BOYLE’S NEW FILM BETWEEN ROCK AND HARD PLACE

Director Danny Boyle has replied to comments that his critically praised 127 Hours, the true-life tale of hiker Aron Ralston who, after being trapped for five days by a boulder, amputated his own arm in order to free himself, may be too graphic for audiences to stomach. Reports from the Toronto Film Festival, where the movie premiered last week, said that three audience members fainted during the screening and that others walked out. In an interview with today’s (Wednesday) Hollywood Reporter, Boyle acknowledged that the amputation scene, in which actor James Franco, playing Ralston, is seen using a rock to break the bones of his arm, then cutting away at it with a knife and pliers, had been “a big issue” for the producer and studio executives. “Nobody’s going to give you any money with something like that happening in it that’s not in a horror context.” However, he argued, “The whole point of the film is that you live through the experience like a first-person experience. Therefore, you both have to live through that, and you will live through it.” In real life, Boyle noted, it took Ralston 44 minutes to complete the amputation. “My own personal take on it is that we are all capable of it. It’s not some abstract thing that you watch, like a monster killing someone or something. This is something we are all capable of in the same circumstance.”