Trainspotting

Trainspotting Task 1: The Film

Danny Boyle, director of six movies directed Trainspotting under the FilmFour Company, Figment Films and The Noel Gay Motion Picture Company. In 2008 he won an Oscar award for his hit movie Slumdog Millionaire. Trainspotting was shot in 7 weeks under a budget of $2.5 million and was shot in Edinburgh and London. The film was released in Japan, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Sweden, Brazil, USA, Turkey and Germany. However it is a film originally from the UK as it is based upon fictional British lives. The film was nominated for an Oscar alongside 13 other nomination and won18 awards. Trainspotting starred; Ewan McGregor as Mike Newton, Ewen Bremnor as Spud, Johnny Lee Miller as Sick Boy, Kevin McKidd as Tommy, Robert Carlyle as Begbie, Kelly McDonald as Diane and Peter Mullan as Swannay.

Trainspotting is a film based around the story of four Scottish youths caught up in heroin. The film is introduced through the main character Mark Renton and friend ‘Spud’ shoplifting as he is explains how he chose to live in a non-traditional meaningless life of heroin. His first attempt to give up heroin ends with him sleeping with a girl named Dianne who turns out to be a 14 year old schoolgirl. As he attempts to leave her she blackmails him and tells him unless he stays with him she will tell the police about their one night. So far his and his friend’s attempts to stay off the heroin fails and soon enough they give into temptation. However a horror strikes when they find Allison’s daughter Dawn dead in her cot. All feeling shocked and sick they continue their drug addiction and soon enough one of the boys ends up in jail for stealing. Soon enough the drugs really affect Renton as he is taken to hospital luckily saved. His parents feeling like they have no other option lock him up in a room trying to beat his addiction. Finally free of drugs Renton moves to London and gets a job as property letting agent, but soon is encouraged to return for a heroin deal by his friends. After the deal goes through successfully the movie ends with Renton betraying his friends and taking the money and runs.

Overall Trainspotting favoured a wide audience, however it did create controversy as to whether or not the film was promoting drugs.

Trainspotting Task 2: Marketing

This poster for the film Trainspotting is very simple yet says a lot about the film. Each character within the poster is posing in a way that shows something personal about their character. For example; Begbie is posing with a cigarette in his mouth and two fingers up. This shows that his character is quite rude and has an attitude of life where nothing really matters. The cigarette also indicates he is a person who needs something to keep him cool and under pressure. The characters represent the film’s genre as being based around the individual personalities of people and being quite a realistic film. The themes of the film from the poster seem to be; dysfunctional relationships, smoking and drugs, guns, friendship, hatred and fakeness. This is shown in the poster through the cigarette, the gut holding his hand like a gun and the girl and the way she is dressed. The only information that is received through the poster on the film is a brief view of each characters personality through their facial expressions, positions and costumes and the name of each of the characters. I believe that this poster is appealing to a target audience that is quite simple, enjoys comedies and mostly I think this film is aimed lower and middle class men who have just come out of their teenage years. Thinking about this audience I think this film would definitely draw in this kind of audience. This is because the positions of the characters represent some aspects of comedy and so does parts of the costume.

Trainspotting Task 3

In my opinion the main message of this film is to show the dangers and the impact that taking drugs can have on your life and make you feel. The film tries to also get through to the audience that an addiction can be beaten and overcome. As a British film I think it is trying to say that our society is very judgemental and only one way of life is accepted in terms of getting and education, a degree and a job that pays. It doesn’t offer people any other ways of living and it is getting across another type of life that many British people choose to lead. It shows a broken society and a division between tow totally different ways of life. I think the film was successful because it is based on a realistic way of life and shows issues in society that are not shown as realistically as Trainspotting shows.