idea was later abandoned. The title cards for the novellas remained in the director's cut.
- To better get into the role of her character, Jessica Alba visited several strip clubs. However, according to the actress herself, it didn’t help her much.
- The film is based on the graphic novels by Frank Miller from the "Sin City" series.
- Throughout the film, Marv is hit in the face 21 times.
- Frank Miller is a big fan of the Dirty Harry films. Therefore, Nancy's surname – Callahan – was borrowed from Dirty Harry.
- The newspaper text seen in the 'The Hard Goodbye' novella is a retelling of the opening scene of the film and the novella itself. The author of the article is Frank Miller. According to this publication, the action takes place either in 1993 or 1999.
- According to an interview published on the LatinoReview.com website, Michael Madsen landed the role of Bob after approaching Robert Rodriguez at a wrap party for 'Kill Bill' (2003) and asking why he wasn't involved in Robert's new film. The latter admitted that the only role for which an actor hadn't been found yet was Bob.
- One of the prostitutes in the Old Town is dressed almost exactly like Wonder Woman.
- The color palette of the scene in which Dwight and Jackie-boy are in the car was borrowed from Dario Argento's film Suspiria (1977).
- Anthony Michael Hall was considered for the role of Dwight.
- Initially, Robert Rodriguez wanted to include a segment called "To Hell And Back" in the film, in which the main role of a man named Wallace was intended for Johnny Depp. Something didn't work out, but Rodriguez is convinced that this segment will be presented in the sequel.
- Robert Rodriguez struggled for a long time to find the right actor for the role of the Cardinal. Once, as a joke, he "cut" footage of Rutger Hauer from the films *The Hitcher* (1986) and *Flesh + Blood* (1985) and footage of Mickey Rourke from *Angel Heart* (1987) and *Rhinestone* (1984), and spliced them together. After this, Rodriguez realized that the actor for the role of the Cardinal had been found.
- The license plate of the Yellow Bastard’s car is TYB 069. The letters in the plate repeat the capital letters of the novel’s title – “That Yellow Bastard”.
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