Okay, so I searched the thread to read people's comments on Sin City when it first came out, and I have to say how relieved I was to read Hec's take on it:
First of all let me note that his movie is not Noir. This movie is a big Catholic passion play. It's a meditation on how much fleshly suffering you are willing to endure to be good. And not good in the eyes of the world, but to die justified. That is not Noir. Noir is Calvinist, fated. You don't die redeemed. You die because you fucked the wrong girl. You die because you made some stupid little half-assed mistake.
How many wounds to the male genitals were there in this movie? Six or seven at least. Because dicks are evil. Again...Catholic. Wounding the flesh again and again.
About 2 minutes into it, I knew it was never meant to be considered Noir. It was, for one thing, too self-consciously stylized to be Noir. And the characters were -- not stereotypes, but almost Jungian archetypes.
Where the Catholic sensibility of it struck me was in how women are portrayed. It doesn't matter that they're whores who kill to protect their territory, it doesn't matter that luscious Carla Gugino is a lesbian -- the women are portrayed as Righteous. Absolutely they are. Marv goes to operatic extremes to avenge Goldie, the whore who used him for protection but still made him feel loved. That's a twisted and almost beautiful 21st century version of courtly love, basically. Worship of The Woman as righteous and pure -- not sexually pure, not legally righteous, but you betcha they're portrayed as morally pure and righteous. Not just Marv avenging Goldie, but the whole clan of hookers, defending their territory so that they can work the streets on their own terms -- sure, it isn't legally righteous, and whores aren't generally seen as "pure," but defending your territory to maintain your own agency in the world? Righteous. Avenging angels.
And then there's Nancy. Little icon of innocence saved from the clutches of a rapist at the age of 11, who essentially "saves herself" for Hartigan, her savior, the man who is old enough to be her grandfather. (Understand, I *don't* think that 19-year-old Nancy is a virgin when Hartigan returns, but, again, I'm not talking about *sexual* purity; I'm talking about a purity of intent, and emotion.)
That's a very very Catholic take on women, twisted through Miller's psyche though it may be.