car horn sympony - Slumdog Millionaire

I hate the word cacophony, and Simon Beaufoy, writing in The Guardian about adapting Vikas Swarup's novel, Q and A into the screenplay for Slumdog Millionaire was able to avoid its use. I like this passage

Nuance doesn't stand a chance in the car horn symphony of a Mumbai traffic jam.

And this one

They say that if you get caught in an avalanche it is hard to know whether you are facing up or down when the tumbling stops. The Mumbai slums are like an avalanche of the senses - an excess of smell, noise, taste and colour. Once I've turned the first corner, I'm not sure which way I came in or how I'll ever get out. But in this avalanche, something becomes abundantly and wonderfully obvious.

Beaufoy is a truly gifted writer. The rest of the article is worth a close read.


Simon Beaufoy speaks at the "Slumdog Millionaire" press conference during the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival held at the Sutton Place Hotel on September 8, 2008 in Toronto, Canada. (photo from Getty Images via daylife)

More in The Guardian.

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Today/Sunday turned out to be terribly unproductive.