127 Hours was pretty much billed as "that movie where James Franco cuts off his own arm," which is precisely why everyone went to see it. Everybody knew, then, that - at the end of the film - Franco's unlucky hiker, Aaron Ralston, would be forced to cut off his own limb. What nobody quite expected, however, was just how effective director Danny Boyle would be at rendering the sequence so that you felt the physically pain of actually doing something so heinous. The arm-cutting sequence in 127 Hours is a mini-masterpiece in itself - a brilliantly conceived moment that makes the most of visual and aural techniques to ensure that audiences feel the inherent nightmare of Ralston's self-amputation. The giddy camerawork, coupled with the electrical nerve "pangs" on the soundtrack, made this one hell of a sequence to sit through. And one that you can admire without ever wanting to see it again.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
