Sin City part 1: Tough time on the ol' town tonight
There is no doubt that Sin City is an astounding achievement for Robert Rodriguez and Tarantino. Watching the film is a mesmerising experience, shot in black and white, the action is unrelenting, the atmosphere oppressive. My quarrel with the film is on two counts, namely that the whole enterprise is a paean to violence and bastardises the conventions of film noir.
Let us take the second accusation first (leave the second for part deux), Sin City's corruption of film noir. The conventions of film noir are well established, a film following the genre will feature an anti-hero, morally flawed, struggling with angst, they will be a generally burnt out case. Their natural habitat will be dank, dark cities with brooding sky lines. The authorities are corrupt; the women are beautiful, but dangerous, femme fatales prepared to poison their husbands in the morning and have lunch with a lover in the evening.
Sin City fulfils these superficial requirements, but fails on one important count, producing a kind of ersatz noir. The film is shot noir, literally, it is black and white. Central characters are anti-heroes, the women are seductively dangerous. Even the location has a twinge of noir, Basin City is where the action takes place, it is Sin City. This harks back to the early Dashiell Hammett novel Red Harvest, where the action takes place in a city called Personville, known by the locals as Poisonville.
So far, so noir.
However there is one missing element, the redeemed anti-hero. Rick, Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca, provides the perfect example of the redeemed noir anti-hero. Throughout the film Rick is a cynic, indifferent to the struggles around him, ultimately protecting his own interests. He helps refugees, he helps the corrupt Vichy authorities, he is a gun for hire. The situation changes with the arrival of his ex-lover, Ilsa, and her husband a heroic anti-fascist. In the final stages of the film Rick appears to betray Ilsa's husband to the Vichy official Captain Renault (and ultimately to his Nazi overseer Major Strasser) in order to flee Casablanca with Ilsa. Yet this is a ruse on the part of Rick, he hands Ilsa and her husband documents which allow him to flee Casablanca to the United States. In doing so he loses both the love of Ilsa and faces execution for aiding the escape of an important anti-fascist. Rick's action are absurd, admirable and a complete negation his previous character traits, a rejection of cynicism, angst and inaction. He becomes what Kierkegaard called 'a knight of faith', a person who surrenders themselves to an absurd course of action in the hope of redemption. Rick is rewarded for his faith, he is arrested by Major Strasser, but Captain Renault decides to intervene killing Strasser, realising his friendship and admiration of Rick outweigh his responsibilities to Vichy France. Hence the film's immortal ending words:
'Louis, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.'
The anti-heroes in Sin City enjoy no redemption; they are forever doomed to despair, angst, cynicism and ultimately violence. There are two exceptions, Lucille and Hartigan. Lucille, a minor character, serves as parole officer and lawyer to the psychopathic Marv and framed cop Hartigan respectively. She helps Marv when he is injured and on the run, she also represents Hartigan despite his conviction for a heinous crime. Unfortunately she is killed before her character can develop, such is the logic of Sin City.
Hartigan, a detective in Basin City Police Department, is described as the only honest cop in the city. After saving a young girl, Nancy Callaghan, from a brutal murderer he is betrayed by his partner, who shoots him the back after Hartigan has pumped the perpetrator with dozens of bullets. Reawakening in hospital he is threatened by the local Senator, Roarke, we learn that the murderer is the Senator's son; Hartigan is to pay for doing his duty. The Senator arranges for Hartigan to be framed for the string of child murders committed by his son. Hartigan is convicted, but remains in contact with Nancy, over the years of his incarceration she sends him weekly letters which give him a reason to continue living. Yet the Senator still wants revenge, Hartigan is tricked into believing Nancy has been kidnapped, motivated by paternal concern, he convinces the authorities to parole him by confessing to the crimes of which he is accused. Hartigan sets out to defend Nancy once more from Senator Roarke and his son, who survived Hartigan's bullets thanks to advanced surgery. He succeeds in killing Roarke junior, advises Nancy to flee the state to safety, then after contemplating the impossibility of defeating Senator Roarke's vast political machine commits suicide. Here is the complete opposite of Rick, this is a man willing to surrender in the face of an immense struggle, even his love for Nancy provides no consolation.
Noir anti-heroes can be amoral, cynics, corrupt, tormented by angst, ambiguous, absurd, but they are never, in the final event, without the courage to choose the absurd path in life. Sin City provides the basis for a great noir, but fails to deliver a redeemed anti-hero.
As Albert Camus observed:
'In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.'