ANGRILI ON TRAINSPOTTING

Audience

The audience for trainspotting was originally aimed mainly at the young, British rave culture of the 90s, however due to the extremely strong message it possesses expanded the audience from this niche market to an audience consisting of the young through to the old (15-50), both male and female are targeted due to the characters involved, Renton played by Ewan Mcgreggor, the main character, relates to the audience as a son, a friend and a boyfriend figure. Also the amount of situations the characters get involved create room for more areas of the public to relate to this film and the happenings in it.

Narrative

The film is structured almost as a typical film: it begins with a fast pace opening with Renton running away from the police whilst narrating. The characters are all introduced individually with Renton telling the audience who they are, whilst 2 second stills are used. The film uses Propps' character theory:

villain - Begbie

Anti Hero - Renton

Genre

comedy, crime, drama

Representation

Trainspotting represents the drug culture in Britain. Unlike other films it does not glamorize it, the film reflects the reality of the drug and 90s rave culture using also surrealism. The film is most famous for its 'Toilet scene" where Renton put his hands in "the worst toilet in Scotland" to fish out his drugs and ends up diving in and swimming in a sea to find them, this is the first time surrealism is used to relate to drugs, however it is not a negative representation.

Further on through the film the representation of drugs and actual drug taking becomes extremely negative, for example the scene that involves a dead baby. This is the films turning point, where the representation of drugs goes from a weak, slightly humorous view to a harsh and real outlook on the effects on heroine. The types of lighting and setting within the mise en scene are grey low key lighting, and scruffy dirty sets.

Ideology

There are a number of messages and values portrayed within Trainspotting as this was its purpose when created. The main message that comes from this film is the shocking reality of the 90s rave and drug culture how it affected so many of the youth (18+) but also the affects on those who don't get mentioned in press, the mum and dads, the public around them. Also a strong sense of violence runs throughout, this is mainly caused by the character Begbie, who is your bully or villain of society, with scenes of him starting fights for no reason. Danny Boyle the director, uses a number of controversial scenes that are shock tactics to open the audiences' eyes. The main message that runs throughout is the shocking nature of the drug culture, how the drugs directly affect people the before, during and after of taking heroine. This is the reason why the film became so successful, because, the ideology challenges the social values of Scotland but also Britain in a wider picture.

Language

The language in this film does not spare any of that in real life. In terms of swearing this is the same. The language in terms of the 5 areas of media production (camera shots and movement, editing, sound and music, sfx and mise en scene. The camera shots and movement definitely capture the raw emotion of the characters, mainly medium shots are used throughout to create continuity, however a technique that stood out to me was in the scene when renton takes a hit and falls into the floor (surrealism) the camera falls with him, which is an ingenious piece of directing.
As the film consists of fast pace high action scenes, slower dramatic emotional scenes and surreal scenes, the editing has to include a wide range of techniques to support this.
The film is narrated by Ewan McGreggor , in a harsh Scottish accent, but with a soft calm influence.
The mise en scene is one of the most important parts in creating any impression, in this case a grey gloomy one. This is carried out by using low key lighting, grey colours in set, props and costume.

Institution
film 4 (1995), 18
directed by Danny Boyle

"Before its release, the second film from the Shallow Grave team had the chattering classes panicking about the glamorisation of drugs. They needn't have worried. This brutally honest and bitterly funny depiction of life on smack is a definite drugs turn-off."