Sin City Opening Analysis

The opening scene of the thriller/detective noir film Sin City is very simple, but the beautiful effects make it seem so smooth and give it a very stylish feel. A man comes up behind a woman and seduces her, then kills/assassinates her. Everything is in black and white apart from the woman's red dress and lipstick, and for one brief moment her green eyes. This style carries on throughout the whole film.

The sound in this scene is very subtle, but adds to the film noir feel. There is some soft ambient jazz playing, very romantic music, almost sexual, and very little background noise. The sound of the gunshot is loud enough to make audiences jump, but still quiet enough to realise it was a silenced pistol. The non-diagetic voice over of the man jumps to diagetic conversation so quickly that it seems he could've almost been saying the voice over out loud behind her. It reverts back to a voice-over as the woman dies.

The mise-en-scene is, to put it simply, black and white. This is all it needs to be the give the film its character. The lighting is natural but dark, as are all the props.

The costume is very simple and bland, all apart from the woman's red dress and lipstick that set her apart from everything else in the scene. This makes you realise that she is special in some way.

The zoom out at the end of the sequence is good, because it happens straight after the man kills the woman. This action leaves the audience stunned, and thinking that everything is not as it seems. Thus zooming out and showing the whole city would leave audiences thinking that this idea applies to the whole city, the whole movie.

By Sam