To gain an understanding of Sin City, and how it feels to be in the city, I found a piece of text written be creator, artist, and writer of Sin City Frank Miller. The piece speaks in 2nd person to the reader as he takes you through the streets of Sin City, detailing the smells, darkness, details, and humidity of the city. I think this is the best way, (as well as watching and reading the comic books, which I highly advise, but this is quicker for those new to it) to get the atmosphere of what its like to be in Sin City, which is vital when creating a character who lives there.
"You've got no damn idea how you wound up in this godforsaken place.
Maybe you fell asleep on the train, rode past your stop. Landed in this dump. Maybe you're coming off one hell of a bad bender. You've got no damn idea.
At least you've still got your wallet. from the looks of the locals, the ones who are still vertical, that's a miracle.
It's a hot night on a street that feels like it's never seen sunlight. Since there's nothing else to do, you walk. You step over some wino whose passed out in his vomit. A newspaper rides a gust of wind and flaps against your leg. It's a tabloid, the trashy kind. Blood's dried on it.
The street's gutter is a symphony of cigarette butts.
The next bum you step over has a knife stuck in to what used to be his eye.
Maybe you died and went to hell. Maybe that's it.
Then the roar of a V8 engine blasts the night to bits. You turn and watch a gleaming, showroom-slick '53 Cadillic El Dorado rip past you, leaping a good ten feet off the ground. Magnificent. It fishtails out of sight.
Blocks away, glass shatters and some old fashioned burglar alarm goes jangling. Some maniac laughs. you don't want to know.
You keep walking.
You reach the corner and you see them. Hookers. A whole lot of hookers, flagging down pickup trucks and squad cars alike. But these hookers, they aren't the sad, hard, weary, drug-smoked women you'd expect. They're proud creatures. Each of them as confident and beautiful as a goddess. Dressed to the nines.
Most of them pack heat. One of them tosses you a smile you can feel in your pocket. They astonish. Out of this world.
You walk. You walk and maybe you light up a cigarette yourself. The old kind. Unfiltered. Hard on the throat. You catch a coughing fit and toss the butt away to join all its brothers and sisters in the gutter.
You're getting there. You're on your way.
You walk. You don't really have anywhere in particular to go. So what the hell. You could use a brew. You spot a half-blind neon sign for what looks to be the seediest saloon in the world. You go to the door and the bouncer eyeballs you like you smell bad, but he lets you in. And there's no cover charge.
You're in.
The joint reeks. Smoke. Urine. Puke. It's the worst.
There's a guy with blood for a face mashed into one booth, an asshole pleading to his wife to forgive him for whatever in the next. Some guy just plain face down in the third. This place is bad.
So you belly up to the bar and order some lameass Texas brew. Some Lone Star crap. And then you see it. the stage. Your heart sinks. The place has a goddam stage. Like for dancing. Exotic dancing.
Your heart stays sunk. this is gonna be just plain awful. Some hard-muscled, hard-headed, hard-hearted bitch of a bitch skank, shaking what she's got for a bunch of hopeless loosers.
The music goes Slow. Sad. Country. The good kind. And the crowd goes silent as an angel wafts across the stage.
She's a cowgirl angel, slowly swinging her lasso, moving like a dream. Her eyes are sad, her smile sweet. Her figure is a fantasy come to life. For that moment, you'd swear there's nothing ugly anywhere on earth.
Welcome to Sin City."
- Frank Miller, 2005. Sin City: The Making of the Movie - Troublemaker Publishing, Pages 8+9.
Sin City is a seedy city, full of crime, murder, prostitution, uncertainty and mystery. It's filthy and damp, hot and humid. It lives in the night and sleeps in the day. It's untrustworthy and domineering, standing tall above you. The skyline's from today, the lightening from the 40's, the car's from the 50's and fashion of the old west. Its the kind of city outlaws and inmates would build if only they had the motivation and cash. The inhabitants lurk in the night, striving on crime one way or another.
This is the city for which my character will live, it will have to inform them and they would have to be a product of it.
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