Collective Works Cited

28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. 20th Century Fox, 2003. DVD.

"28 Weeks Later (2007) - Trivia." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .

"Danny Boyle - Awards." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .

"Danny Boyle - Biography." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .

"Danny Boyle - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia." Main Page - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .

"Shallow Grave (1994) - Trivia." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .

Shallow Grave. Dir. Danny Boyle. Perf. John Hodge, Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, and Ewan McGregor. PolyGram Video, 1994. DVD.

Slumdog Millionaire. Dir. Danny Boyle. By Simon Beaufoy. Perf. Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Anil Kapoor, and Irrfan Khan. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2008. Film.

Sunshine. Dir. Danny Boyle. Prod. Andrew Macdonald. By Alex Garland. Perf. Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, and Michelle Yeoh. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2007. Film.

Trainspotting. Dir. Danny Boyle. Miramax, 1996. DVD

Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later

28 Days Later is the film that made me realize Danny Boyle is a filmmaker to watch. It’s a masterpiece, and one of the cornerstones of the zombie genre. The film opens with Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakening in a hospital, having been in a coma for several weeks while the citizens of London fell victim to a ‘rage’ virus and became zombies. Jim meets up with Selena (Naomie Harris) and the two navigate London together, eventually hooking up with Frank (Brendan Gleason) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns).

The four journey across London together, encountering zombies and trying to survive. Frank is tragically infected and killed during the group’s attempt to find a military base. The three survivors seek shelter in the base, only to discover that the soldiers plan to rape Selena and Hannah. Jim embraces his rage and kills the soldiers, saving Selena and Hannah. The three escape, and are eventually rescued.

28 Days Later is a deeply ironic film, subverting audience and character expectations at every turn, even down to its basic premise. The ‘zombies’ that give the film its distinctive horror elements aren’t zombies in the traditional sense, seeing as they didn’t die and come back to life, but instead were infected with a virus. Jim begins the film as a milquetoast, scared man, and Serena has already evolved into a badass and saves Jim, a fresh twist on the standard damsel-in-distress story. Later in the film, when Jim and Serena first meet Frank, he’s clad in riot gear and beating zombies mercilessly. This is ironic because, after the introduction establishing him as a force to be reckoned with, Frank ends up being a gentle giant, not a brutal killing machine. The film’s strongest irony comes in its climax, first with the revelation that the soldiers protecting the group plan to rape the women, showing that even the survivors of the zombie outbreak have lost their humanity. The film then embraces this concept as it shows Jim snapping and going on a wild killing rampage, becoming overcome with his rage so effectively that Serena initially believes he’s infected.

28 Days Later is one of the most effective horror films I’ve ever seen, Danny Boyle’s first truly great film, and about as good an introduction to his work as I could have asked for.

Danny Boyle's Major Works

Shallow Grave (1994) – Boyle’s first film tells the story of greed and bloodshed between three roommates who discover a large amount of money. It marks Boyle’s first collaboration with Ewan McGregor and was the highest-grossing film of 1995 in Britain.

Trainspotting (1996) – Boyle directed this energetic descent into the underworld of drug abuse based on the novel by Irvine Welsh. Trainspotting was Boyle’s first international success, his second collaboration with Ewan McGregor, and contains several of Boyle’s most famous scenes, including a horrifying sequence where the drug addicts that serve as our main characters discover they’ve killed their child.

28 Days Later (2002) – Boyle singlehandedly re-energized the zombie movie genre with this visceral and gory masterpiece. It was his first collaboration with Cillian Murphy and his first movie to find success in America, going on to gross $45 million in the States. It was followed by 28 Weeks Later in 2007, and Boyle did some second-unit directing on a few action scenes.

Sunshine (2007) – Boyle’s best film is a deeply intelligent sci-fi piece about a group of astronauts travelling to the sun in order to jumpstart its core and save humanity. Boyle regular Cillian Murphy returns, as does musical composer John Murphy (who also worked on 28 Days Later).

What Makes Danny Boyle Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle’s works, as a whole, sort of buck the tradition of embracing one common theme. Boyle loves to explore the human condition and different sides of human morality. His films can range from showcasing the absolute worst actions humans are capable (28 Days Later, Trainspotting) to showing the audience that, above all, hope prevails, or some other cloyingly sweet message (Slumdog Millionaire, Millions). His films have very little in common with each other, as he leaps from zombie film (28 Days Later) to children’s fantasy (Millions) to intelligent science-fiction (Sunshine) to adults’ fantasy (Slumdog Millionaire), all in the space of six years. His style varies from film to film, with 28 Days Later adopting a gritty, realistic style, Millions looking like a straightforward children’s film except for the few moments where it slips into fantasy, Sunshine aping classic science fiction films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien in its set design and visual style before it descends into an overly artistic horror film in its final act, and Slumdog Millionaire doing interesting things with story structure and injecting insane amounts of energy into several sequences to cover up the fact that the film’s story is overwhelmingly shallow. (207)

Danny Boyle, Filmmaker Extraordinaire

After leaving college, Danny Boyle began his career in show business in theater, working for several British theater companies before transitioning to television. He started out as a television producer for BBC Northern Ireland before he directed on a handful of British television shows. Boyle jumped into film in 1995 with the hit Shallow Grave, a British variation on the Coen Brothers’ debut film, Blood Simple. Starring Ewan McGregor, Shallow Grave was the most successful movie of the year in Britain. After that, Boyle directed the cult classic Trainspotting, a kinetic masterpiece that earned him numerous accolades and made him a true director to watch in the future. After that, he directed a string of films which weren’t received nearly as well, starting with A Life Less Ordinary and continuing with The Beach. Then, in 2002, he created one of his best films with the zombie classic 28 Days Later. 28 Days Later is also significant for bringing about the ‘modern zombie’, a variation on George Romero’s creation that is lightning-fast and infinitely more terrifying. After 28 Days Later, Romero directed the children’s fantasy Millions, a lackluster attempt at a morality tale. Next up, Boyle did double duty and directed his best film, Sunshine, while executive producing 28 Weeks Later, as well as doing some second-unit directing on the sequel to his zombie classic. After Sunshine, Danny Boyle hit the mainstream with his Oscar-winning film, Slumdog Millionaire. While the film is trite and shallow, Boyle’s direction was a highlight and he won his first Oscar for it. In addition to the Oscar, Boyle won the Best Director awards at the Golden Globes, the Director’s Guild, and the BAFTA, making him one of only seven directors to do so. Boyle has won scattered other awards for his work, mostly for 28 Days Later, Trainspotting, and Shallow Grave, including twin victories at the Empire Awards for the latter two films.

Works Cited
"28 Weeks Later (2007) - Trivia." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .
"Danny Boyle - Awards." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .
"Danny Boyle - Biography." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .
"Danny Boyle - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia." Main Page - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .
"Shallow Grave (1994) - Trivia." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 18 Apr. 2010. .

The Life and Times of Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle was born October 20, 1956, in England. His family was a traditional working class Irish Catholic unit, and it was expected that he would become a priest in his adulthood. At age 14, just before he signed up for seminary, a priest advised him to go a different path with his life. Boyle thinks this encounter has a greater significance than he originally expected, saying, “I was meant to be a priest until I was 14, I was going to transfer to a seminary near Wigan. But this priest, Father Conway, took me aside and said, ‘I don’t think you should go’. Whether he was saving me from the priesthood or the priesthood from me, I don’t know. But quite soon after, I started doing drama. And there’s a real connection, I think. All these directors — Martin Scorsese, John Woo, M. Night Shyamalan — they were all meant to be priests. There’s something very theatrical about it. It’s basically the same job — poncing around, telling people what to think” (Wikipedia). Pursuing his drama career, Boyle went to college at Thornleigh Salesian College and Bangor University. After college, he became a theater director, working at the Joint Stock Theater Company, the Royal Court Theater, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He later moved on to television, and eventually film.

First Post

Hi, this is a student blog for a English class, so please don't look at me as a legitimate source of Danny Boyle-related information.