Danny Boyle at the 20th anniversary screening of 28 Days Later at BFI Southbank. He told the audience he didn’t rate UK film-makers highly
(Picture: Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)Danny Boyle has said that Brits are not great at film making.
The Oscar-winning British film-maker reportedly made the surprising remarks during a recent talk at the British Film Institute.
According to the Standard’s Londoner’s Diary, the Slumdog Millionaire director who was at the 20th anniversary screening of his 2002 film 28 Days Later, said: “It’s a terrible thing to say at the home of British film but I am not sure we are great film-makers, to be absolutely honest.
"As a nation, our two artforms are theatre, in a middle-class sense, and pop music, because we are extraordinary at it."
Boyle has never shied away from sharing his candid thoughts about the industry.
The Oscar-winner previously told fans at the Edinburgh International Film Festival of his fears the “communal experience” of cinema-going was at risk of dying out.
The 66-year-old said: “Television and film are completely different. I’ve done other work in television after having made films and there is nothing wrong with it, but there is something extraordinary about film…
“We’ve got to be very careful. It’s one of the dangers with Netflix. “It’s so convenient and so wonderful and seems like an endlessly possible role model … But you lose something if you lose cinema.
“Cinema will always survive, but it’s about the scale on which it will survive…
What I don’t like about it is that it’s [Netflix] is a contract of endless time. It’s like a marriage … not as interesting as the singular exclusive time you dedicate to just one story and one vision in a cinema. I find it very powerful. I don’t think television can get near that."
Boyle won critical and popular acclaim for a string of now classic films, including Trainspotting, The Beach and Slumdog Millionaire.
He was also lauded for directing the opening ceremony for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, which successfully portrayed Britain during the Industrial Revolution, the inception of the NHS and paid homage to the arts.
