Color Transforms

Color is a substance that often brings out much more depth and feeling in the appearance of a design. However, color can be very distracting also. In the film Sin City, color is employed so sparingly that it becomes a real provocation for the eyes, and brings the film into an expressionist dimension with the saturation of color in specific scenes and the coloring of specific elements. These choices bring not only that depth and life to certain aspects of the film, but reinterprets the entire film experience.

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In the above still from the movie, the two heavily saturated colored areas are the red heart-shaped bed and sheets, and the golden locks of hair that lay upon it. The interaction between these two colors can be seen by as a warm, blood-like red, representing passion, love, and even communicating death (appropriate to this scene because Goldie is found to be dead). The yellow is saturated and enlivened with orange and brown tones to depict youth and innocence in the woman, and emphasize the name "Goldie," with a visual symbol. Because of these interplays of color, we know why this woman is named Goldie, and why she lies dead in a bed of passion, one in which Marv feels he must avenge.

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This scene shows a stark contrast between the golden yellow locks of Goldie’s hair in color. The small tonal difference in yellow, and the saturation of the yellow on the body of Roark Jr., aka the Yellow Bastard, creates a feeling of sickliness, and of disgust. It is only a small change in yellow, but it is the same tones of yellow that develop in people who are stricken with certain illnesses, therefore we associate the character as being sick in demeanor and mental state as well as physiologically. The coloring of him in the shot draws the eye to him, and his gaze towards Nancy Callahan draws us back to her.

The creative use of color in Sin City shows how color can be used not only as a source of depth and feeling, to make the piece more real, but can even perpetuate emotions and feelings within the audience, which they will then link back to the film and follow the story more complacently.