Train Spotting McLemore

The movie Trainspotting introduces us to a topic that has been touched on already this semester, drugs. This time we get to see the dark life that is the druggie. In traffic there was a brief look at how the Junkie lives, but in Trainspotting that is all we see. Even though the drugs play a major role in the film that is not entirely what this blog is about. What this film makes me wonder even more is the value of friends. At the core this is a movie about what a good friend is, and at the end it was hard to decide if Renton was a good or bad person.
This film ends with Renton stealing £16,000 from his friends. He gives this long speech about how this is last criminal act, and that he is going to change his act. This gives the audience the feeling that Renton is about to completely change his life and go the straight and narrow. This is the natural thought because you want Renton to succeed, but does he really deserve to? Renton has ruined everything that he has come into contact with, maybe with the exception of Dianne. He is the reason Tommy is dead, he introduced his friend to heroin so he could get money to pay for heroin. Throughout the movie Renton always seemed to take a step forward, but they would be followed be a thousand steps backward. This then makes me question his final actions. How are we to know that he will not blow all this money on heroin? Renton is a generally bad person, and it is difficult for me to believe that he will change.

McElvaine Trainspotting

The political and social message in the film, Trainspotting, is that people will use any excuse to victimize themselves and to justify that victimization. The film centers on aWho group of men who blame their addictions and problems on the state of their country and the town in which they live. Throughout the film, the men say that they have nothing better to live for than heroin. The film is kicked off with a narrative from Mark Renton saying, "Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?". Later in the film, Renton says that he hates being Scottish because they are "the lowest of the fucking low, the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization." All of the addicts in the film have lost faith in their government, in society, and in each other and the only thing that they can count on is heroin.But, rather than striving to make changes in their lives they choose a stagnant, poisonous state of being and blame their situation on their surroundings. Mise en Scene is used to portray this sense of being trapped on many occasions throughout the film. A specific example is when Renton overdoses on heroin and hallucinates that he has sunken into the carpet. For the remainder of the scene, we see Renton's world with red carpet lining either side of the shot to symbolize Renton's detachment from the world.

This film does impart somewhat of a positive message to its audience, however. The film leaves the audience with the knowledge that they have the power to choose life. We all have the option of choosing a family, a job, a future, happiness, and that if we choose drugs and addiction we are choosing to become victims.