Trainspotting Key Scenes

Trainspotting           Key scenes

Introduction

Expository Narration

Non-Linear Narration

Captions

Non-diegetic voice over.

This scene sets up the world of habitual heroin use and the ‘normal’ world in which their sub-culture exists. They share the same space and the two cultures overlap. Renton’s voice over explains the reasons (‘there are no reasons’) as why they haven’t chosen life but chosen heroin instead.

Here then is one of the first cultural boundaries the film sets up. In the beginning Tommy is firmly if the non-heroin group (‘it’s a waste of your life, Rents, poisoning your body with that shite’) but does later in the film cross the line (‘I want to try it, Mark. You’re always going on about how it’s the ultimate hit . . . I want to find out for myself’) with tragic consequences.

London(England) Scotland

Renton: It's shite being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low! The scum of the fucking earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization! Some people hate the English; I don't! They're just wankers! We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers! Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by! We're ruled by effete assholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!

Renton’s speech, Costume, body language as well as cinematography highlight the separation the characters have from a stereotypical notion of Scottishness – no Robert the Bruce or Braveheart here.

Similarly the ‘first day of the Edinburgh festival’ scene demonstrates separation from Edinburgh culture the city’s positive aspects.

London

Is set up as a binary opposite to Deprived Edinburgh. The Mass unemployment and poverty is exchanged for the money making opportunity of London. The film starts the London sequence with an almost promotional video sequence of the capital city.

I quite enjoyed the sound of it all. Profit, loss, margins, takeovers, lending, letting, subletting, subdividing, cheating, scamming, fragmenting, breaking away. There was no such thing as society and even if there was, I most certainly had nothing to do with it. For the first time in my adult life I was almost content.

Renton can cross between the two cities whereas Sick Boy Renton and Begbie cannot. When they come to London they bring their chaos with them.

Consider all contrasts between London and Edinburgh and how the characters relate to both places.

Night Clubs, Music, Drugs, Employment, . . . etc

Consider this in terms of representation – how are the two capital cities represented by the Encoder?

Renton only uses Heroin in Edinburgh and not London – think about what this signifies.

Illusion/reality

8.08  toilet

How do the captions/voice over help us shift between reality and illusion. What does the illusionary world tell us about Renton’s drug habit in this scene.

43.23 overdose

Escape

Management of time perhaps signifies that the reality of life is meaningless by comparison to the illusionary world.

The harshness of the reality is juxtaposed the song ‘Perfect Day’ The mise en scene constructs a paradigm of utter despair – does this justify the use of heroin?

Resurrection in the hospital – brought back to the life – but what life?

Cold Turkey 48.47

Are illusion and reality colliding?

All of his ‘misdemeanours’  haunt his nightmares. Sex with school girls, dead babies, threat of violence, HIV, prison  etc.

Sub cultural values

Job Interview

A subculture is a group of people with a culture (whether distinct or hidden) which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong, for example, if a particular subculture is characterized by a systematic opposition to the dominant culture, it may be described as a counterculture.
Subcultural capital is described as the cultural knowledge and commodities acquired by members of a subculture, raising their status and helping differentiate themselves from members of other groups. In 2007, Ken Gelder proposed to distinguish subcultures from countercultures based on the level of immersion in society.^[3] Gelder further proposed six key ways in which subcultures can be identified:

1.     through their often negative relations to work (as 'idle', 'parasitic', at play or at leisure, etc.);

2.     through their negative or ambivalent relation to class (since subcultures are not 'class-conscious' and don't conform to traditional class definitions);

3.     through their association with territory (the 'street', the 'hood', the club, etc.), rather than property;

4.     through their movement out of the home and into non-domestic forms of belonging (i.e. social groups other than the family);

5.     through their stylistic ties to excess and exaggeration (with some exceptions);

6.     through their refusal of the banalities of ordinary life and massification.

Try and consider what values the group share and what values they hold that are at odds with the rest of society.  In terms of our ability to answer the exam question we need to consider the different boundaries of belonging and exclusion.

Illusion                      Reality

Society                      Sub Culture

Edinburgh                London

Our protagonist, Renton, can move across the boundaries and at certain times the Director deliberately blurs those boundaries.

Contextual work

You need to read through the BFI Powerpoint .

What ‘type’ of British film is this. Also consider Andrew Higsons conceptual framework for national cinema. Economic, Audience, High Art and Content.

What do British films have in common – how does Trainspotting develop these themes?