ONE TOUGH DRAW HOW `SIN CITY' WAS BROUGHT TO GRITTY, BLACK-AND-WHITE LIFE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Even by Robert Rodriguez's standards, ``Sin City'' was one weird adventure in moviemaking.

The Texas-based director has pioneered low-budget ways of mixing computer graphics with live action in his ``Spy Kids'' movies, and he (in)famously sold himself for pharmaceutical experiments to finance his first independent feature, ``El Mariachi.''

But for this adaptation of graphic novels from Frank Miller's hard- boiled, sex-and-violence-drenched comic book line, Rodriguez broke rules that he didn't even know existed.

``I just do everything unorthodox,'' Rodriguez understates. ``To make a regular movie out of 'Sin City' would have robbed it of how much the images were a part of it. What I love about the books is that they are great stories on their own, but the images are what really hit you first. They really go hand-in-hand.''

Rodriguez was convinced that the only way to get Miller's erotic/grotesque pen-and-ink vision on screen was to enlist the cartoonist as co-director. To convince the artist, Rodriguez made a test sequence, using high-definition digital cameras and computer graphics, that proved the comic books' stark, black-and-white look could be faithfully transferred to the screen.

As for the actors - a who's-who of hip up-and-comers and respected veterans, including Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Elijah Wood - they were filmed almost entirely against green-screen stage backdrops, with practically all of the movie's sets and dark cityscapes drawn in on computers in postproduction.

Then there is more in-your-face lewdness and graphic violence than even in previous Rodriguez outrages like ``From Dusk Till Dawn'' and ``Once Upon a Time in Mexico.'' Which is more than just about any American movie can handle these days.

Some actors, such as Willis, model Jaime King and ``Spy Kids'' mom Carla Gugino, reveal as much as the R rating will allow in this militantly PG era. Others were slightly more modest.

``Nudity was an option; we could have done it if we wanted to,'' notes Alba, formerly of TV's ``Dark Angel,'' of her role as the exotic dancer Nancy in the movie. ``Obviously, it would've been more authentic. But I felt like dancing around with a lasso and chaps was gonna be sexy enough. I think being nude, for me, would've been distracting. And I really couldn't be bottomless. My dad would really ... I don't know, he would disown me or something.''

But the way ``Sin City'' was filmed brought a different feeling of physical exposure.

``Suddenly, I'm in this room with absolutely nothing but my outfit - which actually was more than what I wore in 'Alexander'!'' recalls Dawson, who plays Gail, the (barely) fishnet-clad leader of the city's highly independent - and murderous when crossed - streetwalkers. ``It was just incredible with the green screen. You're standing there in this outfit just feeling completely naked and vulnerable, with this crazy dialogue and going, 'OK, I'm just gonna trust.'

``But it was crazy, because you just have two people standing there, and we would have to move, not the cameras,'' Dawson continues. ``Normally, everything moves around you, but we would have to do everything to go along with what the actual framing was. The books themselves became the storyboards, and every single thing that we ended up shooting was exactly to the proportions and stances and distances as the actual panels were.''

Oddly enough, that was more Rodriguez's doing than the artist's. Considered a comics genius for his work on Batman, Daredevil, Elektra and Ronin, Miller primarily filled the role of sounding board for the actors on the soundstages in Austin, Texas.

``It was organic, but they each gave you something different,'' Alba reports. ``Frank was really good for a lot of character stuff, like back-story and where she was going next. Robert made sure that we captured the moments that Frank drew the best way we could and, technically, he was really on it. Frank really didn't understand the technicalities of film at all; he was just pure raw emotion.''

``For the most part, I turned to Robert because he hired me,'' explains Del Toro, the Oscar-winning ``Traffic'' star whose degenerate ``Sin City'' cop, Jackie Boy, suffers some of the most outlandish torments - and their matching makeup effects - in the entire movie. ``But Frank did have input on a lot of stuff. Like, 'Maybe you should pull out a cigarette here at this moment,' so it's lit when my head goes into the toilet. It was no problem whatsoever.''

Rodriguez says he would not have made the movie without Miller. That test footage (now the film's opening sequence) was mighty persuasive, but the cartoonist still needed encouragement.

``He thought you had to show up with a headdress and rattles, that it was this mystical process,'' says Rodriguez, who usually wears a half- dozen other hats, from camera operator to music composer, on his movies. ``I told Frank it's not. It's just like drawing and writing. I knew that if he'd show up, he'd be a great director.''

However, Rodriguez could not convince the Directors Guild of America of that. A week before shooting was scheduled to start, a union official appeared in Austin, citing guild rules that prohibit a second director from taking credit on such a project.

This was news to Rodriguez, since directing teams such as the Farrelly and Wachowski brothers get co-credit on DGA-signatory productions all the time.

``They said that those were special cases; the rule book said you must be a 'bona fide' team,'' says Rodriguez. ``They probably thought I was trying to stir up trouble, but no, I believed that this guy who had never directed before was a director. I understood that they didn't want to change or make an amendment to the rules and then have someone abuse it later, like happens with the writers and producers guilds, where there can be 100 names. That made sense to me, so I resigned from the DGA.''

That cost Rodriguez his next directing gig, a studio-developed adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' ``A Princess of Mars.'' But he's philosophical about the situation.

``I'll just make my own movies, which is what makes sense anyway,'' says the filmmaker, whose next release will now be ``The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D,'' a summer family fantasy based on an idea of his 7-year-old son's.

Ironically, one Hollywood watchdog organization that Rodriguez did not have trouble with was the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings board. This despite ``Sin City's'' immersion in all things depraved, up to and including flogging, cannibalism and castration. More than one castration.

``Actually, we had no problems with the MPAA or anything like that,'' Rodriguez said of receiving the R rating he'd sought. ``I think it had to do with the stylization of it. The abstract nature of Frank's depictions of violence or action or characters in the comic book translated directly to the screen. Frank never drew the books with the intention that someday it would be on the screen. Some things (like extended male nudity) needed to be adapted, but otherwise we stuck pretty close to the books.''

Which means the weirdness stayed.

``People just haven't seen anything like it,'' Rodriguez says. ``It wasn't like, here's a movie that has some stunt effects. The visuals, the storytelling and the audacity of the story itself, they work hand-in-hand. You can go see a 'Sky Captain' or a 'Star Wars,' but I really think this is very different. People will be astonished by what they see.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Original `Sin'

You've never seen it like THIS before

(2) Director Robert Rodriguez and cartoonist/co-director Frank Miller, right, on the set of ``Sin City.''

(3) Benicio Del Toro as the film's degenerate cop, Jackie Boy.

(4) ``Nudity was an option; we could have done it if we wanted to. But I felt like dancing around with a lasso and chaps was gonna be sexy enough,'' says Jessica Alba of her role as exotic dancer Nancy.