Danny Boyle puts human touch into '127 Hours'

ONE-MAN HORROR STORY

After five days and roughly seven hours, he freed himself by cutting off his forearm with a dull pocket knife, walking out of a narrow canyon, scaling down a 65-foot rock wall and hiking eight miles before finally finding other hikers.

Ralston's tale won headlines worldwide and made good fodder for TV news and early morning chat shows. To many, it was a one-man horror story, but to Boyle, it was something else.

To get through his ordeal, Ralston drew on a spiritual connection to family and friends. A person who prided himself on being alone, Ralston discovered the key to survival was his desire to engage life and not withdraw from it.

"It's not about a mountain climber or a man in isolation, it's actually about a man who's looking out and connecting to people on the outside and trying to get back to them," James Franco, who portrays Ralston in the film, told Reuters.

But how does a filmmaker portray "127 hours" in 90 minutes and hold the audience's attention?

While Ralston is stuck in his hard place, chipping away at the nemesis the rock, audiences journey back through his life, meeting his friends, sister and parents.

When Ralston faces predicaments like drinking urine because he is out of water, audiences are part of the experience when the camera goes inside Ralston's pee-filled water bag. When the adventurer first tests his ability to cut himself, the camera's lens goes into his arm alongside the dull blade of the knife.

And then there are the videotapes. Ralston may not have told anyone where he was going, but he did bring a video camera on his journey and recorded himself saying farewell to his loved ones. In effect, he taped his own eulogy.

He had never shown the tapes publicly, but he did give them to Boyle and Franco to help them tell his story.

"It's not what he's saying, it's his behavior, the way he is," Franco said. "I spent days with Aron (preparing for the role) and it was incredibly valuable, but it's never going to be just the pure behavior and seeing him in that situation...that kind of stuff just hardly exists."