Danny Boyle Wins Best Director (2008)
Before Slumdog Millionaire won eight Academy Awards in March 2009 and became one of the biggest international hits ever released by an independent studio, it had almost gone directly to DVD. Warner Independent had the rights to the rags-to-riches drama, but after shutting down in May 2008, gave the project to its parent company, which had more limited goals for the project. Fox Searchlight came on board to handle distribution and the film premiered that September at the Toronto Film Festival, where it won the coveted People’s Choice Award. Soon after, it was the year’s biggest crowd-pleaser and a multiple award winner.
Slumdog Millionaire is one of contemporary cinema’s great underdog stories, and so it makes sense that the iconoclastic Danny Boyle helmed the film. Britain’s bold stylist seemed like a filmmaker who made movies too bleak or obscure to get much Academy recognition (even though Trainspotting earned a sole, surprise adapted screenplay nod in 1997). Slumdog Millionaire, a crowd-pleaser that was both kinetic and kaleidoscopic, had Boyle ratcheting up his ambitions with a small budget, as he often does. Instead of targeting a niche art-house or genre crowd, his goal was to inspire audiences around the world.
The eight Oscar wins Slumdog Milionaire received at the 2009 ceremony included many richly talented craftsmen, including dazzling digital cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (of Full Monty fame). However, it was Boyle’s victory that validated a decade-and-a-half of films both poignant and provocative, culminating in an imaginative work of deep humanism and spirit.