Comparing the Opening of 'Layer Cake' and 'Sin City'

This is the opening of Layer Cake with Daniel Craig doin the Internal monologue.



This is the opening to Sin City with the internal monologue being performed by Josh Hartnett.



Both of these openings are completely different as you can see but they do bear some great similarities. The internal monologue for starters are both performed by men, although Daniel Craig (XXXX) is giving the history of crime and does not keep any information back except his name as he talks about himself, Josh Hartnett (as The Man) keeps the mystery as we are never sure who sent him and why he was sent to kill the woman, also we do not find out his name either as he is always talking about the woman in red.

In comparison 'Sin City' seems much more stylised and symbolic because it is based on a comic book, with everything in black and white except the woman's red dress and lips adding to the sense of good and evil and the thought of blood/death. Whereas 'Layer Cake' is a more realistic showing a professionalism of XXXX as he talks about his drug business.

Both these openings use pathetic fallacy (the weather mirroring the characters thoughts and feelings) to put emphasis on what the internal monologue is saying for example Daniel Craig is talking of how good his business is and how much money he can make out of it, which is quite a cheerful subject to himself so the weather is sunny and the images are bright, whereas in contrast Josh Hartnett is talking about the last moments of this womans life before he ends it, so the weather is extremely dark and wet which contrasts with the bright lights of indoors to shows the difference between safety and danger, good and evil.

The two shots that are most interesting are of the woman in red from 'Sin City' when her cigarette is lit her eyes flash from black/grey to electric green showing her beauty and perhaps her inexperience or sickness. The other piece of special effects is in 'Layer Cake' when XXXX is walking through a store full of designer drugs that suddenly turn with a wave of colour into normal groceries. These two special effects show something ordinary and boring into something extraordinary or vice versus. In the case of 'Sin City' the effect is to make her seem more alive when she talks to him and when he shows her the slightest piece of kindness or perhaps it is because she realises that he is going to give her a nice peaceful death. On the other hand the Layer Cake special effect symbolises how everything in the world is tainted by illegal money ro drugs, also that illegal drugs are considered the height of fashion.

The opening to Sin City is very strange in the respect that there is very little music and that which there is is faint and fades in and out, this adds emphasis on what the man is saying in his internal monologue and when talking to the woman. In addition to this it makes it seem as if they are the only ones in the world with the silence, in so doing when the gun does go off, even with the silencer on, it comes as more of a shock. In comparison with this Layer Cake has no music right at the beginning the only noise is Daniel Craig's voice, however when the back doors are blown off the back of the van the music starts as a quite undertone so his voice is still the predominant factor but it adds an extra flare to the proceedings and makes the different time eras flow into one another to the present day when talking about morty that the music cuts out and the film starts.