Post Sin City (300 & The Spirit)

Even though Mabe (2005) commented that "there will be no reason for anyone to make a comic-book movie ever again. Miller and Rodriguez have pushed the form as far as it can possibly go", many other filmmakers have adapted graphic novels after Sin City was released. Among them, it is worthy to consider two, Zack Snyder's 300 (2007) and Frank Miller's The Spirit (2008), since both of them have borrowed a great deal of expertise from Rodriguez's experience, but with very different results.

Let's consider 300 first. Adapted once again from a Frank Miller's comic book series, it takes place in ancient greek during the Battle of Thermopylae. Unlike Sin City, which more or less in drawn from real world, 300 often crosses into the fantasy genre, with it's made up creatures, setups and environments, but nevertheless it's a shot-by-shot adaptation of the comic book. Although Snyder used many of the same techniques and technologies Rodriguez employed in Sin City (green screen shootings, digital matte painting) the style of 300's mise-en-scene has very little to do with it's predecessor. While keeping the visuals faithful to the comic book, Snyder brought his personal vision to the project, which resulted in a very different visual style. Examples of that range from the extensive camera movements to the use of CGI extras for the massive battle scenes to the extremely long variable speed shots where the action is at times sped up to be then greatly slowed down, an element that has since become a distinguished trait of Snyder's visual style. These stylish elements were made possible by an understanding and use of technologies such as virtual cameras in a digital environment and ultra high speed cameras (Wolff, 2007). Once again, this goes towards making the point that technology is a tool that, in the hands of a creative storyteller, can be used to convey a message in many different ways.

Let's now compare Sin City with Frank Miller's own The Spirit. Released just three years after Sin City, this movie is adapted from a 1940s comic strip by Will Eisner. Leaving the story aside, the film's visual heavily borrows from the visuals of Sin City, with its sharp silhouettes, a quasi black and white colour palette with a few elements kept in full, primary colours. The difference being that while Sin City was adapted from a comic book that was already drawn with these characteristics, the original The Spirit was a regular, full colour old style comic strip in the same style as the early Superman or Batman. It could be argued that Miller tried to apply Sin City's visual style to his own movie in an attempt to ride the popularity of Rodriguez's film among the hardcore comic book movie fan base. Or it could be that he just fell in love with the process while working himself as a co-director on Sin City. Anyway , unlike Rodriguez's and Snyder's movies, The Spirit performed poorly at the box office and was strongly criticized by many for its poorly constructed characters (Ebert, 2008) and its unconvincing narrative (Gleiberman, 2008). This could arguably seen as a further proof that it's not the technology that makes the narrative work, but rather a synergy between the two that comes from the storyteller's mastery of both. We have previously argued about how in Rodriguez's Sin City the technology is always working in a close connection with the narrative, and nothing is done for the mere sake of implementing a tool, but rather every element is interconnected like the sand grains in a sand castle. It would appear that in Miller's The Spirit most of the same technology are adopted, but rather than serving the purpose of telling the story, shaping the characters, immersing the spectator in the movie's reality they're just put to work, as it often happens in mainstream american movies, for the sole purpose of creating a visually pleasant film.

It could be argued that Mabe was exaggerating saying that the art form had been pushed as far as it could go. There's always room for experimentation and, since we always build upon other people's work, reaching the limit of creativity is almost impossible. What gets harder and harder is the process of going from what has been done to what could still be done.