Danny Boyle on destiny:
When I first saw Slumdog Millionaire I was enthralled. The movie is phenomenal and the most amazing aspect of it is that the direction is very clearly Danny Boyle's. Often when a popular director makes a "serious" film suddenly they discard whatever unique style they had cultivated - perhaps with the intention of putting the story first, or finally making a serious film.
Overwhelmingly critics view Slumdog as a strong film but it is also a movie that normal people really enjoy. Through flashbacks it tells the story of a young Indian boy's life and how he came to be one question away from winning a million dollars, or however many rupees that is. It is sentimental but not cloying and frenetic but not confusing.
I do not know how every single film of Danny Boyle's has been received but I do know that with a distinctive style like his, there have been many people who have hated what he has done. He is a well-known director and very successful - the majority of people enjoy what he does but it would have been easy for him to be distracted from what he saw as his path by all of these people saying how this film is shallow or it is too much - too over the top, but really what is great about Slumdog is that he seamlessly combines everything that he has done in his previous films but only better!
Most of Danny Boyle's recent films have received fantastic reviews, but two of his earlier movies post-trainspotting were thrashed, The Beach and A Life Less Ordinary. Watching either of those movies however, you wouldn't be shocked that Danny Boyle had directed them.
I am getting at the fact that as an artist it is necessary to experiment and do many things. In the art world if someone buys a late work by a successful artist they are paying a very high premium, the argument is that their later paintings are informed by every painting before them - so the buyer isn't simply paying for that piece but every failed painting that it took to create it. There is of course a balance, and if you are failing over and over chances are you need to make some adjustments - but that does not mean you should stop exploring.
So what is good for an artist is not always going to make their fans happy. Kanye West's most recent album is not his best received. I personally don't even like it, but I think having the fearlessness to try something completely new (even if he is insane 90% of the time) is going to take him farther than sticking to what has worked in the past. Fans and the market will outgrow and forget about a musician or a writer or an artist in a heartbeat. So while someone like Lil' Wayne can put out a mixtape featuring mostly him on a vocoder and disappoint most of his fans, if he were to stop pushing his own limits he could just as easily be forgotten.
Lil' Wayne is a good example here because he usually puts out a ton of mixtapes in between albums. He is working his ass off and trying a dozen different things, but in the end for his albums he gets it together and delivers a more polished and less extreme product. He is always completely outrageous, and he has honed his image to that.
I am sure many a nascent artist has been led astray by the well-intentioned criticisms of others. Sometimes in the moment actions seem bizarre and new hobbies appear to be random indulgences, but often in retrospect these experiences take on a new meaning. Suddenly the weird infatuation has clearly contributed to a huge success. The difference between giving in to these criticisms and staying the course is self-belief. This is key quality and one that I hope to cultivate.
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