“If the sound is poor, you’re lost, no matter how beautiful it looks; it’s your umbilical cord, but it’s an invisible one; that’s its magic...” “It was interesting, as a lot of people came in and sang, and were very good – and then you think ‘but would I listen to this guy for more than one or two songs?’ And the answer is mostly no, as it was more of a karaoke moment,” Boyle says. “But when Himesh came in, there was something about him – he seemed to have a connection with the songs that we never saw with anyone else. He came in, played Yesterday, and then Back In the USSR, and we thought ‘it’s him, let’s cast him’. I was dancing, and I can tell you, it’s not very often I’ll start dancing during auditions... [laughs]” Ed Sheeran, who plays more than a cameo in the movie, and at one point suggests Hey Jude should actually be titled ‘Hey Dude’, says Patel ‘just has soul’, and I’d have to agree. He helps underline just how great these tracks are, as well as introducing so many of them to a new generation – exactly like Patel’s character [ Jack] had to do in the film. “Exactly, as he has to recover them, and rebirth them from his memory - if he can remember the lyrics, which, of course, he can’t, some of the time,” Boyle smiles. “And outside of the film, some of the songs Himesh did have to learn from scratch, as he’d never heard them before; he’s only in his 20s, so wasn’t around during Beatlemania. But he still has a real connection with the songs.”
IT MIGHT GET LOUD
I mention to Boyle that I’d heard him quoted as saying that 75% of a film is the music and the sound. It certainly rings true here – but what about in general? “Oh it is bizarre, the bias towards cinematographic,” Boyle says, raising his hands. “It’s understandable, as it’s something you can 32 Headliner
quantify in a mag, or you can have looks or pictures - and it’s wonderful. But when you work inside the business, you realise if the sound is poor, you’re lost, no matter how beautiful it looks; and the audience will disconnect. It’s your umbilical cord, but it’s an invisible one; and that’s its magic and its power, as it’s working in a way you don’t know. Its power when it’s used truly and properly is the immense part of the impact of cinema.” Boyle credits producer and long-time collaborator, Andrew Macdonald, on opening his eyes to the importance of audio in film. “When we started working together in the mid-90s, Andrew was convinced that the reason the constant question ‘why do American movies seem bigger and better than ours?’ cropped up was because they ring-fenced money for sound,” he says. “Because one of the problems for sound is, you’re last in the pecking order, as money for a film is gobbled up by cinematographers, actors, and every bit of indulgence or overtime you do when you try and finish the film, really. So he ring-fenced it for the sound to make sure we had the time to deliver. “We made films before I met Glenn such as Trainspotting and Shallow Grave with budgets of one and two million; they had a bit of effort put into the sound, and when you do that, you see the impact and power of it. It’s magical, really, and you can’t retain it, or capture it in a photograph, as it’s sound.” I put it to Boyle and Freemantle that through picture and sound, they seem to be able to take a film full circle: look at Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours, which are both harrowing, emotional rollercoasters, yet they’re entirely uplifting at the
same time. That’s talent, right there. “It all comes from an idea,” Freemantle says, with a smile. “Danny gives you an essence of what it’s going to be, but never tells you what to do – but also, the films are very clever in the way they are shot, the way they look, and the way they’re edited. All those bits that have worked brilliantly that we have done together are a mix of all this craft coming together at one point - one will lead the other, and one will then take over. And working with Danny, the sound takes over a lot.” And the process gets more personal, still. “One of the most important things to do is understand what people internally feel like, or how they hear in different situations,” Freemantle insists. “When [in Slumdog] the lead character sees his mum laying dead in the water, that is a dramatic point; then the realism of what has happened comes to light, and it’s all noise, noise, noise. But that doesn’t work in normal life; you have to find those moments, and they have to be true. That first moment was taking the boy from his mum, the water was the tool, and the extreme violence of the next part was the tool to bring it out. “Then you’ll drive the music, and then for the next part, bring some of the crowd in, then take them out again. So with Slumdog, because of the colour, the sound would counterpoint that, so you’re both not trying to do the same things at the same time. Because the writing itself would be frenetic, and if you’re trying to hit everything in a scene, you basically hit nothing. But that’s one of my favourite scenes ever, and how we got from A to B to C is heartbreaking.” According to Freemantle, not many filmmakers are as brave as Boyle:
