Trainspotting

Came across this essay I wrote in 2011. It seemed a good time to post it while waiting for a general release of T2.

Many people are perplexed by my obsession with the film 'Trainspotting'. “But, you don't even do drugs,” sometimes sounded more like a question than a statement. “It's so disturbing, you can't even handle the news.” or “I could never watch that one. It's just too intense.” There are more people in the world who watch movies to avoid thought, than those of us who watch movies to invoke it.

The first time I saw Danny Boyle's masterpiece I was 17 and wasted. It was my endless summer. Everyone had agreed we should watch it, for those who hadn't seen it were at a disadvantage in life. The pirated VHS tape was full of static, and the Scottish accents had yet to be digitally enhanced to make them more intelligible to Americans. The dialogue was way too foreign and complex for the whiskey-soaked Saturday night crowd that usually gathered spontaneously at my then-boyfriend's house. Wild Turkey chased us into spirals of self-important diatribes that sounded unbelievably smart while the dirty bird danced in our systems. I'll never know if what was said was actually smart since there was never any sober person to vouch for anyone's brilliance or stupidity. However, I do have to give credit that the we pondered on heavier topics, philosophized about rich and heated subjects, and truly enjoyed it. There were too many people, too many smoke breaks, and too much conversation to give the film the attention it deserved.

A couple of years later I rented it. I was living in my first apartment with a different boyfriend. Blockbuster didn't carry it. There was a video shop that carried some more esoteric stuff, and I found it there. I think the place was still called “Adventures in Video” at this time. It was still on VHS, and the sound was still unrestored. A few weeks prior we had bought a brand new 55 inch widescreen projection TV with a surround sound system. After the first ten minutes I was used to the accent, infatuated with the main character, and emotionally involved with the antagonist, heroin. I sucked down cigarettes one after another sitting on the white leather sofa I had rescued off a street corner. Pen in hand I jotted notes about things I loved, things I didn't understand or words I didn't know. I must have watched it a dozen times while I had it. I was late returning it by a couple of weeks, and as soon as I returned it I went out and bought the DVD.

Whenever I'm intrigued by something, I google it. Or in the case of movies, I “IMDB” it. I learned that Trainspotting was based on a book by Irvine Welsh, so I read it, as well as the sequel. Welch actually appears in the film as Mikey Forrester. Part of the movie's appeal was the narration which mirrored how Welch had written it. The opening scene is Mark Renton, our anti-hero, being chased by cops after committing a robbery to facilitate his next score. Rent narrates “Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family, choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life. I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who need reasons when you’ve got heroin?” Immediately, I don't have to take heroin to know something about the situations it creates. I know that “normal” isn't a value. There's a need, and aching, and longing to be above all the depressing things associated with “normal”. I know that it exiles one from the rest of the world. Later Rent would say, “There was no such thing as society, and even if there was, I most certainly had nothing to do with it.”

After a while we see the complications of this life style. Baby Dawn is crawling around the floor of the drug den while her mother shoots up. Almost as soon as she is introduced to the story, she is found dead in her crib. The mother, Allison, is frantic. Her only impulse to cope with the loss is to shoot up. It's not a pleasant thing to watch. It is disturbing on all levels, but it is an important part of the work. If a film isn't making you feel something strong, it isn't doing its job. Later on, Rent sees Baby Dawn again as a hallucination when he is coming off junk by the force of his parents. The baby in the story reinforces tragedy, it's not intended to scare you, but to make you aware that addiction comes with a price. The things that don't matter when you're high, are unbelievably important when you aren't.

By the end of the movie, Rent and his friends are “off the skag.” They put together a drug deal to sell some junk that Mikey Forrester scored off some Russian Sailors and sold to “Sick-boy” (Simon, one of Rent's friends.) in a paranoid haste. Rent, Sick-boy, Spud, and Begbie go to London to sell the heroin. The deal goes down, and they spend the night in a hotel. As everyone sleeps Mark Renton takes the bag of cash and walks out, leaving his “so-called-mates” high and dry. The narration reads “Now I've justified this to myself in all sorts of ways. It wasn't a big deal, just a minor betrayal. Or we'd outgrown each other, you know, that sort of thing. But let's face it, I ripped them off - my so-called mates. But Begbie, I couldn't give a shit about him. And Sick Boy, well he'd done the same to me, if he'd only thought of it first. And Spud, well okay, I felt sorry for Spud - he never hurt anybody. So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers - all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person. But, that's gonna change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die.” The acknowledgment of his faults is beyond honest. How many people will man-up to being a “bad person” even on their worst day?

I should mention, too, that the book is written phonetically in a Scottish accent, there's a glossary of Scottish slang in the back, and a whole mess of more horrific details than we could ever hope to get out of a film. I think Danny Boyle did Irvine Welch a great service in this film. He kept so much of Welch's beautiful articulations on an ugly subject intact. I love the film for its poetry, its honesty, the imagery, and its complexity. I don't have to take drugs to appreciate art about drugs. In fact, I feel that if you love this movie you would more likely be motivated not to take drugs. It paints a very dismal reality of the addiction.