http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2008/11/slumdog-million.html
« Weekend Viewing: Dear Zachary a Must-See | Main November 8 Slumdog Millionaire's R Rating, Subtitles, Score Slumdog Millionaire played great at my Sneak Previews series. While these film fans are slightly older than the pic's target audience, they ate it up. A show of hands during the Q & A with director Danny Boyle did reveal that slightly more of them believe the movie deserves its R rating. Boyle admits that he lost that rating on appeal after trying to earn a PG-13. The ratings board couldn't tell him anything to cut. The rating was for overall intensity. Which is certainly the case. Fox Searchlight accepted Boyle's cut. On a second viewing, Slumdog--executed with great energy by Boyle's team--owes a great deal to the script by Simon Beaufoy and the propulsive score by A.R. Rahman, who Boyle hired after Jack White proved unavailable. (He did find time to write the Quantum of Solace Bond theme). Boyle set out to make an English language movie, but his casting director told him that the kids he liked best didn't speak English. So he translated the material with the kids into Hindi, about a third of the movie, he said. And he uses subtitles in a different way, coloring them and moving them around the screen, not sticking them on the bottom. Some of the folks in the class were challenged by not having white titles where they expect them. Boyle wanted to move their focus around the screen, he said.
