Dan’s the man for gory glory

OSCAR-winning director Danny Boyle knew from the outset which sequence in his new film 127 Hours would be the most talked about – when the leading character cuts off his own arm.

Aron Ralston was forced into this drastic action after falling while climbing a rock face in Utah’s Blue John Canyon. He was trapped for almost six days, saving himself from certain death by amputating his arm using just a blunt penknife and the rock itself.

Boyle anticipated it would be a challenging sequence, both to film and for the audience to watch. He used Ralston’s book, Between A Rock And A Hard Place, as the template for designing the scene.

“We did it like the book, because we knew that it would be potentially very controversial if we either pushed it too much into horror but just as dangerous was to trivialise it by making it too easy, too quick,” explains Boyle, whose other directorial credits include Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later and The Beach.

“So we followed the book probably closer than any other moment in the film. And so we tried to show it very, very accurately because it’s the most extraordinary piece of writing, it genuinely is.

“I read that and I was breathless reading it. And I thought ‘I want that same quality’. I knew that it was crucial to get the right actor. And I knew I wanted that same quality that’s in the book where an audience would feel like it was unwatchable but at the same time they are compelled to watch it.”

There have been claims that some audience members have fainted during the scene, perhaps more through the anticipation than the actual depiction of Ralston’s actions. “It’s not an easy thing to watch and it shouldn’t be,” admits the director.

“Of course it shouldn’t be, otherwise it’s a trick. You want to feel it, and it gets very intense for some people.

But for most, it’s an extraordinary thing that leads to catharsis and euphoria and, as Aron calls it, ecstasy.

“It’s an absolute ecstatic moment of life being given back again when you thought it was finished. Everybody can relate to that.”

After Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars – including best picture and best director – at the 2008 Academy Awards Boyle could have taken his pick from the tempting offers that popped through his letterbox.

Instead, he turned them all down and returned to a project he’d been trying to make for years.

“You do get offered a lot of stuff but what you do is take the power it gives you – and it’s temporary and minor but it’s significant – and use it to make a film that you believe in,”

he says.

“Although at first 127 Hours seems unwatchable, it’s actually the reverse.

It’s an incredibly compelling story. So we thought ‘well, let’s use the power to finance something that the powers-that-be might normally say, no thanks, we’ll pass on that one’.

“I mean, it’s the story of a guy who’s trapped in a canyon for nearly six days and then he cuts his arm off.

We used the Oscar success as a way to get it made.”

Boyle first tried to get the film off the ground in 2006, meeting Ralston only to learn that he wanted his story told as a documentary rather than a drama. Disappointed, the director accepted his decision and turned his creative eye elsewhere – to Slumdog Millionaire, which proved exactly the calling card that convinced Ralston he’d do his story justice. “It showed Aron that we make decent films and he saw in Slumdog that we were serious.

There’s a dance scene at the end of that film and everyone thinks it’s a feelgood film but there’s a lot of brutality in the film as well,” says Boyle.

“He felt that he could trust us and that if we could find the right actor he was prepared to let us have a go at it. He’s always been nervous and, of course, he would be because we could have done anything with his story.

“But he was also reassured by James (Franco) playing the role. He knew James’s work and knew how good he is.”

Boyle is currently directing an adaptation of Frankinstein at London’s National Theatre with Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock in the recent BBC1 series) and Jonny Lee Miller (from Trainspotting) alternating the roles of the creature and Dr Victor Frankinstein on alternative nights.

“Because they are the creator and the created, we thought it would be really interesting if they could look at each other every night and play each other’s roles. It’s very much a two-hander, that’s the engine of the piece. It’s nice because it puts the accent on performances and not on make-up.”

Boyle is also involved in another big production – as director of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. “We’re trying to learn from Beijing, which could be very intimidating,”

he says.

“But we’ve learnt to accept its power, its majesty and that Beijing completed a cycle of a certain type of show that introduced the games. I don’t think any nation in the world, with the possible exception of India in a few years time, could try and do something on that scale.

“We haven’t got that kind of money and I don’t think anybody would have the appetite for that kind of expenditure and that kind of control.”

So he’ll be trying to do something a “bit more intimate” and reminding everyone that the ceremony’s proper function is to welcome the athletes to the city for their games. “The most important thing is the games and not the opening ceremony,” he says.

“The stadium is useful, it’s not particularly striking aesthetically but it’s very finely done. It’s like a porcelain bulb and has the same capacity as Beijing with half the footprint.

It’s amazing so we’ll try and use that as an inspiration to make it more intimate.”