some of the cool stuff Danny Boyle disclosed in Q&A about Slumdog Millionaire

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2008)

I attended the San Francisco screening on Danny Boyle's b-day, where he participated in a follow-on Q&A.
My impression of Boyle is that he is genuinely down-to-earth, culturally sensitive/astute and an exceedingly humble person. It is equally apparent, from everything we see in this film and come to feel, that Boyle possesses a seething passion about film making and a genius for story telling. These all infuse every frame of this film.
The film is powerful and moving, with seamless performances by all three sets of actors portraying the three lead characters. There's also a who's who of Bollywood heavy weights in pitch perfect supporting roles.
Two of the three youngest players were cast straight out of the Bombay/Mumbai slums. This casting choice then necessitated that all of the scenes involving the first trio of Jamal, Salim and Latika would have to be entirely in Hindi. Fearless as ever, non-Hindi speaking Boyle turned to his India casting agent, Loveleen Tandan, to direct the Hindi-only speaking actors. Boyle directly credits Tandan for the verisimilitude of the children's' performances and he gladly elevated her to the title of co-director, in recognition of Tandan's and the children's numerous original contributions. I love what was done with the subtitles, too.
(The bone crushing poverty and pervasive corruption that exists in Bombay/Mumbai is a harsh reality. It is something that Boyle says has to be accepted for what it is, with compassion, but also without pity. At the end of one shooting day, one of the principal child actors went home, only to discover that the government had dissolved that particular ghetto that same day. Production staff then had to search high and low, across Bombay/Mumbai, to locate the family and reunite them. Then the next day dawned. There are many more stories about these real life children, too.)
I never read Vikas Swarup's Q and A; but I take Boyle's word that the book, as written, would be impossible to film. Tremendous credit has to be given to Simon Beaufoy's brilliantly loose screenplay adaptation. It is a feat that withstands direct comparisons with The English Patient and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for grasping the essence of an original and then lovingly taking it into the stratosphere.
Boyle has a deep cultural and artistic appreciation for Bombay/Mumbai and Bollywood's traditions, yet he lensed the story with a respectful Western eye. Suketu Mehta's book Maximum City - Bombay Lost and Found, served as a production bible, and was referred to just as much as the script. (One can only hope that if Mehta finally ever options his book for film that Boyle will get a real crack at making it.)
Where ever there were scenes in Beaufoy's script that could be taken as being sacrilegious, creative adjustments were made. One specific example given was the appearance of Rama, which was supposed to have been represented on a t-shirt, but was, instead, turned into a quasi-magical-realism vision/appearance during the Muslim-Hindu riot scene. Not only was this change culturally sensitive, it was vastly more striking.
The love story, between Jamal and Latika, is one of Beaufoy's story inventions. Given three sets of actors portraying Jamal and Latika, there is so much that could go wrong with this central and interrupted thread of the story. The seed of love first has to become apparent, then its shoots must bud and become Jamal's quest. No part of this can be sappy, if this is to hold together. Before I saw SM, I had no idea how much of a romantic Boyle is and, at the same time, he is also one who does not wear his heart on his sleeve. You just have to see the film to know what I mean by that.
I don't care what any of Dev Patel's detractors have to say about any of his work prior to SM. All I know is what I saw in SM where Patel's Jamal went toe-to-toe and scene-for-scene with Bollywood Royalty, and he acquitted himself decorously as leading man.
Boyle also resorted to some special technical innovations.
The spectacular scenes running through the Bombay ghettos were captured using a pole mounted camera/lens, tethered to a MacBook (in a backpack) serving as DVR. In addition, the MacBook had to be cooled using slabs of dry ice. This allowed the camera operator to "roll" in the midst of all the action. Dry ice had to be cached along the way, in so many locations, that there were surreal swirling clouds of CO2 "smoke" seeping from the various hiding places.
Boyle's crew also lost access to the Taj Mahal before all of the shots were completed. In a brilliant move, the DP armed an alternate camera crew with a Canon EoS camera and used it, in rapid frame mode, to pick up all of the remaining Taj Mahal shots. If no one had told me, I would not have known the difference. And neither, apparently, did Taj Mahal security.
I've seen this film three times already and cannot wait for the DVD to come out. If it's handled correctly, there will be hours of bonus features. One the one hand, there is so much to enjoy, in terms of pure entertainment. On the other hand, there are so many engaging stories about the making of this masterpiece.
Finally, I am deeply torn, this year, because I love both SM and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and they are both squarely in the category of adapted screenplay. I love SM for its dense compactness and I love tCCoBB for its sprawling expansiveness.
Might it be possible for tie votes to win, in more than one category?
The magical realism of the two gives me reason to hope.