The Tense, Trippy ‘Sin City’ Scene That’s Covered in Quentin Tarantino’s Fingerprints

The big picture

• Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino collaborated on it
  city ​​of sin
  .
• Tarantino's standout scene
  city ​​of sin
  featured his unique style and a postmodern twist.
• Rodriguez and Tarantino's collaboration produced a harmonious final product, showcasing friendship and teamwork in filmmaking.

Filmmaking is an inherently collaborative process, and even films made by different auteurs only succeed if an entire team of artists is on the same page and locked into a singular vision. This alone can be a near-miraculous achievement, so imagine the potential headache of one author inviting another to play in their sandbox, as this could lead to a clash of minds that could derail the whole thing a project But the brain Robert Rodriguez he trusted his good friend Quentin Tarantino enough of that, when he is halfway through the production of his masterpiece city ​​of sin, invited Quentin to direct an important scene in his pulp noir exercise. That scene would become the strangest climax to a film full of gonzo visual ideas and a baroque approach to an ancient genre, revitalizing the tropes in a way no one had seen before, courtesy of the audacity skill of Rodríguez and Tarantino.

What is “Sin City”?

city ​​of sin is a dedicated adaptation of Frank Millerthe iconic graphic novel series, tying together a series of stories that take place side by side in the titular Sin City. Using cutting-edge green screen technology and Rodriguez's mastery of lighting and technical camera work, city ​​of sin entrench the audience in a world marked by noble criminals and unrepentant scum, the strict binary of the black and white color scheme broken by fleeting flashes of sharp color, especially red. The guiding principle of the film perfectly matched Miller's images and put them on the screen, but amplifying them with the kinetic rush that cinema can provide, embodying the ideal of “style is substance” , where plots are an excuse to explore the world.

In one particular story, Dwight (Clive Owen) seeks to protect his lover, Shellie (Brittany Murphy), of the threatening advances of her abusive ex-partner, Jackie Boy (Benicio del Toro). When Dwight tracks down Jackie and stops Jackie from hooking up with a sex worker named Becky (Alexis Bledel), Jackie threatens Dwight with a gun, but Jackie is later killed in self-defense by another sex worker named Miho (Devon Aoki). In order to keep the peace between the sex workers and the mob that owns the section of Sin City where they operate, Dwight must dispose of Jackie's body and cover up any signs of troublewhich configures the climatic scene in question.

Quentin Tarantino directed the entire “Dead Jackie” scene.

Dwight drives his car out of Sin City into a tar wasteland, with Jackie's corpse slumped in the passenger seat next to him. Dwight is sweating bullets, praying the police don't catch up with him, and suddenly, Jackie's body wakes up and starts talking to him. With the barrel of a gun sticking out of her forehead and a deep slit grinning in her throat, Jackie croaks out every insecurity and anxiety Dwight is thinking, with Del Toro contorting his voice to Tom Waits-level grunt in one of the most eccentric and frankly absurd performances of his illustrious career. Because of the deep neck wound, he can barely hold his head up straight, and the way he wiggles and wiggles every time he moves adds an intensely macabre humor to his basic existence.. The mismatch between Jackie's refusal to shut up and Dwight's refusal to compromise becomes an uneasy dance, with Dwight preferring to monologue to himself about how screwed up he is and planning his next move, even acknowledging that he knows that he only imagines Jackie talking to him. With a cop on his tail and Jackie using as many pop culture phrases as she can think of to irritate Dwight, it's a moment of rare vulnerability for Dwight, with Owen channeling his inner self. Humphrey Bogart (fitting since he would later play Sam Spade).

With the film taking place entirely in a speeding car, it is shot mostly in medium close-ups of Owen and del Toro, with occasional extreme close-ups of their faces and an exterior shot of the car going down the road. When Dwight or Jackie hold their ground with their dialogue, the camera zooms in on them slowly, often to the point of glaring discomfort, to the point where their faces practically fill the entire screen. When Dwight gets his monologue about what to do, the camera pans around him, locking you into Dwight's perspective and preparing the audience for when the cop will pull up next to the car. In moments of surprise and spikes in tension, the camera will whip-zoom over a point of interest which feels ripped from the exploitation films of the seventies.

Strong primary colors of red, blue, green, and yellow splash across the characters' faces, utterly demotivated by the lighting in a way that pulls the material out of the black pulp bleakness and into the interior. the kitsch of acid-influenced comics to the Jack Kirby. All of these stylistic choices are a far cry from Rodriguez's approach to the material, which is static shots that more closely emulate panels, combined with crazy camera movements and a taste for character movement. Everything about this scene is a hallmark of Quentin Tarantino's style: the focus on making dialogue exchange feel “cinematic” (like the tavern scene in Inglorious bastards), the casual use of pop culture references, the criminals acting as habitually vulnerable people, and investing the tropes of classic storytelling with a postmodern twist that both pokes holes in and elevates the genre's fantasy.

Tarantino loves to make entire scenes out of what would normally be cutting room floor footage in any other movie, like the foot massage discussion in Pulp Fiction or most film discussions a proof of death, and the Jackie Boy scene is Tarantino transforming a moment of transition into a seminal expression of the film's soul. Also, even though the entire scene is of two men trapped in a car, Tarantino still included his love of unique weapons, with Jackie's head hitting the dashboard and the barrel of the gun on his forehead that they put it through his skull. Sure, he was already dead, but it's a poignant little button at the end of the scene, another staple of Tarantino's storytelling style.

How did Quentin Tarantino get involved with “Sin City”?

Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have had a long history of helping each other with their projects: they collaborated as directors on Four RoomsRodriguez got Tarantino to act desperate and write From sunset to dawnTarantino had Rodriguez score Kill Bill: Volume 2etc. So it wasn't that abnormal when Rodriguez talked about Tarantino city ​​of sin i asked him if he could direct a scene in the film, choosing it because he wanted a completely different tone. Rodriguez assured her that there was no pressure for her to do anything particularly outlandish, certifying that she “quit [Tarantino] just direct the actors,” with little or no interference.

But Tarantino was still nervous about venturing into his friend's world like this he sketched the whole scene before he got to the set, which is something he claims he rarely does for his own films. Tarantino talked about what he liked most about making that scene, especially how a “weird kind of camaraderie between the two of them starts to develop that's fun,” combined with how the “unstoppable” Dwight begins to “slowly lose his little”. that.” Frank Miller, who was on set for the production as third co-director, said he was surprised at how “harmonious” the teamwork between Rodriguez and Tarantino ended up beingconsidering how big their egos were.

This harmony between two of the living embodiments of succeeding as rebels within the studio system is the secret sauce to why this sequence works so well. Although he was barely involved in the production, Tarantino had such a keen sense of what his partner in crime, Rodriguez, needed from him, while still sticking to his guns about what he knew he needed from himself. It produced a moment that perfectly lives up to the promise of what city ​​of sin It was supposed to be a master class in embracing artifice to elevate material far beyond the potboiler potential it had on the page. Rodriguez himself noted that “people will know” that Tarantino directed that scene, and yet the fluidity with which it fits while surrounded by a Rodriguez-directed film is remarkable. It shows that for all Tarantino's bluster about how much he knows about cinema, it hasn't gotten so far into his head that he shuts out anyone else's vision. Sometimes the power of friendship really does pay off handsomely.

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