Danny Boyle defends gruesome '127 Hours'
Danny Boyle, one of if not the most personable filmmaker I've ever had the pleasure of interviewing, stopped by Dallas recently to talk about "127 Hours," the based-on-truth saga of Aron Ralston.
If Ralston's name isn't familiar to you, I'm guessing his plight is. In April of 2003, 26-year-old Ralston, an adventurer and mountain climber, cut off his arm with a dull knife to escape a boulder that trapped him in a Utah canyon. He had been trapped for over five days and nights.
Boyle, a Best Director Oscar winner for "Slumdog Millionaire" (which also took Best Picture honors and virtually swept the Academy Awards in 2009), fielded questions from film journalists gathered around a table at a near-downtown hotel.
As usual, he was quite candid. Boyle spoke openly about audience members having a tough time dealing with the graphic depiction of a desperate man's desperate act to survive.
QUESTION: What was the thought process in magnifying the sound in this movie?
ANSWER: It was to make the journey as intense as possible. I mean, you've got two things. Because you're got no other characters, James has to play all the parts, all the tones. So you need a great actor who's going to have contrast and variation in what they can play. The most obvious example of that is the talk show host when he does that. He introduces these comic tones and then very tender tones.
But you also need to provide as much variety as possible as a director. Some of it is music. You can do it with music and rhythm of editing. And some of it you can create worlds. And water is a character in the film. It's beyond important, so you want to give it a point of view.
Q: When you showed this film in Toronto (and later, other places), some people in the audience had a little trouble with the inevitable cutting-off-the-arm scene. What were you thinking at that point in Toronto? Did you think you pushed the audience exactly where you wanted to, or perhaps that you had pushed them too far?
A: What you feel -- and it's happened a few times, and I've been in the auditorium when it has happened -- (is) that it's very distressing. Your main concern is for the person, that they're going to be OK. In fact, one guy woke up and said, "Great film, by the way, guys." I swear to God, that's absolutely true.
I thought about it very deeply after that. And the studio's reaction was to try and stop the news from getting out. It's not a horror film. You want this film to be for everyone of a certain age, I think.
I followed the book very, very closely in the scene. I haven't increased it, nor have I decreased it from what's in the book and Aron's experience of it. So it's very, very close to the way Aron described it.
Q: Can you talk about the development of the project? Did it start with you reading the book?
A: No, it started with the real story. I was in London and I remember hearing this report of him (Aron) being pulled out of the canyon. It was just extraordinary. After a couple of weeks, he did a press conference in the hospital. I remember waiting to try to hear that story. Then I read the book ("Between a Rock and a Hard Place") in 2006 and I approached him. I met him in Europe.
Q: Can you talk about the "Frankenstein" play and the Olympic Games?
A: I started working as a director in the theater, but it's been about 15 years since I've done any theater.
We started talking about "Frankenstein." We have this idea about the perspective of the story. It has never been done. And we've been working on it ... It's taken a long time, but we're going to do it. It'll open in February, hopefully.
And then I'm doing the opening ceremony of the London (Olympic) Games in 2012. It's about a mile from my house where I live in East London. It's a very neglected area. It hasn't had much investments. This will regenerate the area. So I'm very proud of that. And I'm a sports fanatic, so how could I say no?
(Photo of James Franco as Aron Ralston and Danny Boyle on location courtesy: Fox Searchlight Pictures)
