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Danny Boyle Filming 127 Hours with Two Cinematographers

by Alex Billington
February 26, 2010
Source: The Playlist

One film that I'm anxiously looking forward to is 127 Hours, the newest film from Danny Boyle, and the almost one-man-show starring James Franco, about a mountain climber who has to amputate his own arm after being pinned underneath a boulder for five days. We already know a lot about it, including that it will start filming soon in Utah, but there's always more to learn. The Playlist (via SlashFilm) pulled more quotes from an interview with Boyle in Empire (the print version) where he confirms that there will be dialogue at least in a few scenes and also adds that he's actually shooting the film with two separate cinematographers.

Boyle seems very excited to work on this mainly because it's going to be such a challenge for him. "If you're lucky enough to be in a position where you can do this, there should be a part of you that doesn't know what you're doing." At first we thought this would be like Ryan Reynolds' Buried and only star James Franco for 90 minutes, but Boyle ended up casting Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn in supporting roles as hikers that he comes across early on. Boyle decided to hire two cinematographers for this: Anthony Dod Mantle (who won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire) and Enrique Chediak. But why use two of them? Boyle sort of explains:

"We've got this idea that because there are so few characters in it, we'll use two cinematographers: Anthony Dod Mantle, who did 28 Days Later, and Enrique Chediak, who did 28 Weeks Later. One is from Northern Europe and the other is South American. They'll bring different things to it. Like in a conventional film you'd have a comic character and a villain."

I'm not entirely sure how Boyle is going to use each one, but I'm excited to see. Anthony Dod Mantle is one of the best cinematographers out there (he also shot Antichrist) and I'm glad he's using him again for this film. I'm curious if this means he may shoot most of the movie with Mantle and then have Chediak work on other elements, like portions shot with the video camera that mountain climber Aron Ralston had on him. Which is actually another big part of today's update anyway. When talking about how much dialogue there will actually be in 127 Hours, Boyle revealed more about what we'll be seeing over the course of the movie.

"There is dialogue at the beginning, and at the end, obviously, but for most of the film he doesn't have anyone to talk to," Boyle said. "But what came to light is that he had a video camera with him, and he recorded six or seven messages, for those he thinks are going to grieve for him, basically saying goodbye. We've seen the messages, he doesn't tend to show them… So if you like, that is the dialogue, with a future he thinks he is not going to have."

This already sounds very similar to Buried and I'm loving it. Although I've read the story of what happened to Ralston, I was initially concerned that Boyle just wouldn't have much of a cinematic story to tell. But this is exactly what I was hoping he'd do - introduce some emotional elements (based on real occurrences) that will make this another strong Danny Boyle feature. Everything about 127 Hours sounds perfect so far. I'm not sure if it'll be as big of an awards contender as Slumdog Millionaire was, but it definitely sounds like a fantastic follow-up at the very least and I can't wait to see the first photos from this, whenever they arrive.

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