Academy Award winning director Danny Boyle came to LACMA last night to screen his latest film, Trance, which stars James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel. Trance tells the story of a young art auction house assistant (McAvoy) who becomes mixed up with a group of criminals (led by Cassel). The screenplay, written by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge, incorporates money, greed, memory, and hypnosis into a complex and compelling story. Trance is visually mesmerizing and in typical Danny Boyle style, utilizes sophisticated and creative flashback sequences.
Hodge and Boyle are quite a filmmaking team, beginning with Boyle’s first feature film Shallow Grave (which was also Hodge’s first screenplay) and continuing through Trainspotting, The Beach and the upcoming sequel to Trainspotting, titled Porno. Danny Boyle’s other films include Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours. He told us his favorite film is Apocalypse Now.
Boyle talked about filmmaking and his experiences over the years and he told us about some acronyms used in the medical profession that he learned about from John Hodge. Hodge comes from a family of doctors and was on the path to follow in their footsteps before he started writing screenplays. One of the more memorable acronyms he deciphered for us was TFBUNDY. It stands for Totally F**ked But Not Dead Yet. It was a very entertaining and enlightening evening and I don’t want to say any more about the movie because you really should see it for yourself and experience it as it unfolds. Trance opens on April 5th.
