Aron Ralston (James Franco) won’t be smiling for long in 127 HOURS
127 HOURS (Danny Boyle, 2010)
www.foxsearchlight.com/127hours
The prospect of sitting through a ninety-five-minute movie that primarily takes place in close quarters as a young hiker tries to break free of a rock that has pinned him near the bottom of an isolated crevice in Utah’s Blue John Canyon for five days is not exactly promising, whether you suffer from claustrophobia or can take only so much James Franco in one sitting. In addition, you’re likely to know pretty much everything that happens, since the story of Aron Ralston’s true-life fight for survival was all over the news back in 2003 and became a bestselling autobiography, BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE. But in the hands of director Danny Boyle, the visual mastermind behind such films as TRAINSPOTTING, 28 DAYS LATER, the underrated SUNSHINE, and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, 127 HOURS keeps the suspense in high gear, anchored by Franco’s raw, emotional performance as adventurer Ralston. Over the course of more than five days, Ralston records video diary entries for his parents, carefully preserves his tiny water supply, gets excited when he can stick his foot out to catch a brief ray of sunlight, and uses a dull knife to try to cut through his arm. Every morning a raven flies overhead, as if waiting for him to die so he can scavenge his body. But Ralston immerses himself in fantasies and memories, attempting to keep his mind operating to come up with a way to get free. Watching the film is both agonizing and exhilarating; don’t be surprised if you feel guilty gulping your large soda and munching on your supersized popcorn while Ralston preciously measures his liquid intake by the milliliter. 127 HOURS is another cinematic triumph by one of today’s most innovative directors.
One of the grandest Westerns ever made, this Sergio Leone masterpiece features an all-star cast that includes Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Woody Strode, Keenan Wynn, Lionel Stander, and Jack Elam, all enhanced by Ennio Morricone’s epic score and Tonino delli Colli’s never-ending extreme close-ups. (The opening shot of a fly crawling over Elam’s grimy face is unforgettable.) Fonda was never more evil, and Bronson was perhaps never more likable. The film is a huge step above most of Leone’s spaghetti Westerns, partially because of the cast, but also because of the script help he got from Italian horrormeister Dario Argento and iconic filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci. ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST is screening as part of “20 Years of Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation,” an eighteen-film salute to Scorsese’s ongoing work preserving and restoring more than five hundred films so far. The series continues through January 2 with such highlights as William Wellman’s BEGGARS OF LIFE starring Louise Brooks, Otto Preminger’s BONJOUR TRISTESSE featuring Jean Seberg, Howard Hawks’s THE BIG SKY with Kirk Douglas, Joseph Losey’s THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR, John Cassavetes’s FACES, Max Ophüls’s LETTERS FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, Jean Renoir’s THE RIVER, and Satyajit Ray’s THE MUSIC ROOM (JALSAGHAR).
