HOW SOUND AND IMAGE COMPLIMENT EACH OTHER IN 'SIN CITY'

"A film that explores the dark and miserable town, Basin City, and tells the story of three different people, all caught up in violent corruption." IMDB

In this scene from Sin City, background sound (which is non diegetic) helps establish the genre of the film. For example, traffic indicates an urban location, a common feature in thrillers, and especially in film noir. This urban landscape that the audience see is a parallel to the sound of the droning traffic as there are skyscrapers in blacks and greys with washed, faded yellow lights, demonstrating/implying the depressing ambience of the city. 

The soundtrack also helps the audience to establish the genre, the mellow jazz music playing in the background again shows conventions of film noir, and a time period like the 1940s (when jazz was especially popular). This can be backed up by the costumes the characters are wearing, which compliment the music and suggested time period as the man ins wearing a suit, a lot like male stock characters in film noir such as Al in Detour (1945), the smart, clipped look is one favoured by film noir directors for their characters. The woman shown in the sequence is wearing dark red lipstick, heavy eye make up and a long dress, also sticking to film noir conventions, showing the features of the'femme fatale'. 

The red is a stark contrast to the rest of the visuals (which are monochrome), red has connotations of danger, and this compliments the sound. For instance, the sound of the clicking of the lighter alone is ambigious, as it sounds very much like a revolver clicking, inferring crime and danger, just like the red of the dress. This again helps to establish the genre, as film noirs often contain danger and crime.

The non diegetic sound of a lighter clicking compliments the image of the man lighting a cigarette, and again displays a common feature in film noir films which is smoking. I think it was enhanced and made louder through editing, implying that it is of some significance. This sound is almost replayed when the man shoots the woman, although the silencer makes it less obvious and therefore harder for the audience to establish parallels, so there is some subelty to it.

The sound again compliments the image as it infers crime, helping to establish the sub genre of the film, but with the image the gun is quite modern, so infers to the audience that the subgenre is neo noir, not just film noir.

 

Although I think that the sound in this film is used very effectively, and communicates the overall ambience, it does not link to the planning of our thriller explicitly, probably because the genre (neo noir) is not something we want to focus on.