616 Shallow Grave

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kinjitsu
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616 Shallow Grave

#1 Post by kinjitsu » Fri Mar 16, 2012 4:46 pm

Shallow Grave

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This diabolical thriller was the first film from director Danny Boyle, producer Andre Macdonald, and screenwriter John Hodge (the smashing team behind Trainspotting). In Shallow Grave, three self-involved Edinburgh roommates—played by Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, and Ewan McGregor, in his first starring role—take in a brooding boarder. When he dies of an overdose, leaving a suitcase full of money, the trio embark on a series of very bad decisions, with extraordinarily grim consequences for all. Macabre but with a streak of offbeat humor, this stylistically influential tale of guilt and derangement is a full-throttle bit of Hitchcockian nastiness.

FILMMAKER-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

- New, restored digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Brian Tufano, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Two audio commentaries: one by director Danny Boyle and the other by screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald
- New interviews with stars Christopher Eccleston, Kerry Fox, and Ewan McGregor
- Digging Your Own Grave, a 1993 documentary by Kevin Macdonald on the making of the film
- Andrew Macdonald and Kevin Macdonald’s video diary from the 1992 Edinburgh Film Festival, where they shopped around the script for Shallow Grave
- Shallow Grave trailer and Trainspotting teaser trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Kemp

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#2 Post by The Narrator Returns » Fri Mar 16, 2012 4:48 pm

Why is there a Trainspotting trailer as part of the features? Couldn't they complete the Boyle/McGregor trilogy and add a trailer for A Life Less Ordinary?

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Brian C
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#3 Post by Brian C » Fri Mar 16, 2012 5:08 pm

The Narrator Returns wrote:Why is there a Trainspotting trailer as part of the features? Couldn't they complete the Boyle/McGregor trilogy and add a trailer for A Life Less Ordinary?
Maybe like everyone else they want to forget that one exists? :wink:

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domino harvey
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#4 Post by domino harvey » Fri Mar 16, 2012 5:09 pm

I actually remembered that film existed the other day, and God as my witness I have no idea why

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#5 Post by The Narrator Returns » Fri Mar 16, 2012 5:10 pm

The Deadweight video? Because that's the only reason I remember it exists.

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Brian C
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#6 Post by Brian C » Fri Mar 16, 2012 5:17 pm

domino harvey wrote:I actually remembered that film existed the other day, and God as my witness I have no idea why
A spirited game of "Six Degrees of Delroy Lindo"?

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colinr0380
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#7 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Mar 16, 2012 6:15 pm

Shallow Grave is fast becoming the only Danny Boyle film I can really tolerate, or re-watch without finding terrible flaws (including the vastly overrated, if energetic, Trainspotting), perfectly judged from the Leftfield-scored opening through to Andy Williams' Happy Heart, mostly down to the three magnificent central performances.

It's an excellent film about three horrible people (as proven in the opening interview scene where they put down the various characters who apply for access into their palatial/cavernous flat) systematically destroying each other. They probably would have done it anyway, there are already simmering tensions in the dynamics between the trio, but the money just pushes things faster and into to a more violent place. Along with Naked (and Metropolitan) it is perhaps one of the best 1990s films about class dynamics and environment.

Or on the other hand it could be seen as the flipside to Friends, if you had ever wanted to see the good natured bickering of those characters turn into the horrible bullying and psychotic violence that we have always known to be simmering away under all the pleasantries and limp jokes.

The film also introduces Keith Allen (and his penis!) into the Criterion Collection as the deceased new flatmate, although these days he's probably better known as Lily Allen's father.

Other Criterion inductees with this release include the composer Simon Boswell (Dust Devil, Hardware, Phenomena, Demons 2, Stagefright Aquarius, The War Zone, Lord of Illusions, Santa Sangre and Perdita Durango); Peter Mullan; and Gary Lewis briefly as another interviewee in that opening sequence (he is probably most famous for his later role as the Dad in Billy Elliot)
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:25 pm, edited 7 times in total.

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knives
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#8 Post by knives » Fri Mar 16, 2012 6:20 pm

colinr0380 wrote:Shallow Grave is fast becoming the only Danny Boyle film I can really tolerate, or re-watch without finding terrible flaws (including the vastly overrated, if energetic, Trainspotting), perfectly judged from the Leftfield opening score to the final twist and featuring three magnificent performances.
I think 127 Hours also manages to sidestep the worst qualities in Boyle by reverting to a one act structure which plugs up the major problems he has moving into a third act let alone tying it up.

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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#9 Post by sickofsickness » Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:05 pm

Has anyone ever pointed out that the intro to Roger Avery's Killing Zoe (1994) and Boyle's Shallow Grave (1993) are eerily similar?

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criterionsnob
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#10 Post by criterionsnob » Sun May 20, 2012 8:38 pm


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The Narrator Returns
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#11 Post by The Narrator Returns » Sun May 27, 2012 3:58 pm

DVDBeaver

Be warned that the final screenshot contains a major spoiler.

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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#12 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:37 pm


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mfunk9786
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#13 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:08 am

I was extremely thrilled with this picture, far more than I expected to be. Besides being an opportunity to get a Boyle into the collection, this film stands on its own as something truly unusual and worthy of inclusion on its own merit.

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colinr0380
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#14 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Jun 19, 2012 5:24 am

It does stand up pretty well on rewatching it after a few years. What struck me this time was that neat way in a couple of scenes that dialogue from the next scene along plays over the silent current one (a good example is Hugo checking out the room and boucing on the bed that he is to die on while the coversation in the lounge with Juliet that we then cut to plays). It kind of creates that sense that events are zooming along so fast that even the film is slightly out of synch. Or that the director has slowed down to capture or emphasise a moment they find particularly interesting while the narrative plows on ahead.

However I was also surprised at remembering the way that Juliet is perhaps the most blame-worthy figure in the film. Maybe this is just because she is in the position of being the only woman between two men (or perhaps it is because Kerry Fox, as the name actor on the production, had the meatiest role?), so she has more of an effect on the action once one chap retreats to the attic and the other into watching terrible Chris Tarrant hosted gameshows! (I'd forgotten about the clip from The Wicker Man! So Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee enter the Criterion Collection by proxy! And Honor Blackman too, if we count her voiceover introduction for the Lose A Million gameshow!)

Juliet is perhaps the figure who ends up pushing most of the events into a worse place - she brings Hugo into the flat, almost giving him her blessing compared to the cruel interviews at the opening (Is she already looking for a better replacement guy than the boring or crude other two? And he's apparently a struggling writer no less!); her refusal to deal with the body prompts the drawing straws scene; there is the vacillation between the two guys during the course of the film; and then the refusal to let David leave with the suitcase of money at the end is the prompt for events to turn violent. So I'm not sure whether this could become a feminist appreciation piece! But then I guess not every female character has to be a goodie!
SpoilerShow
Talking about the suitcase of money, how could Alex have performed that switch of the money with the cut up newspapers inside the flat when David seems to be watching their every move downstairs through the peepholes? Did he do it just before David made them, or did he wait for a time when Juliet was occupying David by going for a shower or something?

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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#15 Post by cdnchris » Tue Jun 19, 2012 10:31 am

colinr0380 wrote:And Honor Blackman too, if we count her voiceover introduction for the Lose A Million gameshow!)
She is in A Night to Remember :)
SpoilerShow
Talking about the suitcase of money, how could Alex have performed that switch of the money with the cut up newspapers inside the flat when David seems to be watching their every move downstairs through the peepholes? Did he do it just before David made them, or did he wait for a time when Juliet was occupying David by going for a shower or something?
SpoilerShow
I just just convince myself that he did as you said, waited until he was sure David wasn't looking, though it is a glaring plot hole that has bothered me since I first saw it.

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antnield
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#16 Post by antnield » Tue Jun 19, 2012 10:42 am

colinr0380 wrote:(I'd forgotten about the clip from The Wicker Man! So Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee enter the Criterion Collection by proxy! And Honor Blackman too, if we count her voiceover introduction for the Lose A Million gameshow!)
Sir Christopher - uncredited admittedly - in Olivier's Hamlet...

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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#17 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Jun 19, 2012 1:43 pm

I had also forgotten that this film also features McGregor having a dream in which he is menaced by a crawling baby, which gets fuller expression in Trainspotting!
cdnchris wrote:
colinr0380 wrote:And Honor Blackman too, if we count her voiceover introduction for the Lose A Million gameshow!)
She is in A Night to Remember :)
Ah, I forgot about that (and Christopher Lee popping up in the strangest place)! I'd also forgotten that Christopher Lee makes a much fuller appearance in Corridors of Blood, so it is nowhere near his first entry into the Collection!

Strangely Lose A Million has a nautical theme too! Maybe it is meant to be a homage! (Though it seems as if the programme makers were riffing off Brewster's Millions for their central gimmick!)

Talking of famous people making appearances on Criterion discs, in the video diary piece there are brief appearances of Robbie Coltrane and Michael Winner! And Clint Eastwood whisks by quickly in a limo during the Cannes segment of "Digging Your Own Grave"! I also liked the telephone call to Sean Connery (apparently while on the set of Rising Sun!) in an abortive attempt to sell him on acting in Shallow Grave before Macdonald decides that Connery is wrong and they need a different actor for the main role instead in the amusing ending to the documentary!

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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#18 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Dec 04, 2018 4:48 pm

Here's a fantastic video from the archives that has just appeared on YouTube: a 1994 segment from the BBC's Moving Pictures show looking at the production design of the flat in Shallow Grave.

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knives
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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#19 Post by knives » Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:45 pm

SpoilerShow
Do all Boyle films need to end with some random character turning serial killer? That’s a weirdly specific well to go to time and again.
Also this was just an incredibly annoying experience with the editing, sound design, and characters just being unpleasant without interest to me. The cinematography was pretty though.

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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#20 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:53 pm

They all at the very least end with the main character committing some kind of premeditated act that screws everyone else over for arguably the greater good of being able to continue onward in some form or another. Though I'd need to revisit Millions to see if that holds true to the general trend.

EDIT: Amusingly now having seen Yesterday, it also holds true to this comment!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Wed Jul 14, 2021 3:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#21 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jun 01, 2021 7:33 pm

I was gonna say, I'd rather they end that way than with some Bollywood dance at a train station, though looking through his filmography your spoiler doesn't really seem to be a trend. If anything, there's an opposite auteurist interest in forming a "Choose Life" revelation to end without full closure, in media res of an epiphany, sans comfort that said character will take this sober moment to actualize a change of lifestyle following the final frames. 127 Hours is the embodiment of the cathartic, and more finite, version of what I'm talking about, but my other two favorite Boyles, The Beach and Trainspotting, both end in polar opposite declarations - one a passionate high, the other a contemplative low - yet both moments of choosing life in a new way than the characters were doing before, which were pretty similar in gravitating towards immature ideas of independence (escape into drugs and live wildly, escape from society and live wildly)- as was Aron to some degree in the true story (i.e. the answering machine messages from family, and memories of sidelining his partner to focus on his self-entitled adrenaline desires). Boyle seems more concerned with a cautious optimism in people gaining maturity born from illuminating experiences, with even the 'under pressure' situation of Sunshine resulting in sacrifice of self-preservation when 'shit' hits the fan- even if that shit involved a weird third act "serial killer"- it paled in comparison to the 'shit' of planetary apocalypse!

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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#22 Post by knives » Tue Jun 01, 2021 8:15 pm

colinr0380 wrote:
Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:53 pm
They all at the very least end with the main character committing some kind of premeditated act that screws everyone else over for arguably the greater good of being able to continue onward in some form or another. Though I'd need to revisit Millions to see if that holds true to the general trend.
Though I can’t say there’s much a greater good here.

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Re: 616 Shallow Grave

#23 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Jun 02, 2021 2:30 am

Without spoiling things too much I was trying to make more of an overarching general statement, but I guess it all depends if you consider characters to be acting 'selfishly in their own self interest' or 'altruistically' I suppose! I am always left ambivalent at the very least by Danny Boyle's films (including yes Sunshine and 127 Hours) of whether the hero should really be celebrated for all their flaws. And usually more repulsed by their actions, or at best just seeing them muddle through to some kind of satisfying resolution against the odds. Though maybe that's the point: that everyone is flawed and has the potential within them to claw their own arms off for the chance to continue their existence either in specifically personal, appropriational terms (which I think ties in more with the nakedly aspirational, single minded drive side of many of Boyle's films) or because their sights are set on loftier goals (which ignore the people around them, or use them as pawns in their bigger plans).

In a way the Christopher Eccleston character in Shallow Grave is the equivalent of Pinbacker in Sunshine, as the figure who has been corrupted by getting too close to the dangerous but seductive source (forced into reckoning with it by drawing the short straw in having to deal with the situation the first time around), and has broken under the strain and has been driven insane by it, whilst our heroes manage to keep a kind of relative (although kind of callous in their lack of ability to empathise with the main 'villain' of the piece) distance by their more pragmatic approach to their situation. Even if their curiosity about the previous expedition almost proves to be their own downfalls (certainly almost scuppers the bigger mission) and it all still ends in a bloodbath from which few escape unscathed, physically or mentally!

Which is to say that I kind of want to see a Danny Boyle remake of Kiss Me Deadly some time! Though that may have been Trance? :-k

It does feel as if Boyle's films of the last decade have been trying to internalise this into different aspects of a single character: the internal struggles of the main character in 127 Hours, the main character of Trance (though to say why would constitute a spoiler, though I have talked about it in its dedicated thread) and going more deeply into Renton in Trainspotting 2 come to mind (even if that remains an ensemble film at heart). Though The Beach is probably the earliest example of that, even if the critique of the main character's actions bringing about the entire downfall of the secret hedonistic beach colony is softened quite a bit from the Alex Garland novel, presumably because of those commercial pressures to make a 'fun film starring Titanic heartthrob Leonardo Di Caprio', similar to those Boyle mentions regarding Shallow Grave in that Moving Pictures segment linked to earlier, where he mentions that he would have liked to have gone further into the claustrophobically enclosed world of the flat but it was felt that it could be more of a 'commercial success' if they did not do that (It took until Panic Room for a major film to get that single set enclosed, and even there the writer's commentary mentions that they still felt it necessary to add on those outside of the house and bulk of the action bookends to that film. Rope probably still remains the main example of a film all set in a single location without any jumps outside of that). The Beach as a film does end with a "passionate high", but it is one that is ironically overwriting the truth of the situation for a more (self?) comforting image of collective happiness, doing that classic thing of only looking back on your holiday through the posed snaps of the best moments rather than remembering the traumatic way that it all ended. A pre-computer version of 'virtual reality'?

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