Danny Boyle: Interviews

Introduction

ix Introduction “Everyone was saying my dad will be able to graze sheep on his lawn now!”1 After winning an Oscar for Best Director, most people would imagine this success to provide a little more benefit than giving your father unprecedented grazing rights but, then again, not everyone is Danny Boyle. Perhaps as philosophically and creatively far away from Hollywood as a mainstream filmmaker can be, Danny Boyle has made a cinematic career out of bending the rules, ignoring expectations, and, frankly, going unnoticed for the past decade. That is, until now. Slumdog Millionaire, released in 2008, became Danny Boyle’s crowning achievement . Winning eight Oscars out of ten nominations, seven BAFTAs out of eleven nominations and all four Golden Globes it was nominated for, the film was a textbook hit, the kind of undeniable phenomenon that most directors never achieve. And yet, this working-class Briton of Irish descent did the impossible: he brought a starless “foreign film” that almost died in “straight to DVD hell” into worldwide attention and appreciation. Though his film career spans only fifteen years, Boyle’s journey has been a lot longer. He discovered an interest in drama while attending the University of Bangor in Wales but, as he describes, jumping straight into filmmaking was a tad far-fetched. “I couldn’t get into the British film industry because it was very fenced off at the time, very clubby.”2 Theatre, as it turns out, was much more accepting of the newcomer. Working in various capacities for the Joint Stock Theatre Company and the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, Boyle then took another step closer to Hollywood by taking a job in television no one else wanted. In 1987, he began producing programs for BBC Northern Ireland when “The Troubles” there still had a decade of violence and tension left to go. In 1994, Boyle and his team, consisting of producer Andrew Macdonald and screenwriter John Hodge, took Shallow Grave, their first feature film, to Cannes where popular demand forced organizers to schedule additional screenings. This was just the beginning. x introduction When considering the function of a collection of interviews, it becomes clear that there is no unified theory on how to present every artist. In a sense, the artist dictates how he or she will be presented and understood by their audiences and critics. As individualistic and varied as artists can be, it follows that their reception would be equally diverse. If you’ve ever read an interview with David Lynch, you know that he can be as maddeningly vague as his films. If you’ve ever seen a Lars von Trier film, you might not be surprised when his dealings with the press are fittingly controversial. Some filmmakers, most notoriously Hitchcock , use the interview to cultivate and promote a personal mythology. The question is: how shall Danny Boyle be presented? Or, more accurately , how has Danny Boyle allowed himself to be presented? As a filmmaker, Danny Boyle is an interesting specimen. There is a spectrum of popular filmmakers that ranges from the completely commercial to the completely artistic. Some directors are content to get handed assignments from Hollywood studios as directors for hire, while others are fiercely independent and wholly focused on pushing the boundaries of what popular cinema can be. Directly in the middle of these two extremes is Boyle, and Slumdog Millionaire becomes the perfect example to illustrate this point: the film is populist enough to be dubbed “the feel-good movie of the year” while simultaneously stretching what’s acceptable for mainstream audiences. This is not the first film to strike this delicate balance, and Boyle is not the first filmmaker to embrace this philosophy. What makes him peculiar is his nonchalance, his lack of personal agenda, his humility to admit when he’s wrong, and his polite acceptance of accolades. As journalist Brian Libby noted, “For all his talents, perhaps the best thing you can say about Boyle is that he’s still just an unassuming lad.”3 In an industry of egos and corporations, of agents and politics, we find a man making films that resonate across genre and demographics, an artist who refuses to let his vision supersede the story, and we find a success story who hasn’t forgotten where he came from. One important trend to point out, a characteristic that will carry throughout his career, is his devotion to cinema as a venue for entertainment first, art second. Besides a recent textual...