Johnny Boyle's Use Of Flashbacks In Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire
In the Academy Award winning film Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, Boyle constantly used flashbacks to tell the story. In this film the main character, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), was on the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The show was made to be very difficult so that nobody would win. When Jamal continuously got the correct answers, the men running the game show claimed that he was cheating. The film began to flash back and forth between three different time periods. The film flashed between while Jamal was a kid and before the game show, the game show itself, and after the game show when he was being tortured for “cheating.” This allowed for the audience to …show more content…
During the game show there were multiple rounds. Each round had a different question. After each question was asked, the viewer would feel tension, which was the goal of the game show host. This put everyone on the edge of their seat as they wondered if he had the answer or not. After each question was asked during the game show, there was a flashback scene that followed. Without the scene at the game show, the storyline would be a mess. Each flashback matched up with a question from the game show, giving background information on how Jamal knew the answer. If the game show scene never happened in the film, then the movie would be a series of disordered scenes. They would appear to have no significance or meaning. For example, there was a scene where Jamal got an autograph from the famous movie star Amitabh Bachchan. After he got the autograph, he says, “A thousand thanks, Amitabh-ji”(Slumdog Millionaire). If the viewer was unaware of the game show question, this scene would be uninteresting and boring, but the viewer is waiting intently for the answer to the question to be revealed. This flashback was a highly- effective tool in helping the viewer to understand and be interested in the