"127 Hours" takes viewers
on a thrilling countdown

Filmmaker Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle, the Academy Award® winning director of 2008's Best Picture, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE brings his acute touch to 127 HOURS, the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's (James Franco) remarkable adventure to save himself after a falling boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated slot canyon in Utah.

This is Ralston’s story.  On a Friday night in April of 2003, an adventurous 26-year-old drove to Utah to spend the weekend hiking in the stunningly beautiful and remote Canyonlands National Park.  Six days later, he would emerge to recount the most remarkable story of outdoor survival, and an unforgettable tale of human strength when faced with adversity. 

Boyle and James Franco in a scene from 127 HOURS

It is stated that from the moment Boyle first began reading Ralston’s best-selling memoir, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, he knew exactly what kind of film he wanted to convey.  A film that would use a highly subjective camera to penetrate the lead character’s personal journey, to get under Aron’s skin and into his head during an urgent life-or-death circumstance and, that he did. 

“I knew I wanted to bring the audience into the canyon with Aron and not let them go until he is released,” Boyle explains. “I saw this as an extraordinary story of outdoor survival, but I also think there is a whole other layer to this story that will be surprising for people. It’s not simply about how Aron survived, incredible as that is. There is a life force that Aron tapped into that goes way beyond his remarkable courage as an individual.  This is what we hoped to capture on screen. It’s something that binds us all together and when Aron, who seems all alone in this canyon, is pulled back to the idea of community, something very powerful happens.”

Recently, I sat with Boyle at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco to discuss 127 Hours--

Talk2SV: If we could, I’d like to spend some time with you, Danny Boyle, the human being.  Given the success you’ve had with “Slumdog Millionnaire” in addition to other films, films that you direct are now introduced with your name on top.  What does being “Danny Boyle” mean to Danny Boyle, the person?

Boyle: That’s a very difficult question to answer, but, I’ll try.  I have values that are very important to me and I try to express them in the films (I direct) however dark they may sometimes be.  But, even more importantly, I try to operate or live or make the films according to those values, even if the films are about zombies running around London and killing people.  

I believe that films should behave with dignity and respect to everybody on a film crew no matter how highly they’re paid or lowly they’re paid.  I think everybody should be treated the same --things like that are very important to me-- and those are values that were given to me by my mother; I’ve learned to try and live by them. I don’t always live up to them, we all fail many times at lots of stuff but those are the values that are important to me.  Yeah, that’s probably all there is really, to be honest. That’s it really, it’s not more complicated than that; I try to do that with everybody that I meet really.

The problem is, I think sometimes you can see it written on people’s faces, that people expect a director to scream at them; I don’t really do that, you know. I think I’ve only lost my temper once, actually many, many, many years ago and I regret that because there’s always a way around it.

Danny Boyle was Executive Producer of “28 Weeks Later”

Talk2SV: Since “Slumdog” and the way it was received and honored, you are no longer seen the same, an opinion shared by many.

Boyle: Yeah, it’s true actually.  It’s interesting.  Obviously, many people say, ‘how has it changed you?’ The truth is that it doesn’t really except that it changes everybody else and therefore you do change because it’s changed everybody else. Everybody starts calling me ‘Mr. Boyle’ and things like that which infers some kind of respectability which I’m not worthy of, I’m really not.  It’s a strange one really, the way it kind of sends a little tremor through your own little universe which does change things a bit.

Talk2SV: Using your phrase, ‘a tremor through your universe,’ this film, “127 Hours” punctuates the need to take advantage of every day, every hour and to evaluate your every waking moment.

Boyle: Yeah, it begs the question, ‘how are you going to value the people that you are with?’ People think the story is about an individual super hero in a way and, of course, what he ends up doing is extraordinary. But, my belief is [that] we are all capable of it because in the circumstances we probably would all try and do it; we might not succeed, but we would try.  I never thought the film was about that super hero thing. I always thought the film was about all the people who are not there on his journey.

I didn’t want to make a survivor film or a bio-pic survivor film about the incident. I wanted to actually make a film where a guy goes on a journey and, it felt to me, that he was on a journey from supreme individualism, which he is an extraordinary individual classically, anyway.  He can run ultra marathons; he can climb 14,000 feet peaks and doesn’t need anybody apparently.  We all need everybody and we’re all interconnected.  He has to learn that and he does learn that lesson. He does move toward grace and grace only comes out of not only brilliant super heroism it comes out of the modesty. 

James Franco stars as Aron Ralston in “127 Hours”

Talk2SV: When you have movies such as this where a solo character is relied upon to carry the emotional arc of the film along with everything else, it’s important who you cast and how that person will connect with the story.  At what point did you know that James Franco was the right choice as the lead character?

Boyle: Well, I didn’t know it initially but when I saw him in “Pineapple Express,” I must have thought, ‘that’s him!’  I remember watching De Niro in the early Scorcese films, those intense movies and he was fantastic. Then he did a movie called “King of Comedy” with Scorcese and I just thought, that’s beyond incredible. He (De Niro) can do comedy as well and I did the same thing with Franco; I’ve enjoyed his performances.  He’s pretty amazing, a pretty good actor: you’ve seen him in “Spider Man,” “Milk,” the “James Dean” bio pic, stuff like that, awesome.  Then you see him do “Pineapple Express,” a high comedy. You think, ‘that’s a complete actor’ so that helped me pick him, certainly that feeling that he might be able to bring that variety, that contrast to the canyon.  He was going to be playing all the characters, there’s no other, the comic relief isn’t coming in and the villain isn’t coming, there’s a change of tone, it’s all under James grasp each time. You said, ‘it’s important.’  It’s beyond important; it’s like we wouldn’t be here [talking] if it hadn’t have worked, because it would have been unwatchable without that kind of performance, for sure.

Talk2SV: As an audience, we are pulling for this character to get out of the cave.  American audiences want to rush to conclusion all too often yet; the entrapment is a lingering aspect of the film. We had to labor with the character, as it were. Were there ever considerations that you had of yourself or that producers had of you to rush through the entrapment sequence?

Boyle: You could have done so but you had to honor Aron’s story.  The time that he spent in there was critical; he only arrives at redemption when, at the end of the journey --which is both a physical one because he’s very, very close to death and obviously it’s an emotional journey-- that he makes and fully connects with the meaning of life.  I always agreed with the producer; we always agreed the film would be 90 minutes long, maximum.  There is a limit to what you are going to be able to tolerate.  I think you’ve got to ‘wait’ because it would trivialize the story not to show what he went through.  You can’t trivialize this kind of story, you have to somehow live through the experience with James Franco.  When you come out on the other side, it will have been worth it; that ‘wait’ will have been worth it.  Going through it is something that you can feel more deeply, the euphoria is more deeply felt because it’s not a cheap thrill.

Talk2SV: What is your commentary about American film audiences?

Boyle: Oh, I like watching films with audiences here; they’re much more vocal than in Europe. People shout out at the screen, and I love that. I mean, in Europe everybody’s going, ‘shhh, shhh,’ but I actually like the fact that sometimes people have dialogue with characters on the screen.  You can sense that there’s a love of movies here (in the U.S.) which we don’t have in Britain.  The French have it and, funnily enough, India has it as well: the absolute love of movies. The British love the weather, we talk about the weather the whole time in the way that Americans talk about the movies.  It’s bizarre, you know.  So I love that [aspect] about the love of movies here, I really do.