Biography

Born on October 6^th, 1956 in Manchester, England, Danny Boyle is the son of Irish immigrants (Biography).  Boyle grew up going to the cinema which in a ironic twist of fate, he never got into a movie theater until he was 18 years old (New York Times).  He attended the Thornleigh Salesian College until a priest encouraged him not to enroll in a seminary (The Bolten News).  He then attended University of Wales where he studied English and Drama (New York Times).  During the 80’s, he began working in television at BBC Northern Ireland producing shows such as Alan Clarke’s Elephant before directing Arise And Go Now, Not Even God Is Wise Enough, For The Greater Good, Scout and episodes of Inspector Morse (Imdb).  Boyle started directing his first film in 1994 called Shallow Grave which was shot in thirty days and with a lot of the props sold for the movie to afford film stock (contact music). The movie earned Boyle the Best Newcomer Award from the 1996 London Film Critics Circle as well as other flick Trainspotting in which both films cases, established him with reviews as someone who revitalized British cinema in the 90s (thetelepath).  He directed other movies such as The Beach which was panned by critics, Strumpet, A Life less Ordinary, Millions, Sunshine, Alien Love Triangle, 28 Day Later which is considered on the best horror movies ever made, 127 Hours, and his recently released movie Trance which came out in March 2013.   One of his biggest movies, Slumdog Millionaire released in 2008 won him eight Oscar’s awards.

His contribution to cinema Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later changed cinematography to an extent.  Trainspotting was praised for managing to enact the youth culture at the time and felt that it was "acted out with a freedom of expression that is often astonishing” (The guardian) and for portraying how addicts act around each other.  28 Days later was praised by critics and horror movie fans for not only changing the notion of “zombies” but also for the movie by managing to be somewhat of a “political allegory, a humanist drama and how it balances ‘white-knuckled’ hell-for-leather horror with moments of intimate beauty.” (bloodydiscusting.com). Slumdog Millionaire was praised for the plot and its flashbacks, its soundtrack which kind of had a Bollywood kind of feel, the cinematography and its editing.  The movie won seven BAFTA awards as well as best film, four Golden Globes and a couple of Critic’s Choice Awards (Imdb). While it was praised by critic outside of India it was kind of mixed in India with most of them being positive of the movie.  The most critical was Adoor Gopalakrishnan (arguably the best filmmaker in India) considered it and “Anti-Indian film” being it endorses how the west views the country (youtube).  Despite mixed reaction for India, Slumdog Millionaire was widely successful.

Citations
Grice, Elizabeth. "From Fleapit to the Red Carpet." Telegraph.co.uk. Telegraph Media Group, 23 Feb. 2009. Web. 10 May 2013.<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4789045/From-fleapit-to-the-red-carpet.html>

"Danny Boyle Sold off Film Furniture to Complete Shallow Grave." | Orange UK. Orange, 8 Apr. 2013. Web. 1 May 2013. <http://web.orange.co.uk/article/news/danny_boyle_sold_off_film_furniture_to_complete_shallow_grave>

 Slumdog Millionaire IMDb: The Internet Movie Database. IMDb.com-Amazon.com,1990-2010. Web. 27 Apr. 2010. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048/>.


Dibbits, Kat. "Golden Globes Are Calling for Danny Boyle (From The Bolton News)." The Bolton News. Newsquest, 10 Jan. 2009. Web. 18 May 2013. <http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/4035893.Golden_Globes_are_calling_for_Danny_Boyle/>.

"Adoor Gopalakrishnan - Exclusive Interview on NDTV Hindu Night Vision- Part 3 - 3." YouTube. YouTube, 18 July 2009. Web. 17 May 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Eav_Xnk-I>.

 "00's Retrospect: Bloody Disgusting's Top 20 Films of the Decade...Part 3 -." Bloody Disgusting. Ed. Bloody Discusting Staff. Bloddy Discusting, 17 Dec. 2009. Web. 12 May 2013. <http://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/18425/00s-retrospect-bloody-disgustings-top-20-films-of-the-decade-part-3/>.

 "Danny Boyle - Biography - Movies & TV - NYTimes.com." Danny Boyle - Biography. The New York Times Company,Web. 9 May 2013. <http://movies.nytimes.com/person/188724/Danny-Boyle/biography>.

 "Danny Boyle." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 18 2013, 01:36 <http://www.biography.com/people/danny-boyle-412160>

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is maybe one of the few movies that combine the cinematography of Hollywood with the absurdity (At least in this stupid American college student’s perspective) of the weird craze that is Bollywood.  The movie at its core fits in the genre of dramatic and romantic story with a blend of humor while tying it all up to a game show for a the glue of the story.  The film stars an eighteen year old boy named Jamal who ends up in a “Who wants to be a millionaire” type of show in India in order to make contact with a childhood friend of his who was captured by a local gang. 

            Slumdog Millionaire feels and looks like a Bollywood film. From the music, environment, and dance, it really does feel like you are in a Bollywood version of India (not that that is a bad thing.).  The movie is cleverly edited and takes advantage of certain cuts.  Its main theme in contrast to the trailers and movie posters is not a love story about two people from the slums trying to find each other or the whole love can always outweigh money kind of movie. No, in fact, the main theme of the movie is Escapism and how it is a necessary piece of everyone’s lives but not a huge chunk of it. It shows viewers that there is no problem with having an escapist fantasy; just remember that there are real world stuff that needs to be done.

            One of the scenes more particular is the one that stretches throughout the movie and it is the interrogation and millionaire show.  Jamal is being held in an interrogation room when he is accused of cheating in the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire TV show and he is trying to prove his innocence by recalling how the answers in the show resemble or relate to a memory in his life.  The film opens with cut scenes of Jamal in the interrogation room and Jamal at the Who Wants to be a Millionaire television show.  These scenes show Danny Boyles main style of the movie which is Smash Cuts.  Smash cuts a type of technique in film where one scene interrupts and cuts to another without any transition.  It is used to keep the audience’s attention.  These are usually used for some movies that rely heavily on flashbacks to tell their narrative.  Slumdog Millionaire’s narrative relies heavily on flashbacks as Jamal is recounting how he knew most of the answers on the show due to a past experience in his life.  That is where the Smash cut comes into play.   In order to show the two different areas that the film cuts to for Jamal, it cuts back to the interrogation room and the TV show.  These both come into play when concerning the main theme of the movie which happens to be Escapism.  Jamal sees the interrogation room as a harsh look on life in his real life while the television show is an escapist world where he can relax and try to earn some money.  This is reflected through the visuals of the movie between these two locations.  The Interrogation scenes are shown in orange and red and with many close-ups.  This gives a sense of uneasiness and a sense of claustrophobia and fear.  It makes the audience member feel uneasy and harsh and since red and orange colors give humans a sense of anger and a rush of adrenaline it is give the viewer a tense and uneasy movement.  For Jamal, this is how his life feels like.  He did not live an easy life, and the interrogation scenes reminds him of his life was and probably still is painful, harsh, and unforgiving and is further emphasized during the close-up shots.  The “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” location represents the escapist route of Jamal as the area is filled with a blue palate with medium and wide shots in order for the viewer to see the whole audience and the set of the show.  The color blue in a psychological sense represents a very calming soothing emotion to some people which considering what Jamal had to go through the movie is somewhat of a means of him in a relaxed state.   In a way, the television show reveals the escapist fantasy of Jamal because in general, Television is one means in which a person and enter an escapist fantasy. Viewers use it to escape the real world and relax and Jamal is using it as a means to call a friend.   Jamal is in an environment which is to an extent of the viewer, fake.  The color changes makes the difference between the Real and Escapist area in which Jamal goes through. They are both two different worlds and the color palates represented them.  This is how Danny Boyle shows the shift between these two worlds in a visual sense to the viewer.

            As far as the more verbal and psychological sense of the view is how Jamal is treated in between these two worlds.  In the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire show, which represent the Escapist world of the movie, he is treated harshly by the audience and much more by the host due to him being a Slumdog and in their view, someone who should not be able to answer any of these questions.  Keep in mind; this is the escapist world of the movie.  The Escapist world should be a means for someone to avoid the rabble and troubles of the real world and when the Escapist world starts or has to an extent already turned on him, it is a sign that Jamal needed to escape that world and reenter the real world.      It also makes the audience and more so the Game show host that their escapist fantasy or expectations about a Slumdog not being smart enough to earn a million dollars with Jamal literally answering these questions correctly.  In real life, he would of lost the game, but this escapist world, he succeeds.

28 Days Later

 

Monkey raging in their cages, activists breaking them out and getting the activist infected.  That is followed by panic, fear, and instinct for survival. That is what the first couple of minutes of 28 days later show viewers.  Funny thing with the movie is that the infected are not the vocal point of the movie (and in a sense that could be said about a lot of zombie genre movies.).  Instead the movie covers several different topics including hedonism of western civilization, increase of violence in our daily media, and in some cases; Christianity.  The movie’s plot takes place 28 Days Later after the introduction.  A young man played by Cillian Murphy wakes up from a coma that was in before the infection and sees that the busy city that he was in now abandoned and is trying to figure out why and survive.  The movie could be interpreted in a number of ways.  It could be called a theatrical documentary on what could happen if humans could be mindless and violent through infection or 

looks safe enough

Probably the most terrifying part of the movie is when Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from his coma and finds nothing anywhere.  The hospital he wakes up from is trashed and abandoned.  He leaves and finds the very city of London completely trashed and abandoned.  London is one of the busiest cities in the world. It is basically the New York of Great Britain.  So when the viewer sees that very city abandoned and lifeless, it brings in the tension as to how of what would of caused something like this.  Keep in mind that Jim just woke up from a coma.  He is weak, disoriented, and confused with no one there to help him.  The very atmosphere of London is captured perfectly thanks to the way the whole scene was filmed.  The filming of the scene (and the movie in general) was made using a Canon XL-1 digital camera. It was not the best camera in the world; in fact it wasn’t that good.  I was in production in 1997 and discontinued in 2001.  That’s about a year after the film came out in Europe and almost two years after it came out in the United States.  The reason for mentioning the camera for this scene is the fact that the very grainy and low cost of the camera is what makes the scene even more unsettling.  The scene looks like something from an old documentary film. It has a very outdated look which definitely helps extend the comfortableness of the scenario that Jim has himself in and an uncomfortable feeling that the audience is looking at. It is kind of like the description that Mark Borchardt from American Movie described the look of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (IMDB).  It reminds the viewer of something from science class (cinemassacre).  Now what does that mean?  Look back into high school especially if the science building was built in the 90’s.  It has grainy look to it and uneasiness to it like someone died there.  That is the feeling the introduction gives Jim and the audience and that is before Jim is introduced to the infected.  

I stand corrected

The scene also introduces the infected and Jim trying to avoid them.  The infected (or running zombies depending on who is talking about the movie), act much differently than zombies were portrayed in past movies.  While they maintain a sort of mindless goal, they act on it aggressively and quickly.  These antagonists move fast, and vomit blood on others in order to spread the infection.  It is a type of rabies that infects in seconds. Jim’s first encounter with an infected happen to be in a church where he sees countless bodies (and some stragglers) and an infected priest.  Danny Boyle puts on religious symbolism in this scene by having the scene go on with the religious song Ave Maria playing in the scene.  The very song itself has a deep religious meaning to it in which in Latin means Hail Mary.  It could represent on how some religions are a crux to some violence in the world or the infected may represent some people who mindless follow what religion preaches rather than teaches.  From the introduction to Jim waking up from the hospital to his confrontation with the infected happens in a span of 15 minutes.  In just 15 minutes, the world of the movie is defined, the main character is introduced without much exposition, and the main crux of the movie is revealed and established and that was without an hour of exposition something that the Matrix had to many of in its introduction.

As far as the infected characters in their role in the movie, they represent rage.  It is one of the central forces and drives of the plot and it is not just tied to the infected but to humans as well.  Rage is the relation to society in which is one of the main causes of war, and one of overall causes of violence in society.  Danny Boyle shoots this movie as a social commentary in which how rage could lead to the downfall of society a whole.  We as a society are exposed to violence in some way or another whether it is on television, movies, video games and especially the internet.  We have access to these sorts of things.  With technology increasing every year, we have more exposure to these things.  Whether those things involve violence or a phase that is taken the wrong way, rage has been exposed more than it was back in the 20^th century.  Even the smallest things could lead someone into a rage fueled agenda.  One of the best examples of rage causing the downfall of society is the very beginning of the movie.  Protesters are violently trying to get into a test lab in which scientist is testing new serums on monkeys.  The protesters violently break in and despite constant warnings that a foreign and unknown virus is inside these monkeys, they ignore it and release them from their cages and that is how the infection started; rage.  The protestors could not control their emotions. If they settled this in a calm matter, the infection would not have spread.  Instead their rage causes this to happen.  It was their rage that doomed their people and as far as the audience is aware of, humanity itself.

Citations

 Rolfe, James. "Cinemassacre Videos for IOS and Android." Cinemassacre Productions RSS. Cinemassacre, 17 Oct. 2007. Web. 20 Apr. 2013. <http://cinemassacre.com/2007/10/17/texas-chainsaw-massacre/>.

"American Movie." IMDb: The Internet Movie Database. IMDb.com-Amazon.com,1990-2010. Web. 27 Apr. 2013. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181288/>.