After His Public Downfall_Frank Miller

8/11/2019 After His Public Downfall_Frank Miller

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After His Public Downfall,Sin CitysFrank Miller Is Back (And Not Sorry)

BY SEAN HOWE

F E L I X P F F F L I


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We see themiddle-aged man crouching in pain, alone. His clothes are torn, and one eye

is swelling shut, but his fists are clenched. He is a hero. He isthe Batman, as drawn by

Frank Miller,and he is on the T-shirt that Frank Miller is wearing.

Miller smiles. He's sitting in his studio in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan.

He has a red-flecked beard and gentle, watery eyes, and his longish hair peeks out from

under a straw hat. He's got a bad cough from a lingering cold. But don't let his frail carriage

fool you. Miller possesses a brutal, muscular worldviewof vigilantes pushed to the edge

by a fallen societythat has resonated throughout popular culture over the past three

decades. His 1986 breakthrough,Batman: The Dark Knight Returns,recast the

squeaky-clean superhero as a gritty urban warrior and helped comic-book trade paperbacks

storm bookstores for the first time. He created the indie comicSin City, a black-and-white

noir anthology series that he later turned into a big-budget movie with codirector Robert

Rodriguez. The film of hisgraphic novel300made Zack Synder an A-list director and

engendered a spate of imposters seeking to recapture its blockbuster success. His characters

are fighters, loners fueled by an inner sense of justice starkly at odds with the reality around

them. They are often bloodied but always uncompromising.

And Miller's blunt morality wasn't confined to the page or screen. He distinguished himself

as one of the most vocal and courageous forces in the comics industry, fighting corporate

exploitation and censorship. But, as if Miller were one of his own antiheroes, his stark

individualist philosophy has also led him down some lonely corridors. He's written graphic

novels that many of his fans recoil fromincluding one that WIRED called oneof the

most appalling, offensive, and vindictive comics of all time.And he followed that up with

ferocious online musings that provoked an outcry, even from some of his most stalwart

supporters. In recent years, he's withdrawn from the public eye.

Until now. In late August, Miller will return to the limelight as writer and codirector ofSin

City: A Dame to Kill For, the sequel to the 2005 blockbuster that represents his lastartistic and commercial success. A repeat performance is by no means guaranteed. The

screenplaywhich was adapted from his comic series along with new materialhas been

in the works for years. Its original October 2013 release date was pushed back almost a

year. Even at the time of this writing, no scenes from the film were ready to be shared with

a reporter. It's hard to be too pessimistic about a film that once again pairs Miller with
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Rodriguez and supplements its initial star-studded cast (Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, and

Mickey Rourke) with the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Eva Greenbut the question is

whether Miller can still marshal these forces to deliver a vision that enthralls rather than

alienates.

For now, though, he's just a guy in his studio, talking about country musicwhich he's

grown to cherish. Unsurprisingly, he's drawn to crusty rebels like Cash and Kristofferson.

But he's most moved by the tender soprano of Emmylou Harris. He picked her version of

Neil Young's WreckingBallduring the filming of a key scene in the originalSin

Citymovie; as he watched it, he wept. He particularly loves her work with Bob Dylan, like

1976'sDesire. Heseems to just wig outto go crazy, the way Bob Dylan does,Miller

says. Butshe keeps pulling him back in.

Miller had someone like that once, but they split up years ago. Rightnow, there's nothing

like an Emmylou, really,he says. I'mmuch more of a solo act.

Miller grew upin rural Vermont with six siblings, and when he just couldn't stand all

the commotion of a big family, he'd go play Tarzan on the 14 acres of land around his

parents' house, climbing trees too high, falling through branches and onto rocks, and finally

returning home a bloody mess. His mother, a former combat nurse, did not coddle him.

Shewould throw me in the bathtubI was only 5 years oldwash off my head, give me

butterfly stitches, and send me off to play again.Between scrapes, he saw The 300 Spartansat the local cinema and learned about iron will

in the face of impossible odds. Detective fictionMickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler,

Dashiell Hammettprovided another model of fortitude. Thisgreat universe of dark

characters, with their long trench coats and big guns, and all the beautiful women, helped

focus me,he says. So too did the work of Spillane admirer Ayn Rand, whoseRomantic

Manifestolegitimized heroic fiction for him. When he ran the high school newspaper, he

used it to attack what he saw as the moral failings of his teachers. Andthey couldn't stop

me,he says, becauseI knew how to use a printing press.Miller moved to Taxi Driver-era New York City in 1976, a nervous, lanky hick, an

Ichabod Crane in a land of dangeraround every corner.Subsisting on peanut butter

sandwiches and cheap hamburger meat, clutching a portfolio held together with stolen

baling twine, he was met with rejection at every turn. Go back to Vermont and pump

gas, people would tell him. He found work doing carpentry on a stranger's loft, but it


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turned out that the client was a cocaine dealer wanted by the Mafia. Miller walked in one

morning to face menwith guns, pointed at me. The next thing I remember, I was three

blocks away, breathing hard.It wasn't the last time city life would terrorize him.


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Like its predecessor, Sin Ci ty: A Dame To Ki l l Foris lovinglyand painstakingly

adapted from Millersoriginal work.

C O M I C S : C O P Y R I G H T F R A N K M I L L E R , I N C . C O U R T E S Y O F D A R K H O R S E C O M I C S

But he kept showing up at the studio of Neal Adamshis favorite Batman artistfor

critiques. The intense, quiet kid listened as Adams patiently eviscerated Miller's pages of

homemade black-and-white crime comics. Hetold me that I was just no damn good, and I

would never be any good,Miller says. Butmy problem is I got fired from every other job

I ever had. So it was either comics or nothing.

Itwas like trying to stop a force of nature,Adams says. Hewas a sponge. The last time

he came, he'd gotten a six-page assignment, and I went over what he'd done wrong, how he

could make it better. He said, You'resaying I have to draw it over again.' I said, Well,

yeah.He said, OK,but the problem is, I turned it in, and they accepted it.I said, Inthatcase, don't draw it over again; I think you just started your career.

With that, Miller was off. In 1979 he landed a job as the regular penciler ofDaredeviland

soon began writing the series, making him a true rarity in the world of superhero comics: an

artist who was also allowed to script. By the dawn of the '80s,Daredevil's crisp dialog and

inventive, cinematic cartooning had sent sales soaring and turned Miller into an industry

star. Frankwas pioneering new territory, at the vanguard of what could happen with

comics,says Jenette Kahn, the president and publisher of DC at the time. SoI called him

up and asked him to lunch. I said, Tellme what you want to do; it doesn't matter how

impossible you think it is.'

Miller pitchedRonin,an anticorporate sci-fi samurai tale that anticipated the cyberpunk

zeitgeist of the 1980s. The ambitious project was a risk for DC: Miller enjoyed vastly

increased creative autonomy as well as retaining copyright. Frankdidn't want to be loyal

to one company just because he had worked for them,says Lynn Varley, who colored the

series. Hewanted to break the system, much as Cary Grant had broken the Hollywood

studio system.Roninwas all-consuming for Miller and Varley, both professionally andpersonally. Working in marathon sessions, they soon began dating and moved in together.

WhenRoninwas released in the summer of 1983, the critical reception was glowing.

Varley's painted colors gave Miller's art greater depth, as well as prestige. Itwas about

changing the entire industry,Kahn says, puttingup a signpost of what comics could be.
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Yet even as Miller's career was taking off, the everyday violence in Manhattan at the time

was taking its toll. NewYork is no longer fit for human habitation,Miller told one friend.

After enduring three robberies in the course of a month, he and Varley decided to escape to

LA. While she went out west to search for a home, he stayed behind to set up more work to

get them out of debt. He had a check in his pocket when, once again, someone tried to rob

him. Frankjust went berserk on the guy,Varley says. Hedidn't hit him or anything, he

just went so berserk the guy backed off and ran away. We were on edge.

That anxiety would fuel Miller'sDark Knight, which reimagined Batman as an

embittered, bristle-haired 55-year-old ready for punks to make his day. Published in 1986,

the year Miller and Varley married, it became a pop culture phenomenon, garnering lavish

coverage fromRolling StoneandSpin. Reviewers and readers were particularly drawn to

the dark reinterpretation of its campy source material. Along with Alan

Moore's Watchmen, released the same year,Dark Knightgave comics a new

respectability and gave the medium exposure beyond the dingy confines of news-stands and

specialty stores. Together they cemented the viability of comics as literature and ushered in

the current age of the conflicted superheroThe Dark Knightclearly inspiring Tim

Burton's 1989Batmanmovie and all the grittier films that followed in its wake. Miller

was now a bona fide public figure. He'd already been the most vocal gadfly in comics

circlesrallying troops to combat an MPAA-like ratings system, raising funds for retailers

who'd been scapegoated by overzealous crusaders against obscenitybut this was

different. It was mobbed-by-fans celebrity.

A few years afterDark Knight, however, Miller found himself at a professional

crossroads. The success of the title kindof flipped him out,Varley says. Anyonewho's

had the excitement of success, what happens afterward is very confusing and very hard to

sort through.Miller tried his hand at screenwritinghe worked on the scripts of

twoRoboCopsequelsbut the films flopped and the Hollywood grind made him

miserable. (You'vegot to be always afraid of the deadly words Ilove you,'he says,

whichmean I'vegot the dagger in your back and I'm about to twist it.')


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R I C H A R D B U R B R I D G E

But he would never fully leave the film industry. Over the next decades, as a generation

weaned on his comics began to rise in the Hollywood ranks, interest in adapting his

creations exploded: Artist Geof Darrow told Nerdist that the Wachowskis wanted to do ananimated adaptation of Miller and Darrow's comicHard Boiled, but Miller nixed it,

holding out hopes for a live-action version with Nicolas Cage (Darrow and Miller now

won't confirm this). Director Darren Aronofsky worked with Miller on adapting

bothRoninandBatman: Year One.Frankfound the process of writing screenplays

suffocating. He always came back from LA very upset and unhappy,Varley says. You

get beat up and insulted, but you get a really good check, and you go home to keep drawing

comics.

Those comics remained the purest expression of Miller's vision.Sin Citywas born in 1991,when an out-of-practice Miller picked up his pen and returned to the black-and-white crime

tales he'd never been able to sell. It was as if everythingthe backyard scrapes, Spillane

and Rand, Daredevil and Batman, the heartbreak of writing for Hollywoodwas distilled.

In Miller's world, unlikely protagonists rise up against sinister forces and stare evil in the

face. Loyalty is a virtue, but lovers rarely make for permanent allies, and old faces can

signal danger. The hero, alone, is defined by excruciating physical tests, and his code

allows for vengeance. Sometimes he survives.

But that need for vengeance could cause problems. At the turn of the millennium, Miller

and Varley were working on their long-awaitedDark Knightsequel. It was initially

hatched as a romp, a reinjection of Day-Glo fun into what had become a relentlessly grim

superhero landscape. They were about halfway through the series on September 11, 2001.

By this time Miller had moved back to New York, and the assault on his home disturbed

him deeplywhich again quickly became apparent in his work. In the later issues, Batman

decides to let an alien force destroy Metropolis and its citizens, Captain Marvel is killed,

and Batman kills a genetically manipulated Robin by hurling him into a lava-filled chasm.

Ithink there was a PTSD effect,Varley says of 9/11. Ithink many people didn't get over

it, that it will continue to affect their lives forever. And I think Frank is one of those

people.

The Dark Knight Strikes Againwas a critical disappointment. But Miller was

undeterred; he described 9/11 in a 2003 interview with The Comics Journalas thewhole
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point of my work. I'm going to play around with doing somepropagandizing.He began

working on another Batman book,Holy Terror, Batman!, which pitted the caped

crusader against al Qaeda.

Around that time, Rodriguez approached Miller with a plan to adaptSin City. At first

Miller resistedhe couldn't stomach the idea of ruiningSin Citywith studio notes and an

outside director. Rodriguez cut him off. I'mgoing to make it out ofmystudio,he

promised Miller. I'mgoing to write the script from yourbook.Most enticing of all, he

offered Miller the chance to codirect the film with him. That did the trick.

Sin City, a production of Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios, used greenscreen technology

to meticulously re-create Miller's stark black-and-white panels, synthesizing a glowingly

beautiful nightmare of a style as identifiably maverick as the original work. WithRobert,

Miller says, Idiscovered not just a good partner and a good friendI found another

brother.Perhaps emboldened by Rodriguez's behatted film-rebel persona, Miller soon

began wearing his own hata fedorafor public appearances. There would be a lot of

them: The film went on to gross more than $150 million worldwide.

It also reestablished Miller as a star. Private jets ferried him places; he rubbed elbows with

boldface names. Soon after theSin Citypremiere, Miller and Varley separated. Many of

his friends in the comics industry haven't seen him in years. Frankbecame even more

famous than before, exposed to a kind of celebrity he'd never experienced,Varley says. It

was really distracting. You don't want to come back to Hell's Kitchen and just drawpictures. It seems like a letdown.


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R I C H A R D B U R B R I D G E

Red carpet photosof Frank Miller are abundant. In one, taken at theSin

Citypremiere, he looks like an energetic man at the top of his game. His eyes are bright,

and his clean-shaven face seems almost boyish as he mugs for photographers and fans.Looking at Miller now, it's hard to believe that was just nine years ago. He's only 57, but

his face is gaunt; his eyes smolder rather than blaze. In 2012, after he canceled an

appearance due to injury, a columnist for Portland's Oregonianmentioned rumors that the

writer isreally struggling with health and dependency issuesand that friendsand

colleagues are fearing the worst.Miller has no comment.

His professional standing took a serious hit in 2008, the year after Zack Snyder's

meticulous adaptation of300earned $456 million. Miller had been hired to make a film of

Will Eisner's seminal '40s vigilante comic The Spirit. Itwas a very hot property to haveFrank Miller attached,saysSpiritproducer Deborah Del Prete.

But The Spiritfell prey to a danger thatSin Cityhad flirted withthat the faithful

application of comic-strip language to film could veer into stultification. Miller's

sensibility, so often pitch-perfect, seemed needlessly dark in the lighter world that Will

Eisner had created. The results were messy. Divorced from the panel flow of a comic-book

page, the fussily composed frames and staccato bursts of one-liners vanquished most traces

of humanity. When it was released, Miller's solo debut as a filmmaker was ravaged by

critics and ignored at the box office.

Weall thought Frank had his own following and that they'd be true to him regardless,

says Del Prete. Butthat was wrong.

THE MILLER MILL

Sin Ci ty: A Dame to K i l l Forsignals Frank Millersreturn to adapting his work for the bigscreen. But for every project Millersinvolved in, theresanother out there hesinspired.JASON KEHE


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Christopher NolansDark Knigh tTrilogyNolansBatman stems from MillersDark Knight not just in namehis subplots (BruceWayne retiring) and character arcs (especially the Joker) come directly from the 80sminiseries.

Zack SnydersCareer


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After his 2007 panel-to-frame adaptation of 300, Zack Snyder basically internalizedMillersaesthetic. See: the high-saturation gloss ofSucker Punch, the visual splash pagethat wasMan of Steel, andjudging from interviews2016sBatman v Superman: Dawnof Just ice.

The Wolverin eHugh Jackman didntgo to Japan for funthat was the setting of Millers80sWolverinecomic with Chris Claremont. Jackman had been eager to adapt it for years, and the 2013movie borrowed a number of characters from the story.


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TMNT

The original Teenage Mutan t Ninja Turtleswas created as a parody of 80sninja

comicsspecifically Millerswork on Roninand Daredevi l.

E V E R E T T C O L L E C T I O N

That became even more apparent when issues of his widely panned seriesAll-Star

Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonderwhich featured a gratuitously sadistic Batman

stopped appearing in 2008. Then, in September 2011, Miller finally publishedHoly

Terror,the graphic novel that had been percolating for a decade. By then the project had

left DC's development pipeline, and Miller had redrawn it without the Batman. Frenetic and

vicious,Holy Terrorportrayed a cowardly American populace, a corrupt government, and

a protagonist who gloated while committing torture on Muslims. What were readers being

rallied to do, exactly? If a piece of propaganda is to be judged by how many it persuades or

even by the coherence of its message, thenHoly Terror's failure was profound. The

reviews, and the response from fans, were unforgiving.

Peopleattacked my city,Miller says today. Theykilled my neighbors. I despisethem.

And I want them destroyed If people think that's somehow reactionary or overly
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conservative, that's their problem. Let them have their neighbors murdered and see what it

feels like.

Despite the uproar, Miller didn't exactly back down. Instead he followed upHoly

Terrorwith astartling anti-Occupy rant on his personal website.Wakeup, pond scum,

he wrote. Americais at war against a ruthless enemy. Maybe you've heard terms like

al-Qaeda and Islamicism. And this enemy of minenot of yours, apparentlymust be

getting a dark chuckle, if not an outright horselaughout of your vain, childish, self-

destructive spectacle.His websitewhich he'd promoted as amore direct, participatory

way for us to stay in touchfilled up with comments, over 11,000 of them. The site was

abandoned soon thereafter, although the comment-section vituperation remains. Iused to

be your biggest fan,reads the top-voted comment on the page. You'renow dead to me.

Miller's comic-book contemporary, the avowedly anarchic writer Alan Moore, went even

further. FrankMiller is someone whose work I've barely looked at for the past 20 years,

he told an interviewer. Ithink that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility

apparent in Frank Miller's work for quite a long time.

Asked about it now, Miller is immovable:

So about that Occupy postit was about that time that your updates stopped.

My computer was disabled, so I've I've been offline. And I'm kind of enjoying it.

You're completely offline?

Completely, now.

Because of the Occupy thing?

No, it was computer problems. I haven't solved it.

You should get a better technician if you want to get back on.

[A silent stare.] I will.On a July morning two months after our interview, Miller is standing before thousands of

people who have crammed themselves into the San Diego Convention Center to pay fealty

to their hero. It's Comic-Con, and he's here to promoteSin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Codirector Robert Rodriguez sits to his right. Stars Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, and Josh

Brolin fill out the rest of the panel. But Miller is clearly the big draw. Most fans haven't
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heard much from him since the dark days of 2011. If anyone here feels any lingering

negativity, it's completely overwhelmed by excitement over what looks to be a return to

form.

Miller seems in good spirits. He walks out onstage with a halting gait, but he's clean-shaven

and seems almost youthful again. Seeing him in his black T-shirt and straw Panama hat,

speaking before an army of admirers, it's easy to imagine him poised for yet another

comeback. He mentions that he has moreSin Citystories to tell and has a plateful of other

projects in the works. But he and Rodriguez are already discussingSin City 3soyou'd

better show up for this one,he says, orelse they won't pay for it.Meanwhile, the Syfy

network has announced a series based onRonin, and Netflix's 2015Daredevilseries

appears to be based on the gritty '70s vision of New York City that was the backdrop of

Miller's version.

For a self-declared solo act, Miller seems to thrive with this set of collaborators. Rodriguez,

Alba, and Dawson all hail Miller's fine touch with actors, bringing out the best in them and

helping them understand their characters. To hear Rodriguez tell it, Miller could be

downright giddy at times, especially when he was pleased with a take. Frankdoesn't grin

very often,Rodriguez says, soif he had a big grin on his face, you knew you'd nailed it.

All in all, the afternoon has the celebratory feel of a hero's homecoming. Miller has

struggled, but he's here nowand this crowd seems eager to welcome him back. As thepanel ends, Rodriguez and the cast stand up and move away from the long table, but Miller

sits there for a beat. Then he leans toward the microphone. I'llbe damned,he says, ifit

takes us nine years until the next one.

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After His Public Downfall_Frank Miller