Chapter 1430 Challenge the Tradition
"City of Sin", a comic adapted movie, is completely different from any superhero, and to be precise, is completely different from all ordinary movies.
This movie is composed of three incompletely related stories, three men with very different personalities. They all have a rude spirit that is not afraid of death and a woman they love deeply, and are rolled up due to different reasons and different states. In a crime story, violence and blood run through the whole story, but it is not a simple story of revenge.
The three stories all take place in a decaying and deserted city of sin, with only a few irrelevant small characters connecting them.
The only repetitive scenes in the movie appear at the beginning and end - Nancy dancing in the bar, she connects the first story and the third story from the perspective of time and place, and the entire movie applies The narrative template of "Pulp novels" forms a fateful ring structure for the film.
The story is not new; what really makes the movie go down in history is the shooting techniques and narrative style.
The movie uses black and white colors completely, and in this way, it highlights the red, yellow and green that are rendered to the extreme. Whether it is the blood-red sky, the golden monster, or the beautiful green eyes, in the world of black, white and gray, these colors bring visual impacts in a bold and wanton way.
Simply put, use comics to present the image texture.
This way, in addition to the scene that is fully in line with the original comic book, it can also appropriately reduce the negative effects of violent and bloody images to the audience without losing visual impact, and even allow some bloody scenes to be allowed to make some bloody scenes without losing visual impact. Full of black humor.
Nevertheless, the blood index of the movie is still one of the best, with plasma spilling and limbs flying. The movie seems to be ignorant of the current popular violent aesthetic - "Kill Bill" - being popular, but instead using a kind of A more crude and cruel way to exaggerate the violence of the City of Sin with pure vision.
This method of expression is indeed unique. Later, the "Three Hundred Warriors of Sparta" also tried to use the same method to show the impact of plasma cracking and received widespread praise; but compared with "City of Sin", it is still slightly inferior.
Maybe there is no one who has never been before, but whether it is the first twenty years before or after twenty years, the attempts, innovations and narrative language brought by "City of Sin" are still The unique existence among countless movies in Hollywood makes people sigh:
It turns out that movies can be shot like this!
The movie is made by three directors, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, and Frank Miller.
It is said to be three directors, but the entire creativity, style, image design, etc. are all created with Robert Rodriguez as the core.
Robert Rodriguez is a freak director. He and Quentin Tarantino are good friends. Quentin's aesthetic taste is already very personal; but he has to take a more decisive approach.
"The Killer's Sorrow Song", "The Dawn Comes Out", "The Teacher Is Not a Human", "The Past of Mexico", all of these works are from Robert Rodriguez; but at the same time, "very little spy" "This kind of family-friendly comedy works also come from his creativity and design, which is surprising.
In Robert's career, he has been keen on studying the visual language that combines computer effects and movie footage.
Generally speaking, in the Hollywood work team, computer special effects have no lens language, and they are just presenting special effects pictures according to the director's requirements. That's all.
But Robert believes that computer special effects are also a lens, or part of the lens, and it should be integrated with the movie camera and become part of the lens narrative language.
Therefore, even when shooting a typical commercial film like "very small spy", Robert's research on the integration of computer special effects into the lens language is still unique, which is why Robert has a special liking for the project "City of Sin".
Of course, the process is not easy. Such a project is still shocking even in 2024, let alone in 2004.
The original comic "City of Sin" was born in 1991 and was created by comic master Frank Miller. During the past decade, Frank Miller has received more than once a proposal for adaptation filming, but he has refused all of them.
In Frank's view, adaptation is not feasible. On the one hand, the film form is not suitable for expressing these stories; on the other hand, the Hollywood film industry will inevitably distort his works.
However, Robert was enthusiastic.
Robert really likes "City of Sin" and even goes crazy about it. He decides to move the original work to the big screen intact, but the difference is:
He thinks his The job is to transform comics into movie scenes, not adaptations.
By relying on his understanding and research on computer special effects over the years, Robert believes that he can present the pictures in the original comics of "City of Sin".
The point is, how to convince Frank?
Frank is a tough guy. He is not short of money anyway, and he has never wavered in front of producers and film companies coming and going to Hollywood.
Robert is a young man with determination and motivation. He invested in a sample film, completed the digital shooting with computer special effects, and then went to Manhattan in person to play it for Frank on his laptop in a bar. The image style perfectly restores the comic, making Frank praise it.
In order to further dispel Frank's doubts, Robert also handed Frank a script he wrote.
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Strictly speaking, it is not a brand new script, because Robert completely replicated the plot of Frank's original comics, just integrating three short stories to show Frank's original attitude towards the City of Sin Depict.
And, Robert said, "We don't have to finalize the collaboration now. We can find my actor friends and my crew to shoot the opening film on Saturday, combine the actual shooting with computer special effects, and I'm responsible for the soundtrack. Within a week, you will see the finished opening, and then decide whether I have the ability to complete the shooting. "
End, the opening opening took only ten hours to complete the shooting.
As a matter of course, Frank was fascinated by this episode. He finally realized Robert's creativity. For the first time, Frank took the adaptation rights - "The Three Hundred Warriors of Sparta" ”, also Frank’s comic. It was precisely because of the success of "City of Sin" that Frank later agreed to the action of adapting the comic.
After receiving Frank's authorization, Robert still hopes that Frank can play a core role in filming the movie. In the end, Frank, who was born in the comics, served as director for the first time and truly participated in the production of "Sin City". .
Achieve a classic.
However, such a work, with the title of Frank Miller, has two Hollywood veterans Quentin and Robert as directors, and film companies should be rushing to the forefront. What are the investment opportunities? Maybe it's Forest Pictures' turn?
(This chapter ends)