Trainspotting

- shoestring
- £1.5M

- "glorification of heroin"
- "powerful because it's honest"

balanced portrayal - all consequences including the euphoria and excitement, showing why they do it but also the negative outcomes

britannia movement / britpop era

artists on the soundtrack include iggy pop, blur, underworld, pulp

- relative unknowns
- ewan mcgregor - Renton
- Carlyle - Begbie
- - Spud
- - Sickboy
- Macdonald - Diane

zeitgeist:

trainspotting the captured the zeitgeist of 1996 with...

- Thatcher era
- shockingly high unemployment, widespread substance abuse problems and a devastating HIV epidemic
- this connects with an audience that lived through the 80s recession
- revelling against the government / escaping it's reality through drugs

- youth underclass film
- gen x were 1965-1979
- known as slackers, cynical and dissafected
- nicknamed 'latch-key' due to being left alone due to parents working
- identity based on being independent

all beliefs are baseless
a nihilist believes in nothing with no loyalties
nihilists have an impulse to destroy, radical skepticism and extreme pessimism
also known as an iconoclast
trainspotting depicts the nihilism of the gen x experience

Diane (Macdonald) is an optimistic millennial contrasting Rentons pessimism and nihilism from being gen X

more comedic and gritty realism than anything sensuous or idealised
- Tommy's sex tape - comedy
- Diane + Renton - gritty

the absence of sexuality is significant of the repressed libido caused by substance abuse

- countryside, Tommy tries to take them for a walk to be 'healthier' (ironic)
- "lowest of the low" + "colonised by wankers"
- stereotypical construction of Scotland being green, this contrasts the city of graffiti 'scum, junkie' and red in mother superiors

- new hope for Renton
- a job, source of income and escaping his past (however he does not succeed)

- no portrayals of sexism within the film
- however female characters are love interests or mothers to the main characters
- the film is through this Scottish white male perspective and the narrative has little interest in these women

- can be seen through hallucinations
- dream/nightmare like quality
- 'the worst toilet in Scotland'
- Rentons withdrawals sequence

- walking would make them healthier
- Spud doing an interview on amphetamine
- Begbies casual violence
- Begbie in and of himself - saying he would never do that to his body (drugs) while drinking and smoking and causing physical harm to himself and others

- starts in media res - disequilibrium to engage audience and depict chaos
- new equilibrium of Renton running away with money to try and live a more 'normal' and idealised life of a capitalist consumer - 'choose life'

- red of mother superior, green of Scottish countryside and green lighting by baby
- hotel - red/orange low key vs outside is bright and hopeful
- Renton is the binary opposition to all other characters in some way - Begbie and his ideas on sexuality and violence, Sickboy and his mannerisms, Spud and his intellect
Renton is shown to be relatable yet amoral
- life with drugs vs without - parents house dull colours, slow paced editing etc - opening red building match to action no furniture, Renton trying to go cold turkey more mundane but brighter