The Best Actor in the Vase of Meiyu

Chapter 1430 Challenging Tradition
"Sin City", a movie adapted from a comic book, is completely different from any superhero movie, or to be more precise, it is completely different from all ordinary movies.

This movie is composed of three incompletely related stories. Three men with very different personalities, all of whom are fearless and have a woman they deeply love, are involved in the crime story for different reasons and in different situations. Violence and blood run through the whole story, but it is not a simple story of revenge.

All three stories take place in a decadent, desolate, and sinful city, and the only connection between them is a few insignificant minor characters.

The only repeated scenes in the movie appear at the beginning and the end - Nancy dancing in the bar. She connects the first story and the third story in terms of time and place. The whole movie uses the narrative template of "Pulp Fiction" to form a fateful circular structure for the movie.

The story is not new; what really makes the movie go down in history is the shooting techniques and narrative style.

The film is entirely in black and white, highlighting the red, yellow and green that are rendered to the extreme. Whether it is the blood-red sky, the golden monster, or the green eyes of the beauty, in the pure world of black, white and gray, these colors are bold and wanton, bringing visual impact.

Simply put, the texture of the image is presented using comic techniques.

In this way, not only can the scenes be completely consistent with the original comics, but also, without losing the visual impact, it can appropriately reduce the negative effects of violence and bloody scenes on the audience, and even make some bloody scenes full of black humor.

Despite this, the film's blood index is still one of the best, with blood splattering and limbs flying everywhere. The film does not seem to care about the currently popular violent aesthetics - "Kill Bill" is very popular, but uses a rougher and more cruel way to render the violence of Sin City with pure visuals.

This expression method is indeed unique. Later, "300 Spartans" also tried to use the same method to show the impact of blood plasma bursting, and received widespread praise; but compared with "Sin City", it is still slightly inferior.

Maybe it can't be said that there is no precedent or successor, but whether it is the previous 20 years or the next 20 years, the attempts, innovations, and narrative language brought by "Sin City" are still unique among the countless Hollywood films, which makes people sigh:
It turns out that movies can be shot like this!

The movie was directed by three directors: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, and Frank Miller.

Although there are three directors, the entire creativity, style, image design, etc. were all created with Robert Rodriguez as the core.

Robert Rodriguez is a freak director. He is good friends with Quentin Tarantino. Quentin's aesthetic taste is already very personal; but he wants to be even more unconventional.

"The Last Airbender", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "The Untold Story", "Once Upon a Time in Mexico", all these works are from the hand of Robert Rodriguez; but at the same time, it is surprising that family comedy works such as "Spy Kids" also come from his creativity and design.

Throughout his career, Robert has been interested in exploring the visual language that combines computer special effects and film footage.

Generally speaking, in Hollywood work teams, there is no lens language for computer special effects. The special effects images are presented entirely according to the director's requirements, and that's all.

But Robert believes that computer special effects are also a shot, or part of a shot, and that they should be integrated with the movie camera and become part of the narrative language of the shot.

Therefore, even when shooting a typical commercial film like "Spy Kids", Robert's research on integrating computer special effects into the language of the lens is still unique, which is why Robert has a special liking for the project "Sin City".

Of course, the process is not easy. Such a project would still be shocking even in 2024, let alone in 2004.

The original comic book of "Sin City" was created by comic master Frank Miller in 1991. In the past ten years, Frank Miller has received proposals for adaptation and filming more than once, but he rejected them all.

In Frank's view, adaptation is not feasible. On the one hand, the film form is not suitable for presenting these stories; on the other hand, the Hollywood film industry will inevitably distort his works.

Robert, however, was enthusiastic.

Robert really likes "Sin City" so much that he is crazy about it. He decided to bring the original book to the big screen intact, but the difference is:

He sees his job as translating comics into movie images, rather than adapting them.

With his understanding and research of computer special effects over the years, Robert believes that he can faithfully present the scenes in the original "Sin City" comics.

The key point is, how to convince Frank?

Frank is a tough guy, but he has no shortage of money and he never wavers in the face of the producers and film companies coming and going in Hollywood.

Robert is a determined and motivated young man. He funded the shooting of a sample film at his own expense, using computer special effects to complete the digital shooting. He then went to Manhattan in person and played it for Frank on a laptop in a bar. The unique imaging style perfectly restored the comics, which made Frank praise it highly.

To further allay Frank's doubts, Robert also handed Frank a script he had written.

Strictly speaking, it was not a completely new script, because Robert completely reproduced the plot of Frank's original comics, and simply integrated three short stories together to show Frank's portrayal of Sin City in its original form.

Moreover, Robert said, "We don't have to finalize the cooperation now. We can find my actor friends and my crew to shoot the title on Saturday, combining the actual shooting with computer special effects. I will also be responsible for the soundtrack. Within a week, you will see the finished title, and then you can decide whether I am capable of completing this shooting work."

In the end, the title sequence was shot in just ten hours.

Sure enough, Frank was fascinated by this opening. He finally realized Robert's creativity. For the first time in history, Frank offered the adaptation rights.

"300 Spartans" is also a comic by Frank. It was because of the success of "Sin City" that Frank agreed to adapt the rights to this comic.

After getting Frank's authorization, Robert still hoped that Frank could play a core role in the filming of the movie. Finally, Frank, who came from comics, served as a director for the first time and truly participated in the production of "Sin City".

Make it a classic.

However, for a work like this, with the name of Frank Miller and two Hollywood veterans Quentin and Robert as directors, film companies should be scrambling for it. How could the investment opportunity possibly fall to Forest Pictures?
(End of this chapter)