Monday 14 October 2013

How typical is Sin City to Noir and Comic Book?

The second scene of this film involves a cop called John Hartigan who is pursuing the kidnapper of a young girl. This scene has elements from both Comic Book and Noir Genres, but mainly from Comic Book. There is evidence of this in the amount of violence there is in this scene and how exaggerated some elements of the violence are, for example, when Hartigan shoots the criminals, they fly across the room as if hit with an explosion rather than a bullet. Another example would be the amount of times Hartigan gets shot by his corrupt cop partner. This shows some superhuman qualities that would certainly not exist in any non-hybrid Noir film.

There are also other scenes in this film which represent the Comic Book genre through the conventions of over-exaggerated violence and superhuman-like powers. Marv, for instance, has certain physical attributes that no regular human being could ever achieve possessing. One example of this would be towards the beginning of his story, when he jumps down around 5 flights of stairs and just grabs the hand rail to stop himself from falling any further, seemingly physically fine with no injuries whatsoever.

Another example of Marv's superhuman qualities is when he repeatedly gets ran over by a car being driven by Goldie's twin sister. After being thrown into the air and slamming to the ground, he just gets bad up onto his feet and brushes himself off, only to get ran over again and again, repeating his actions each time.
He also gets shot many more times than any human can withstand without having noticeable consequences to his health, until the very end of his story where multiple gunmen with machine guns finally end his spree of revenge. These superhuman qualities are definitely typical of the Comic Book genre and not of Noir as it shows that Marv is some form of unstoppable, indestructible (until the end of his story) super being.

There are also an equal amount of Noir conventions in this film; the most noticeable being the methods of lighting. The film contains only low key lighting and is only set at night. This gives off a dark, menacing representation of the narrative and characters. Another aspect of the lighting affecting the characters' narratives would be how their face is mostly in shadow during conversations. This is a typical convention of Noir films and shows their inhumanity and lack of value for human life.

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