Trainspotting (1996) — 20 Years After Choosing Life.
“Trainspotting” — One of Britain’s Greatest Ever Films…
“Trainspotting” is the 1996 British black comedy-drama film which starred Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, and Kelly Macdonald. The film which underwent the direction of Danny Boyle, the narration of Ewan McGregor and a screenplay by John Hodge based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh — resulting in an unexpected pop culture phenomenon, defining not only the 90’s generation but setting the future tone for British Film Institute as well. It’s a film that made British cinema seem exciting again and restored its golden period rather than a fusty factory of period dramas which was ongoing for half a decade. And it became a classic that is still being talked about today, with a sequel finally on the way in less than a month. It is often described as black comedy, but I would liken it more to a drama with a crude, dark sense of humor. Trainspotting is the rare drug addiction-tale to tackle serious material without taking itself too seriously.
Stylistically, “Trainspotting” is unlike anything Danny Boyle has presented us with, however, he has built up that reputation as a director that tends not to do anything twice. With jump cuts, extreme angles, big close-ups and everything in between on display, the story of Trainspotting is brought to life on a completely different level through superbly bold cinematographic and editing techniques. Although it would be recommended to rematch the film on mute to appreciate the visual elements in all their glory, the dialogue of the screenplay is equally as engrossing. The thick, rich, bellowing Scottish accents are fantastic to listen to from a foreigner, especially from the fascinatingly intense Begbie and a hardened adrenaline-fuelled brawler who acts as Renton’s voice of reason.
The script is intelligently written from beginning to end and offers a well-rounded look at life, existence, Renton’s life, Renton’s existence and how society operates around him. The writing has a way of repeating itself, which adds a lot to the structure of the film when dealing with relapse, habit, and addiction. On the other hand, it also adds the aspect of change into the mix as Renton’s vow to break away from the drug scene is explored thoroughly throughout the piece.
The film tracks Tommy, Spud, and Sick Boy and links the characters through interweaving storylines. In allowing different versions the same story to be told the film shifts narrators: for example, in the telling of the different versions of the fight at the pool hall the film shifts between Renton’s narration of life among the group, Begbie’s self-serving recollection, and Tommy’s own memory. Diane also takes on a narrative role as a letter writer. The night-club sequence in Edinburgh crosscuts between Tommy and Spud’s, and Lizzie and Gail’s differing versions of the same conversations, and at the end of the night the Soyuz Het splits to follow three couples (Renton and Diane, Tommy and Lizzie, Spud and Gail) as they embark on their ill-fated sexual adventures. Unlike the other films discussed here, the group is shown as highly fragmented, leaving the unifying space of the nightclub as they go their separate ways, and this highlights Renton’s alienation from his own surroundings. In the nightclub, he is shown standing to one side of the room while his friends mix on the dance floor, and the highly conscious use of Renton as narrator emphasises his distance from his peers:
“The situation was becoming serious. Young Renton noticed the haste with which the successful in the sexual sphere, as in all others, segregated themselves from the failures. Heroin had robbed Renton of his sex drive but now it returned with a vengeance. And as the impotence of those days faded into memory, grim desperation took a hold in his sex-crazed mind.”
This voice-over heightens Renton’s isolation by having him refer to himself in the third person, and also its literary quality, with the emphasis placed on the spoken ellipsis, signals his dual role as both a participant in the narrative action and as an observer looking in from the outside. The duration of this sequence is clearly indicated, moving from the nightclub to the next morning, but in general, Trainspotting lacks a defined time frame. For example, we do not know what the duration of the Fabula is, how long Renton has been in London, or the amount of time that passes between Tommy experimenting with heroin and his death. Though the Soyuz Het is basically linear, with some flashbacks and some flashforwards, the structure of the film is episodic. The pool hall sequence, for example, jumps from the present to Begbie’s version of the past, to the future in which Tommy gives his version of events, and back to the present without specifying how much time has passed between the three elements of this sequence.
Trainspotting also cuts across genres mixing realism with fantasy, offering the characters as ‘the redemption of material impoverishment through aesthetic transformation. The film depicts poverty realistically, but in a way that encompasses the possibility of escape as well as entrapment, and in exploiting the aesthetics of film draws a kind of vitality from grinding poverty. However, this redemption through aesthetics is not achievable in Scotland and is only fulfilled in the film’s London sequences. In Edinburgh, the addicts typically walk from one place to another, but to reach the highlands they take a train and this shows that it is a part of Scotland that is physically removed from their lives and that an exceptional effort has to be made. The strangeness of this environment is evident in Sick Boy’s demands for instruction on arrival, and his shock at Tommy’s suggestion they go for a walk. The silence and tranquillity of the Scottish mountains is a feature of advertising campaigns to attract tourists to Scotland, and in this context represents hot nationalism masquerading as the everyday. However, Spud’s observation that the landscape is ‘not natural’ signals the remoteness of this idea of Scotland from the housing scheme the characters inhabit in Edinburgh, and points to the fact that Scotland is a construction that marginalises many Scots. In one sequence an American tourist enters a pub, and asks to use the toilet and simply assumes their compliance without waiting for a reply. Once in the toilet he is repeatedly assaulted and robbed, and the value of tourism to the Scottish economy is to be found, as far as Renton and Begbie are concerned, in the opportunity for crime to fuel their addictions.
As Renton and Spud run through the streets of Edinburgh having shoplifted from John Menzies they pass in front of the National Gallery of Scotland. By dividing the screen aesthetically, a long shot represents the relationship between the life of the Renton and Spud, and of ‘official’ Scotland as being distinct and separate: the gallery stands impassive in the background, static and oblivious to the action before it, while the two addicts sprint across the foreground. The vertical columns of the gallery echo the vertical lines of the title shot, of the flats as Renton walks to the betting shop, and of the group as tourists in the Highlands and the mountain itself. In all these sequences the horizontal cuts across the vertical, indicating that Renton’s life is on a different axis, and the static, frontal camera further suggests that this state of affairs will not change.
Whether it is the heroin addicts, Begbie’s pursuit of violence for its own sake, or Renton’s mother, whose use of valium renders her a ‘socially acceptable’ addict, everyone in Trainspotting is addicted to something. It is something that is endemic to Scotland, and Scottishness itself may be interpreted as an addiction, which like heroin affords a means of escaping the reality of the council estates, underemployment, and social exclusion. The unnaturalness of the highlands is one example of how the ‘real’ problems of Scotland may be elided through an unquestioned belief in an image of Scotland. The addictive quality of Scottishness is also evident in Sick Boy’s obsession with Sean Connery as James Bond, which as Renton observes is hardly a substitute for the former’s lack of moral fibre.
Choose Life. Choose: “Trainspotting.”
To this day, it remains one of only a handful of ‘fully’ British films (ie with no American studio attachments) to have grossed over £10m at the domestic box office. So why did Trainspotting capture the popular imagination in a way that few British indie films have before or since? Partly, it’s a case of impeccable timing. The film is, of course, synonymous with the Britpop era, thanks largely to soundtrack contributions from the likes of Blur, Pulp, Underworld and Sleeper. But, crucially, Trainspotting landed while the musical movement was still imbued with a little rock’n’roll swagger, before its inevitable decline towards corporate blandness.
Over the years, the film has been attacked as pro-drug and defended as anti-drug, but actually, it is simply pragmatic. Not once does the film outright glorify heroin usage, it remains against the habit for the majority of the film, however, the characters’ mindsets are explored in-depth and we are treated to a devil’s advocate point of view regarding it all. Through the descriptions of what it’s like, there is a sense of intrigue and sympathy for these people who have entered the vicious cycle of addiction.
Since a sequel is on its way in less than a month (which would be an adaptation of Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh’s follow-up novel “Porno” and would feature the original cast and crew) — those who are interested in a definitive 90’s classic that shows elements of inspiration for the likes of Edgar Wright and younger energetic directors alike, choose Renton, choose Iggy Pop, choose Edinburgh, choose darker comedy, choose clubs, choose bars, choose chaos, choose lunacy, choose friendship, choose ambitious filmmaking, choose life, choose Trainspotting.
Read the full story here.
Originally written by Asif Ahsan Khan and published at Wordpress.com
