While the imminent arrival of T2 Trainspotting has occasioned the customary unrest that plagues the release of any sequel—the very presence of a ‘2’ in a title often being enough for many film purists to begin sharpening their keyboards—the cinematic revival will at the very least recast a light on the breathtaking first instalment. While the cultural and cinematic impact of the BAFTA-winning, Academy Award-nominated original is inarguable, when one separates Trainspotting from its contemporary acclaim and focuses solely on the ninety-three minutes of film, one question outshines all others: how? How did a low-budget, heroin-themed, tragicomedy—written, directed and performed by a troupe of novitiate nobodies—emerge as one of the greatest British films of all time?
Jurassic Park. The Matrix. Se7en. Terminator 2. The 90s was a decade of film dominated by the fantastical; extraordinary characters thrust into even more extraordinary adventures. While cinematographic and CGI breakthroughs ushered in a new era of cinema that would produce some of the most visceral and ground-breaking films of all time, one fundamental aspect of storytelling got left behind. Relatability – the humanness of cinema – had fallen secondary. While the steroided-to-the-teeth dare-devilry of Mr Schwarzenegger was engrossing on the big screen, an audience could not connect with such a character on any profound, emotional level – nor were they meant to. It was within this climate of mythological theatricality that Trainspotting exploded onto the scene; an unflinching, breathtaking dose of real life in an increasingly alien, fairytale-like milieu.
When true cinematic excellence is on show, the audience, wide-eyed and forward-leaning, become one with the characters on screen; transcending the distance between fiction and reality. Not only did Trainspotting reconnect the on-screen protagonists with us, the emphatically unheroic viewers, it made us the heroes; championing the trials and tribulations of everyday existence—albeit through the allegorical surrogate of heroin. No longer were we, the everyman, gazing up at blown-up icons of unattainable perfection. John Hodge and Danny Boyle brought storytelling to eye-level, depicting characters often more fault-ridden than even ourselves. Indeed, be it Hodge’s abrasive dialogue, Boyle’s unyielding camerawork, or McGregor’s unglamorous portrayal of Mark Renton, the whole Trainspotting project seemed hell-bent on presenting a version of reality usually glossed over by the blockbuster machine. At the end of the day, we all have far more in common with Mark’s moral deficiencies and Franco’s uncontrollable fury than we do with any super-villainous mastermind or bullet-dodging sex icon. While many films purport to present reality, the magic of Trainspotting is that it depicts a world that is more truthful to our own than we would like to admit. Our existential yearnings and day-to-day anxieties projected on the big-screen, stripped of all glamour and Hollywood sheen, are difficult to confront. Whether we choose mindless TV or Instagram, choose sugar, nicotine or alcohol, or even choose something riskier, we are all self-medicating in one way or another. There’s a little bit of Sick Boy within all of us.
The ability to stay relevant, to recapture the imaginations of fresh audiences generation after generation, is a hurdle that few films surmount. Why have films with as much thematic disparity as Paris, Texas and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off managed to secure a timeless reservation at the cinematic royal table, while box-office and critical smashes like Titanic and Crash have faded into the annals of film history? Film survival is a cut-throat and widely-fought affair. To become dated is to have failed. In order to live on in the public imagination, a film must be more than the sum of its parts. The reason for Trainspotting’s perennial acclaim is not merely down to the film’s dynamism and authenticity—although the many obscenities make for as wondrously psychotic viewing today as they did twenty years ago—but due to the lasting thematic poignancy of the film. While Independence Day, LA Confidential and many other films of the time glorified the exoticism of the modern world, Trainspotting hurtled in exactly the opposite direction. Indeed, the overarching treatise of the film is encapsulated in the scene wherein the troupe attempt to escape modernity altogether, taking the train to the highland mountains. Just as with their Class-A addictions, however, the escape is short-lived.
The alienation and emptiness of a bankrupt society, not drug addiction, constitutes the true villain of the story. The movie is bookended by the iconic image of Mark, hands planted on the car bonnet, grinning through the windscreen as fleet-footed coppers close-in. What are John Hodge and Danny Boyle trying to say? As Mark slowly becomes aware of the ludicrousness of his situation, a smile spreads across his face. We are all Mark, fleeing the forces of antagonism. He’s not looking through the windscreen at the driver, he’s looking at us. Moreover, we are looking at ourselves. Our smiles grow with his, as all parties come to realise the folly in taking life too seriously, in taking ourselves too seriously. The explosion of the Internet, the advent of virtual reality, the near-complete digitisation of the economy; the world has only become even more unfamiliar since 1996 and Trainspotting has only become more relevant.
The lasting significance and artistic integrity of the original, however, is inextricably linked with the fate of the sequel. One hopes that T2 Trainspotting matches, if not outshines, the brilliance of its predecessor. However the current nature of the film industry elicits a fear that the film may be a product of the very commerciality Trainspotting so openly vilified. Hopefully these fears prove unjustified. Indeed, for the cast and crew, the number two has a special significance. Trainspotting constituted the second screenwriting credit of John Hodge, the second directorial gig of Danny Boyle and the second big-screen performance of Ewan McGregor. We can only hope that come January 27th, the number two proves lucky once more.
