Analyse how the opening scene of Sin City uses the conventions of film noir to set up audience expectations

Film noir is a very popular style of film it’s not a genre as it commonly called. Film noir is shot in black and white and uses non ambient lighting combined with ambient lighting to set the mood and tone of a scene. These films often heavily feature crime and adultery, frequently these films with have a theme of trouble and evolve a male hero/role or female role (femme fatale) who will be trying to escape trouble or the inevitable.
Sin city is not shot in the traditional film noir style but still closely follows the conventions. Sin City is a neo noir film meaning that it isn’t totally black and white but has aspects of colour in this particular film the colour is used to highlight a certain aspect of the shot, for example a key object or item of clothing ( red dress ) to show something or to imply something. The Red dress is a key item in the opening scene because it is highlighted in colour to bring the audiences attention to the dress. The colour red implies danger, and ideas of sexuality, making the female character seem attractive.
Sin city opens to a dark night scene where a woman stands on the top of a tall building in a dark city. This woman has a red dress on (implies danger) and red lipstick (seductress) behind the woman is a loud party with large windows emitting allot of light which provides this scene a large amount of non ambient light to set a vibrant happy mood, contrasting with the huge dark city which shows us how small and helpless they are amongst such darkness. The woman is not alone for long when a well dressed man approaches behind her. Already conventions of film noir have entered the film the sharp dressed man who could be the hero enters casting an eerie shadow and the woman who would appear to be the femme fatal of our story. A voice over then begins (which is another convention of film noir) this voice over describes the male entering and the dialogue being produced sets a very dark tone ‘she shivers in the wind like the last leaf on a dieing tree’ this opening sentence features heavy suggestions of death. The male then offers the woman a cigarette which she takes. Smoking is also a common feature of film noir as it is considered stylish and glamorous. He then leads on to light her cigarette this shot shows intimacy between the two characters, a close up of the lighter is also included to make sure the audience do not miss this intimate gesture. In this scene iconic props are often used and there is a close up of each prop used this is another frequent film noir convention as these iconic props can be easily used to set the scene. The woman then asks if the male character is bored of the party, and he begins to talk very personally complimenting her and telling her he has been watching her and she is perfect, this is very romantic and the woman seems to fall for his clever pick up lines. He then says its her eyes he has fallen for, a close up of her eyes comes on screen and they change from black and white to green only for a moment to highlight her eyes and draw all the audiences attention to this feature. He then says he sees she is sick of running in her eyes and she embraces him and the dialogue stops and the voice over comes back in. the whole screen becomes inverted and the two characters kiss. The voice over describes what the man is saying we know see that the voice over is what the male in this scene is thinking. ‘ I tell her I love her…..The silencer makes a whisper of the gunshot’ he shoots the girl shocking the audience after this very romantic and intimate scene keeping the audience very enthralled and curious as to what happens next the camera then pans out to show the whole city and how small these two characters are.
This scene sets up the film very nicely as it has elements of death crime deception and intimacy. This scene leaves us wandering as to what unfolds through out the film the clever use of coloured objects highlight key points in the scene such as the red dress and the female’s eyes. Conventions of film noir are frequently used in this scene to develop the ideas of darkness and crime and it is very successful and allows to get right into the storyline and sets us up for the story to come and allows us to predict the theme of darkness crime and trouble.
Harley Evans