![[Main Page]](/images/danadams.png)
Danny Boyle is an English director and film producer.
Excerpt from an interview on UGO.com regarding his film "Sunshine":
UGO: Let's get into that a little bit. There's a great line in the film. "It's not our place to challenge God." Does the film prove that line wrong?
DANNY: [laughs] For me, I'm pro-science. I think most of us are, apart from the Taliban. We've put all our eggs in the science basket. That's basically the route we're on now. Science will save us from diphtheria, polio, and we've agreed on the macro-level that it will cure our bodies. On the bigger level, it's us going into space seeking other civilizations or other consciousness. That's defined us since the Industrial Revolution. Well, really since Galileo or Copernicus. So, it's pro-science. The figure that represents the alternative to that - I and the writer have no time for at all. [We hate] the fundamentalist idea that we must not challenge God and that we must bow down before nature. As we all know, there are huge problems when you interfere with nature and the absolute essence of life but that's the challenge. We might get it wrong. We might get it right. We 'shouldn't' go out because everything could kill us out there, but we do.
UGO: So, it IS our place to challenge God, fail or succeed.
DANNY: Yes. It may not work but that's our role. Our predecessors didn't do that. They bowed down before the sun. Our culture was set up on the rhythm of the sun. We fear the night. We fear winter. Now, we've made our own light. We can light up a city at night. It's terrifying, but extraordinary, as well.
Whole interview can be found here [1].
--
From a March 14, 2007 interview by Patrick Kolan for IGN, entitled "Interview: Danny Boyle - The Acclaimed Director Talks About 'Sunshine', Special Effects and His 'Trainspotting' Sequel":
IGN: 'Sunshine' is the latest film you've made that deals with ideas of God, humanity and morality. What is it that attracts you to scripts with these kinds of subtexts?
DB: I was brought up a very strict Catholic and I don't practice anymore or anything. I kind of call myself an atheist, I suppose - although quite a spiritual atheist, I hope. You can't get rid of it; it's there. It kind of lurks and hovers all the time, behind you. I think for everybody, no matter what their upbringing - to go and meet the source of life in the solar system - is bound to create a spiritual dimension. You try to cope with something of this scale, of this power and this magnitude, against our smallness and insignificance.
And that was something really interesting - there is a spiritual side to it. But then there's an arrogance about science - a wonderful, necessary arrogance. It feels that it can create a bomb that can affect this enormous, unbelievable, unimaginable power. But science believes that they should be able to do this. That's wonderful; that's creation-science. I guess, if you believe in God, the star is His really. [2]