absolutely fantastic

Author: ayrhead from United Kingdom
23 April 2005

This film is, to use that old cinematic cliché, a rollarcoaster. The film portrays the lives of a group of friends, most of whom are heroin addicts and the story of their seemingly relentless march towards simultaneous self destruction and discovery. Having lived in Scotland all my life the film does what few mainstream box-office smashes dare to, which is to give an accurate and truthful (if not slightly comical) portrayal of life for drug addicts and the lower classes in Scotland. This is made all the more poignant by the fact the story is set in Edinburgh, a city renound for its beauty and wealth, but which has a seedy underbelly of poverty, violence and drug abuse in the city's peripheral housing schemes (ignored by the wealthy inhabitants of the city centre). A strong plot excellent characters and a brilliant soundtrack all contribute to this masterpiece.

F*cking brilliant

Author: Jaymay from Los Angeles
27 January 2008

Trainspotting is what film should be: honest, imaginative, surprising, and groundbreaking.LIke Goodfellas,(cé koa Goodfellas ? Les Affranchis...j'ai detesté)Trainspotting is a meandering movie that manages to grip you the entire time. It is funny and heartbreaking at the same time, anchored by Ewan MacGregor's absolutely devastating performance as Renton. Put his performance up against the Best Actor nominees in any given year and I dare you to say it doesn't belong.

Contrary to what others have posted, Trainspotting absolutely made an impact here in the States. That may have been to Danny Boyle's detriment as he's never quite reached the same heights since.But for us, in the U.S., you have to realize that it was basically a foreign film because you can't understand about 25% of the dialogue because the accent is so thick. Begbie's dialogue is purposely opaque, I think. Not that it matters - the performance is rock solid.If you haven't seen the movie, go out and get it. It's in my all-time Top 10, and it holds up beautifully over time.

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La critique de James Berardinelli (1)
Next to Independence Day, Trainspotting may be the most hyped motion picture of the summer. Miramax Films, the distributor that saturated the market with ads for The Crying Game in 1992- 93 and Pulp Fiction in '94, has struck again. Trainspotting, which is based on Irvine Welsh's cult novel and is directed by Shallow Grave helmsman Danny Boyle, became a smash hit in the UK during its run there. Miramax, hoping for a similar reaction on this side of the Atlantic, has been shouting from the rooftops, using big, splashy print ads and chaotic TV and theatrical spots to lure in their target audience. The danger is, of course, that Trainspotting's substance will get drowned by the marketing.

"I chose not to choose life. I chose to choose something else," says the film's narrator and main character, a twenty-something Edinburgh man named Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), near the outset of Trainspotting. In rejecting the yuppie culture of a nuclear family, material possessions, a paying job, and dental insurance, Renton is rebelling, but this isn't just the usual disaffection of youth -- it's a deeper, more pervasive dissatisfaction with a culture he views as sick and stifling.

Renton's escape is through drugs -- primarily heroin, but really anything he can get his hands on. He's surrounded by his "buddies", a group of crooks, liars, and psychos who are even more twisted than he is. There's Spud (Ewan Bremner), a shy, inoffensive junkie; Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), a vicious, duplicitous con artist who's obsessed with Sean Connery; Tommy (Kevin McKidd), a "virtuous" young man fighting the temptation of heroin; and Begbie (Robert Carlyle), a nutcase who gets his thrills from beating up people.

Trainspotting is careful not to present a one-sided view of drug use. After all, why would anyone use the stuff if all it leads to is misery and unhappiness? In Renton's words, to get an idea of what it's like using heroin, "Take the best orgasm you've ever had, multiply by 1000, and you're still nowhere near it." There are no worries about the problems and concerns of everyday life, just where the next hit is going to come from. The giddiness of heroin addiction is well-illustrated during some of the film's early scenes, but it's a euphoria that gives way to tragedy.

 La critique de James Berardinelli (fin)

In the end, Trainspotting has an anti-drug message, but it presents its case through character studies, not preaching. There are a lot of gruesome images, some of which are presented in an oddly humorous context. For example, take Renton's headfirst dive into the "worst toilet in Scotland" or Spud's reaction when he wakes up in soiled sheets. In portraying the cycle of addiction -- using drugs, trying to get clean, then giving in again -- Trainspotting recalls Drugstore Cowboy and The Basketball Diaries. Boyle's style, however, is distinctly his own. This is a kinetic movie, where everything, including the camera, keeps moving. This isn't an examination of the Scottish drug culture from the outside looking in, it's one from the inside looking out.

For one hour, Trainspotting is as compelling as any motion picture to be released this year. It's exciting, energetic, thought-provoking, and never lets up. Unfortunately, during the film's last third, the focus starts to shift, and, in doing so, it blurs. Suddenly, after battling addiction for sixty minutes, Renton and his friends become Scotland's answer to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs -- a group of inept thieves committing the "dodgiest scam" in a lifetime of petty crimes. There's mistrust, betrayal, and bloodshed. But, while this material has some appeal, it's debatable whether it belongs here. For a segment like this to really work, it needs more time and attention than Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge are able to give it. As such, the subplot seems almost like an afterthought, taking the film away from its darker, more compelling material and opening the door to a hopeful, if ironic, ending.

The overlong epilogue aside, Trainspotting is one of the summer's most arresting motion pictures, and not just because of the offbeat visual style. There's nothing new or unique about the story, but it is presented in a manner that reinforces its immediacy and impact. The film makers were determined to make this a street-level view of addiction, not some "voyeuristic Oxbridge graduate's perception of these people". In that goal, they have succeeded, and, while Trainspotting is not without its faults, it offers a powerful portrait that all of Miramax's overhyping cannot diminish.

Trivia
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-Various options were considered to make the film more intelligible for American audiences. Subtitles were ruled out as they would spoil the effect of using them in the disco scene. Instead, the actors re-recorded the first 20 minutes of dialog, softening their accents to atune American ears to the Scottish dialect.
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-In 2009, Robert Carlyle, who played Begbie, told a BAFTA interviewer that he played Begbie as a closeted gay man whose outbursts of violence were due to his "fear of being outed". Irvine Welsh, who wrote the movie's source novel, confirmed that he wrote the Begbie of the book to have an ambiguous sexuality, and agreed with Carlyle's interpretation of the film's version of the character.
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-The writing on the wall of the Volcano Nightclub is the same as that in the Moloko bar in Orange mécanique (1971). There are also paintings of Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster from Taxi Driver (1976).
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-Although it looks thoroughly offputting, the faeces in the Worst Toilet in Scotland scene was actually made from chocolate and smelled quite pleasant.
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-Jonny Lee Miller's character, Sick Boy, is obsessed with James Bond trivia. Miller is the grandson of Bernard Lee, who played "M" in the Bond series until 1979.
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-Danny Boyle used twins to play the part of baby Dawn, which meant neither of the babies were forced to be in front of the camera for too long. All of the cast used to play with the two babies in between takes so they could break the tension of the often difficult scenes they were about to shoot.
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-The toilet-diving scene is a reference to Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel "Gravity's Rainbow".
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-The football team pictured in the opening credits is the Calton Athletic Club, who are actually drug addiction counselors and were the primary consultants for the film.
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-The whole film was shot in just seven and a half weeks.
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-For the close-up shots of Ewan McGregor injecting himself with heroin, a prosthetic arm was constructed by the make-up department, complete with pulsing veins, smack tracks and small pockets of blood that would appear when the skin was punctured by a hypodermic needle.
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-This movie was Kelly Macdonald's film debut.
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-Shot on a budget of £1.5 million over a period of 35 days. Despite that low budget, PolyGram allocated an almost unprecedented £800,000 to go towards promotion and advertisement, such was their faith in the film.(soit 2,3 Millions de livres) 
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-From the minute the film went into pre-production, Ewan McGregor was always first choice for the part of Renton.
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-Ewan McGregor was open to injecting himself with heroin, to better understand Renton's character. He later decided against it.
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-References to The Beatles:
•The scene where the store detectives chase Renton down the street is reminiscent of the scene in Quatre garçons dans le vent (1964) where The Beatles are pursued by fans.
•While watching the train, the four friends arrange themselves in the same manner as The Beatles did on the back of the album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".
•The scene where the four friends cross the road and enter the hotel is reminiscent of the cover of the album "Abbey Road".
•The scene where Renton wakes up on the couch in the morning at Diane's home and says hello to someone passing through the hallway while covered with a blanket to his chin, is reminiscent of a scene in Au secours! (1965) where Ringo is found in a trunk of a car covered up with a blanket, and upon being found, says hello.
-The "Mother Superior's" written in the dealer house is a reference to the Beatles song Happiness is a Warm Gun, a song about heroin, which has the line "mother superior jump the gun".
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-Alec Guinness has been succeeded in two of his roles by actors from Trainspotting (1996). Guinness portrayed Adolf Hitler in Les dix derniers jours d'Hitler (1973). Robert Carlyle portrayed Adolf Hitler in Hitler - La naissance du mal (2003), while Ewan McGregor succeeded him in the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
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-Although set in Edinburgh, most interiors, and some of the exteriors, were shot in Glasgow. A notable exception is the chase down Princes Street.
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For its American release, the first 20 minutes had to be re-dubbed to make the Scottish accents more intelligible.
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-The shot of Sick Boy's finger ringing the Renton's doorbell in London is almost identical to a shot in Tirez sur le pianiste (1960).
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-Ewen Bremner (Spud) had previously played Renton in a stage adaptation of the novel.
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-In one scene in London, while Renton is "visited" by Begbie, he's reading a book about actor Montgomery Clift who had lots of experiences with drugs and medication of all kinds.
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-The last scene with Spud getting the money in the locker is almost identical to a scene in Il était une fois en Amérique (1984). Even the circumstances behind the scenes are very similar.
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-To play the skinny heroin-addicted Renton, Ewan McGregor was placed on a simple diet consisting of no alcohol or dairy products in order to lose weight. It only took him two months to reach Renton's desired size.
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-Many of the book's stories and characters were dropped in order to create a cohesive movie script of adequate length.
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-Christopher Eccleston was offered the role of Begbie.
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-Created much controversy when it was released in the USA for its content. Senator Bob Dole charged the film with glorifying drug use, but later admitted he hadn't seen the film. See also: Prêtre (1994), Tueurs nés (1994), and Kids (1995)
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-Was ranked number 10 on the British Film Institute's all time best British films.
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-Danny Boyle had his actors prepare by making them watch older movies about rebellious youths like L'arnaqueur (1961), L'exorciste (1973) and Orange mécanique (1971). The latter film is directly homaged in the scene set in the Volcano nightclub, which is very similar to that set in the Milk Bar in 'Stanley Kubrick''s film. Indeed, the track playing in he Volcano club is by Heaven 17 who took their name from Orange mécanique (1971).
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-Before he took up screenwriting, John Hodge was a doctor and had to frequently deal with heroin addicts. Some of his experiences have been worked into the script. One such example is the junkies stealing a television set from an old folk's home.
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-The scene where Sick-Boy and Renton lie in the park and take potshots with their air-rifle was originally going to be set to the theme from Mission impossible (1966). Unfortunately Brian De Palma was setting up the film version of the TV show at the time so getting to the rights to the music simply proved to be too expensive - approximately three times the film's budget. (6,9 millions de livres de droit d'auteur!!)Both actors were very hungover for the scene in question.
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-Danny Boyle credits the Spike Jonze-directed music video for "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys as a major influence on the opening sequence of the film.
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-Kevin McKidd (Tommy) missed the photo shoot for the promos because he was on holiday. This resulted in him being the only lead cast member not to be in any of the promotional posters or even the video cover.
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-Irvine Welsh had been approached by film-makers before about adapting "Trainspotting" for the screen but had resisted their offers. He was won over by Andrew Macdonald and John Hodge's enthusiasm for the project but only on the condition that they didn't adopt a Ken Loach semi-documentary approach to the material.
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First feature film of Kevin McKidd.
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-The opening chase scene after the robbery is a nod to The Clash's video for 'Bankrobber,' in which the bank robbers in the video are being chased in a similar fashion and similar camera shot.
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-Danny Boyle used creative methods while directing, necessitated by the film's low budget. For example, in the scene where Renton shoots a dog with a BB gun and it then goes crazy and attacks its owner, Boyle got the dog to freak out simply by positioning himself just outside of camera range and screaming at it.
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-After moving to London, and immediately after requesting the keys for "Talgarth Road," Renton states in a voice-over that there was, "no such thing as society." This is a famously misunderstood direct quote from an interview in 1987 with then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
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-The sex scene between Ewan McGregor and Kelly Macdonald had to be trimmed for the American release by a few seconds, mainly because it appeared that Diane - a schoolgirl in the film - seemed to be enjoying it too much. (Fffffff!)
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-Kelly Macdonald, although supposedly 14 in the film, was 19 when making it. It was released on her 20th birthday.
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-Kelly Macdonald got the part when the production crew were handing out flyers across Glasgow, for anyone eager to audition. When Danny Boyle first laid eyes on her, in a corridor with a plain hairdo surrounded by many glamorous girls, he knew she was the one. He wanted someone unknown, so no-one would guess a 19-year-old is playing a schoolgirl. Macdonald still has the promotional flyer at home.
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-According to the liner notes from the second volume of the soundtrack, David Bowie's "Golden Years" was supposed to be what Diane sings to Renton during the withdrawal scene. Instead she sings New Order's "Temptation.'' Diane also sings the lyrics while having a bath and they can be heard again very faintly in the background during breakfast.