Interview: Danny Boyle, Director of Slumdog Millionaire

By Broadside Reporter Jonathon Vaughan. Photo Courtesy of Fox Searchlight.

Q: The thing that really struck me about this movie were the visuals of the slums in Bombay. How did you go about trying to show them to the audience?

A: You’ve got to find a vividness that will lure people in there, so they have no alternative but to go on the journey with you . . . I love motion; I think movies are about motion. That’s how it began. That’s what made people gape at it. I love action movies, even stupid ones, because they’re about motion and movement and that’s why we’re addicted to them. We’re connected to this forward motion energy in movies. It’s different than books that are so reflective or poems that are so introspective, [film] just charges forward, I love that about films and I’ve always tried, if I can, to have that feeling in a film of putting you there, and making you run as well.

Q: I think this is the closest I have seen to a western movie capturing the culture of Bombay; do you think Americans are ready for more of that?

A: I didn’t think it would work here, to be honest, I thought it would work in England, because our connection with India is a bit closer, it’s more than superficial. The British ruled there for many years and there’s a big Indian population in Britain, as a result. But I’d forgotten that America loves the underdog, and that’s the classic ingredient of the story that everyone can relate to. I mean it’s exotic, and it’s nice to see that exoticism, but emotionally, you’re rooting for the underdog and that’s key, the idea that it can play out, that a guy who has nothing could get to Mumbai, could get in a decent way and I think that does resonate with people.

I think it’s also true, and I wouldn’t be as confident in saying this, that America is going to see a lot more of India. You only have to be there to sense the stories you read in the paper about tiger economies, but here it’s so true. India’s going to the moon to get the helium 3 isotope but they haven’t got public toilets for people to go to the loo in, and it’s like India is full of these incredible contradictions. I’m sure because of those contradictions you’ll see more of them and the world is getting to be a smaller place and the very fact that you’re going to elect this president is a signal, that America’s ready I think to be a part of that bigger place and it’ll be a wonderful thing for all of us at least that’s what it feels like.

Q: In this movie, you’re listed as having a co-director Loveleen Tandan, how did that relationship affect making the movie?

A: For me, there are three key relationships. Normally you say your key relationship is with your cinematographer and I’d taken with me a cinematographer and a western crew of about ten, but one of my key relationships on this job was with [co-director Loveleen Tandan]. She was the casting director there and we were working together a lot, casting kids, seeing actors. I gradually realized I was going to need her on the film the whole time . . . sometimes I’d do things in the films and she’d say that wouldn’t happen. So I had her on the film the whole time and I sent her off to do second-unit directing, it felt only right to credit her like that. The other guys who I can’t credit that way were the guy who did the live sound in India, which was very, very difficult and the set director. Without these people it wouldn’t be a quarter of the film it is, so I try to make sure I credit them properly. You get a flavor of the place by using live sound, but however you do it, it’s always slightly deafened. It’s never quite like being on the street, the actors are breathing the dust in their lungs and it changes their voices—it changes everything.