Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh - Google Books Irvine Welsh 19 Reviews Brace yourself, America, for Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting—the novel and the film that became the cult sensations of Britain. Trainspotting is the novel that first launched Irvine Welsh's spectacular career—an authentic, unrelenting, and strangely exhilarating episodic group portrait of blasted lives. It accomplished for its own time and place what Hubert Selby, Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn did for his. Rents, Sick Boy, Mother Superior, Swanney, Spuds, and Seeker are as unforgettable a clutch of junkies, rude boys, and psychos as readers will ever encounter. Trainspotting was made into the 1996 cult film starring Ewan MacGregor and directed by Danny Boyle (A Shallow Grave). What people are saying - Write a review User ratings LibraryThing Review User Review - qkennedy - LibraryThing The crazy and deranged lifestyle of the characters in this book was absolutely shocking, however the content of their internal dialogue was thoroughly entertaining. A character would will the pages ...

Read full review Classic Class and Drugs Tale User Review - marsattacks28 - Overstock.com Saw the movie before I read the book and that was a shame because this book is great. Not to mention the original printing of this book was a plus. Way to go Overstock Read full review Selected pages The Skag Boys JeanClaude Van Damme and Mother 3 Scotland Takes Drugs In Psychic Defence The Glass 95 Inter Shitty Na Na and Other Nazis The First Shag 153 Courting Disaster Junk Dilemmas No 66 Deid Dugs 177 View all » Common terms and phrases All Book Search results &raquo; About the author (2002) Irvine Welsh was born in Edinburgh on September 27, 1958. After leaving school, he lived in London for awhile, but eventually returned to Edinburgh where he worked for the city council in the housing department. He received a degree in computer science and studied for an MBA at Heriot Watt University. His first novel, Trainspotting, was published in 1993 and was adapted as a film starring Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle in 1996.

He became a full-time writer in August 1995. His other works include The Acid House (1994), Marabou Stork Nightmares (1995), Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance (1996), Filth (1998), Glue (2001), and Porno (2002). He also wrote the plays Headstate (1994) and You'll Have Had Your Hole (1998). Bibliographic information ‘Trainspotting’ Sequel: Danny Boyle Planning It To Be His Next Movie | Deadline As 'Moonlight' Is Feted, How Barry Jenkins Turned Struggle Into Success Prior to the first-ever public screening of Steve Jobs, Boyle received a Telluride Medallion for his body of work, clips of which included a certain vivid public toilet-diving scene from Trainspotting . The long-anticipated and much-speculated sequel would follow by at least 20 years the ground-breaking 1996 Miramax release of Channel 4’s account about the grimly, grittily entertaining misadventures of drug addicts in Edinburgh (but film was shot mostly in Glasgow).

The original was written by John Hodge, based on Irvine Welsh’s novel. Boyle also told Deadline that Hodge’s script for what they’re calling Trainspotting 2 is terrific, that the actors all want to do it and reiterated that it will be the director’s next film depending on the actors’ U.S. TV schedules. Hodge wrote the sequel script based on Welsh’s Porno, which was the author’s own sequel to his original Trainspotting novel. Hodge also wrote the screenplays for Boyle-directed movies A Life Less Ordinary, The Beach and Trance. Stars of Trainspotting included Ewan McGregor (who told the Guardian in June that he was “up for” a sequel), Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kevin McKidd (whose character died in the original), Ewen Bremner and Kelly Macdonald. As for the pair of actors Boyle cited as working on U.S. TV shows, Miller plays Sherlock Holmes in Elementary on CBS, and Robert Carlyle, who said in July that a Trainspotting sequel is “closer than it’s ever been,” is a regular on ABC’s Once Upon A Time.

Trainspotting cast members Kelly Macdonald appeared in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, and McKidd appears on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. 15 Addictive Facts About ‘Trainspotting’ | Mental Floss 15 Addictive Facts About ‘Trainspotting’ YouTube Like us on Facebook Twenty years ago, a young Scottish actor named Ewan McGregor careened onto the movie screen, daring viewers to “Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f***ing big television.” This was just the beginning of McGregor’s star-making turn in Trainspotting, a darkly comic yet harrowing tale of five heroin-addicted friends. To properly mark the film’s two-decade anniversary and prepare you for next year's sequel , here are 15 facts about the film that might make you feel less queasy about the “worst toilet in Scotland.” But only slightly. 1. EWAN MCGREGOR LOST 26 POUNDS FOR THE PART. In order to look the part of a heroin addict, Ewan McGregor lost 26 pounds. And his diet was surprisingly simple. “I grilled everything, and stopped drinking beer,” he told Neon magazine.

“I drank wine and lots of gin instead. The weight just falls off.” 2. KELLY MACDONALD LANDED THE ROLE OF DIANE BY RESPONDING TO A FLYER. When Kelly Macdonald was cast as Diane, the teenage schoolgirl Renton follows home from a nightclub, she had never acted in a movie. She was just a 19-year-old waitress who spied an opportunity. Since director Danny Boyle wanted an unknown for the part, he sent the production crew through the streets of Glasgow with flyers encouraging girls to come out for a casting call. Macdonald happened upon one of the flyers in her restaurant, and after a few callbacks , the part was hers. 3. ROBERT CARLYLE CREATED A DETAILED BACKSTORY FOR BEGBIE. Begbie’s defining quality is his rage—once he gets going, it’s kind of unstoppable . Robert Carlyle created an explanation for his character’s anger issues: he was a closeted gay man.

In a 2009 interview with BAFTA , Carlyle made his case, citing the scene where Begbie accidentally picks up a trans woman: “He picks up the transsexual in the nightclub and there’s the scene in the car where he puts his hands between the trousers and finds out it’s the real deal. Now why doesn’t he just kill this person? He kills everybody else, why doesn’t he do that? He gets frightened of it and backs away. Back at the flat, Begbie reacts to Renton winding him up about it and says, ‘Don’t you ever mention that again or you’re dead.’ I thought, ‘That’s interesting, that’s really too strong.’” 4. JONNY LEE MILLER HAS A REAL-LIFE JAMES BOND CONNECTION. In the film, Jonny Lee Miller’s character, Sick Boy, is a major 007 fan. Appropriately, the actor himself has family ties to the franchise. Miller’s grandfather was Bernard Lee, the original M. Here he is in From Russia with Love, ushering in Q to demo a weaponized briefcase. 5. MCGREGOR DID A LOT OF RESEARCH FOR THE ROLE.

To prepare for the movie, McGregor read several books on crack and heroin addiction and spoke with members of the Calton Athletic Recovery Group (who served as consultants for the movie). Along with some of his costars, he even attended “cookery” classes hosted by the Calton crew, who used glucose powder in place of the real thing. But McGregor almost took his research to extremes. As he noted in Neon , “I thought about actually taking heroin—and the more research I did, the less I wanted to do it. I’ve had to die on screen before, and I don’t know what that’s like either. I’m not a Method actor at all, so to take heroin for the part would just be an excuse to take heroin, really. So I didn’t.” 6. A GROUP OF EX-ADDICTS HAD CAMEOS AS SOCCER PLAYERS. The Calton Athletic Recovery Group didn’t just work behind the scenes. Five of its members appear in that “choose life” chase scene, as the soccer team playing Renton and his friends. 7. MACDONALD WAS DRUNK ON HER FIRST DAY OF FILMING.

Macdonald was excited but a bit overwhelmed by her first movie gig, and it led to a near-disastrous first day. As she recalled to Vice : “I think it was my first day filming. It was a whole day and night shoot. All the boys were quite naughty and were drinking, so I was drinking. I'd been in the pub for hours with various people who weren't filming scenes, and Shirley Henderson [who played Gail] said, 'You might want to stop drinking.’ She was totally right. I think I was actually hungover by the time I did the scene. I didn't know how to stand on a marker, I was all over the place, and I didn't know how it all worked.” Unfortunately for Macdonald, it got only worse. “The sex scene was quite nerve-racking … I was so unthinking and so naive and young that that was the day I invited my mom and my brother to the set.” 8. THE SEX SCENE WAS CUT DOWN IN AMERICA. When Trainspotting made its way overseas, it apparently lost a few frames from the sex scene between Renton and Diane. Boyle didn’t notice because he never watched any of the U.S.

screenings in full, but McGregor trashed the decision in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “The American censors cut a few seconds from the movie, from a scene between me and Kelly [Macdonald]. It was a sex scene, which her character was obviously enjoying. They obviously didn't like the idea of a young girl having enjoyable sex, whereas the shooting up and violence was acceptable to them. That's crazy to me." 9. A PROSTHETIC ARM WAS USED FOR CLOSE-UPS. That wasn’t McGregor’s arm in the many close-ups of Renton shooting up. The props team took a mold of the actor’s arm instead and created a prosthetic with a plastic pipeline of fake blood, so it would bleed upon injection. 10. THE VOLCANO NIGHTCLUB IS A COPY OF THE MILK BAR FROM A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Boyle asked his cast to watch films including Goodfellas, A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, and The Hustler prior to production. But one of those movies is more obviously tied to Trainspotting than the others. As a nod to A Clockwork Orange, Boyle modeled the Volcano nightclub on the Korova Milk Bar.

This is apparent in the nearly identical writing on the walls . Boyle snuck another Clockwork Orange reference into this scene, only it’s tied to the Anthony Burgess novel. Listen closely to the clip above and you’ll hear the song “Temptation” by Heaven 17, a band explicitly named after a fake band in Burgess’ book. 11. THE WORST TOILET IN SCOTLAND SCENE WAS FILMED WITH CHOCOLATE MOUSSE. The infamous “worst toilet in Scotland” scene is a horror to behold, but it was much less disturbing on set. To create the ghastly bathroom stall, Boyle’s props team simply smeared the toilet with copious amounts of chocolate mousse. This trick apparently stayed with him; in Danny Boyle: In His Own Words, the director revealed that he used the same stuff (plus crunchy peanut butter) for a similar scene in Slumdog Millionaire. 12. RENTON REFERENCES MARGARET THATCHER.

When Renton moves to London, he says in a voiceover, “There was no such thing as society, and even if there was, I most certainly had nothing to do with it.” This is a jab at former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was widely derided in 1987 for observing that “there is no such thing as society.” ( Full context here. ) 13. THE OVERDOSE SCENE WAS ACHIEVED WITH A TRAP DOOR. When Renton overdoses at Mother Superior’s, he seemingly sinks several feet into the carpet. This effect was created by a bit of low-budget ingenuity: The crew simply slipped McGregor through a platform with a trap door . 14. IRVINE WELSH APPEARED AS RENTON’S DRUG DEALER. Irvine Welsh, who wrote the novel Trainspotting, also got a moment in front of the camera in its adaptation. He played Mikey Forrester, Renton’s hapless drug dealer who gives him those fateful suppositories. 15. BOB DOLE CONDEMNED THE MOVIE. Trainspotting was a huge critical and commercial success.

But every movie has its detractors, and for this film, its biggest critic was Bob Dole. While speaking to a school in downtown Los Angeles, the presidential candidate blasted Trainspotting and Pulp Fiction for promoting “the romance of heroin.” This might seem like an odd assessment to anyone who’s watched Trainspotting, which Dole had not. His press secretary later clarified that Dole had not actually seen the movies, but based his critique on reviews he had read. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh Let’s start by comparing three books. In 1954, a British author published a novel (later turned into a successful film) about young men who adopt strange, ritualistic behavior and engage in savage acts of random violence. William Golding's The Lord of the Flies was considered a fabulistic allegory. In 1962, another British author published a novel (later turned into a successful film) about young men who adopt strange, ritualistic behavior and engage in savage acts of random violence. Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange was considered a dystopian science fiction tale.

In 1993, a third British author published a novel (later turned into a successful film) about young men who adopt strange, ritualistic behavior and engage in savage acts of random violence. This time, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting was considered an intensely realistic novel that accurately portrayed the state of the punk rock generation as its members reached adulthood. So which changed most during that 40 year period: British fiction or British society? Did the shift to intense realism herald a new tone in the narrative in the 1990s? Or did reality simply catch up with the nihilism anticipated by Golding and Burgess? Or, as some suggest, did the nihilism embodied in books and movies such as A Clockwork Orange help shape a society that mimicked their gratuitous violence? Or, more likely, did each of these books tap into some undercurrent, perhaps barely discernible at the time Golding wrote, that would eventually grow into such a torrent of destruction—and self-destruction—that not only literary critics but even police detectives felt compelled to praise Trainspotting for its true-to-life qualities? Readers of Welsh’s novel are likely to mull over questions of this sort.

I can't imagine anyone grappling with this book who doesn’t stop to ask, à la David Byrne: "How did we get here?" How did Jack Merridew, the murderous young bully of Lord of the Flies, get off the island and on to the streets of Edinburgh? I'm sure more than a few readers also wonder how we can send him back. Of course, the immediate cause of the young men’s problems in Trainspotting is heroin. That is, when it’s not speed or hash or valium or a heady combination of cyclozine and methadone. Or, in a pinch, alcohol, which seems to spur more violent outbursts than any of the controlled substances during the course of Welsh's book. Welsh constantly shifts his focus from the character to character, watching as they stumble and fall under the load of their recurrent self-medicating. Some such as Mark Renton, the closest thing to a 'hero' in this decidedly unheroic book, try to break the habit— Renton's tendency to introspection and critical reflection provide this book with its best, most thought-provoking passages.

On the other extreme, we find Rab "Second Prize" McLaughlin, who avoids sobriety the same way Dracula flees from the dawn, and hardly has a coherent moment during the course of the entire novel. But he fares better than Spud, who ends up in prison, or Tommy, Matty, Billy and others who don't survive to the final page of Trainspotting. But what’s a story without a love interest or a brave man of action? Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson gets to play the romantic lead in the book, but he robs from the same ladies he romances, and may be the most shrewdly amoral member of the gang. Yet he is Mr. Nice Guy compared to action-oriented Francis Begbie, a sociopath who probably can be considered the leader of these addicts, if only because he the most violent of the bunch. This bold alpha male also sees himself as something of a teacher, his lessons imparted by the (in Begbie’s words) "discipline ay the basebaw bat." But even Beggars's friends fear him; although having this loose cannon in their company ensures that no one else will mess with them when they are on the town.

Much like Burgess in A Clockwork Orange, Welsh allows his characters to speak in their own street jargon—and the novel even comes with a glossary at the back. But, once again, what was an imaginative exercise in the earlier book has become a realistic turn in Trainspotting. Welsh captures the authentic language of the streets in his novel, and much of the power of the prose derives from the author’s ear for the vernacular of his native Edinburgh—which, as presented in these pages, is invariably blunt, and often offensive. Welsh is so convincing in recounting his sordid tale, that it's hard to believe that he didn't experience many of these incidents firsthand. I note that his biography includes arrests for petty assaults and a conviction for vandalism. On the other hand, Welsh played guitar in rock bands, studied for an MBA at an Edinburgh university, and made money as a speculator in residential property in North London—all this before the success of Trainspotting. In an interview from 2006, he called himself a "gentleman of leisure" and remarked that his life was quite boring.

To some degree, Trainspotting is a novel about boredom, although different from that enjoyed by a "gentleman of leisure." The violence in this novel rarely has a purpose or reason; it’s merely a distraction from the characters’ dead-end lives. Drugs fill a similar purpose here. Under the sway of heroin, these alienated characters suddenly reveal a determination and a purpose—to feed their addiction—that they lack in other contexts. I was inevitably reminded, while reading this book, of the strange boast of trumpeter Chet Baker, a notorious addict, who took pride in how hard he worked on the jazz circuit. And this was no idle claim. Baker needed to gig all the time to pay his drug bills; in a bizarre twist his need for heroin had turn him to a shining exemplar of the Puritan work ethic. A similar process is at work in Trainspotting: the characters lead empty, unproductive lives, but they are constantly busy and the novel, as a result, is filled with incident and action. Welsh smartly realizes that a narrative about boredom needs to be exciting— paradoxically, that adds to the realism—and, as a result, his characters constantly stay on the move.

But the excitement here comes at a price. In the final pages, this gang of druggies decide to make a big score. They secure a large quantity of very pure heroin and aim to sell it to a London dealer for a huge profit. Fearful of the consequences if they are caught with such a big load of narcotics, each individual resorts to his most characteristic escapist behavior pattern—Begbie to violence, Second Prize to intoxicants, Sick Boy to conning a young lady, and so on. But now an ethical issue intrudes, the classic question of whether a gang of thieves can trust each other. Welsh masterfully works out the odd interpersonal dynamics at play here and manages, in a fragmented book filled with provocation, to pull everything together with a climactic close, one moreover designed to leave the reader mulling over the (dare I use this word in the context of such a nihilistic book?) philosophical implications. Many were distrubed by this novel when it came out. Politicians denounced it—Senator Bob Dole, who admitted that he hadn’t read Trainspotting, accused it of glorifying drug use—and it was reportedly left off of the Booker Prize shortlist because two of the judges found it offensive.

Yet an inescapable moralistic quality permeates this novel, despite all superficial appearances to the contrary. If I wanted to convince a teenager not to use drugs, this would probably be the first book I would have them read. And I wouldn't be surprised if some addicts broke their habit after reading Trainspotting. That glimpse in the mirror was just too sordid to stand. So the complicated lineage of violent books accused of spurring violent action gets even more complicated because of Irvine Welsh. After all, if social order can descend into nihilism, and the process get anticipated in fiction, why can't the opposite also happen? In a book that provoked a lot of unanswered questions, this was hardly the least of them. In fact, it just might be the one that lingers on your mind the longest after you walk away from this troubling and transfixing work. Trainspotting (film) - Wikiquote Trainspotting (film) Jump to: navigation , search For quotations from the novel, see Irvine Welsh . Trainspotting is a 1996 film about a young man deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene who tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends.

Directed by Danny Boyle . Written by John Hodge , based on the novel by Irvine Welsh . Never let your friends tie you to the tracks. Renton[ edit ] 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 can 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 spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your 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 . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored. But what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere near it. When you're on junk you have only one worry: scoring. When you're off it you are suddenly obliged to worry about all sorts of other shite. Got no money: can't get pissed. Got money: drinking too much. Can't get a bird: no chance of a ride. Got a bird: too much hassle. You have to worry about bills, about food, about some football team that never fucking wins, about human relationships and all the things that really don't matter when you've got a sincere and truthful junk habit. [explaining the gaps in his employment history] Yes, I can. The truth -- well, the truth is that I've had a long-standing problem with heroin addiction. I've been known to sniff it, smoke it, swallow it, stick it up my arse and inject it into my veins.

I've been trying to combat this addiction, but unless you count social security scams and shoplifting, I haven't had a regular job in years. I feel it's important to mention this. The downside of coming off junk was I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful. They reminded me so much of myself, I could hardly bear to look at them. Take Sick Boy, for instance. He came off junk at the same time as me — not because he wanted to, you understand, but just to annoy me. Just to show me how easily he could do it, thereby downgrading my own struggle. Sneaky fucker, don't you think? 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 shite about him. And Sick Boy, well, he'd have 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. One thousand years from now, there won't be any guys and there won't be any girls, just wankers. Sounds all right to me.

Urban Dictionary: trainspotting trainspotting As above: shoooting up heoroin or the like. Called so because a session will leave a dark linear mark (known as a "track") at the site of the affected vein. Harcore users will tend to have multiple sites of injection and will locate, or "spot" an optimum vein - one with minimal "tracks" and discomfort or infection. A hit can be analogous to the impactof a locomotive or train. That's how I figure it anyway. Watch the damn movie. It rocks. try reading the book - the narration is spelled with a scotish accent all the way through. by lear February 03, 2004 trainspotting An incredible movie that will blow your mind. I'm not allowed to put the entire quote into the "example", so I'll put the first half into the definition section. Too many "choose"s, apparently. 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 mortage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends.

Choose leisurewear 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, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life. …But why would I want to do a thing like that? 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? trainspotting: v: The act of staring over a DJ's shoulder to see what records he's spinning.. Originated from the British phenomenon of train geeks waiting on train platforms, notebooks in hand, recording the types and numbers of trains coming into the station. Also the name of a famous book by Irvine Welsh in 1993, later made into a much more famous movie in 1996 by the same name.

The word at the time referred to dance music geek culture, but was about the wasting of Scottish heroin addicts. "I went to the club last night to hit on this bad-ass DJ chick, but the records she brought were amazing, so I just sat near her at the decks trainspotting them all night!" Trainspotting is a term or reference used for people that have probably too much spare time on their hands, and have the ability to draw on useless information that seems relevant at the time. "you only live twice?" - 1967 runnig time? - 116 min. screen writer? - ian fleming fuck off, he never wrote any of 'em - ok, so who wrote it then? you can look it up. how do you feel since you came off the smack? speaking for my self, i am bored. - who wrote it? but you look healthier... - who wrote it?! roald dahl. - roald dahl? >this is a conversation between the characters "renton" and "sick boy" from the movie trainspotting, it's a deleted scene< jerry seinfeld has also a very impressive knowledge about useless information.

How John Hodge wrote the Trainspotting screenplay | The Times How John Hodge wrote the Trainspotting screenplay Interview by Tim Teeman Published at 11:00AM, February 11 2008 The Times is giving away five top movie scripts this week. As we launch our Film School, John Hodge reveals the secrets of writing an award-winning screenplay John Hodge was born in 1964. He won a Bafta and was nominated for an Oscar for his Trainspotting (1996) script. His screenplays include Shallow Grave (1994) and The Beach (2001). Shallow Grave was my first screenplay, Trainspotting my second. Andrew Macdonald [the producer] gave me Irvine Welsh’s book. It was very good, but it was hard to think how it could be a film. There’s no story, it’s a collection of anecdotes and short stories. The challenge was to make it a narrative without imposing too much structure.

Renton (Ewan McGregor) was the main voice, and I realised he Subscribe now Trainspotting (1996) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 31 titles created 30 Nov 2011 a list of 22 titles created 04 Mar 2014 a list of 45 titles created 31 Aug 2015 a list of 35 titles created 10 months ago a list of 23 titles created 8 months ago Search for " Trainspotting " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 Oscar.

Another 20 wins & 26 nominations. See more awards » Videos A botched card game in London triggers four friends, thugs, weed-growers, hard gangsters, loan sharks and debt collectors to collide with each other in a series of unexpected events, all for the sake of weed, cash and two antique shotguns. Director: Guy Ritchie The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep. Director: Darren Aronofsky Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewelers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond. Director: Guy Ritchie "The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: William H.

Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.3/10 X In future Britain, Alex DeLarge, a charismatic and psycopath delinquent, who likes to practice crimes and ultra-violence with his gang, is jailed and volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem - but not all goes according to plan. Director: Stanley Kubrick A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients. Director: Milos Forman A sexually frustrated suburban father has a mid-life crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter's best friend. Director: Sam Mendes After a simple jewelry heist goes terribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant. Director: Quentin Tarantino Amélie is an innocent and naive girl in Paris with her own sense of justice. She decides to help those around her and, along the way, discovers love.

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet A troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes, after he narrowly escapes a bizarre accident. Director: Richard Kelly When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a procedure to have each other erased from their memories. But it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with. Director: Michel Gondry Edit Storyline A wild, freeform, Rabelaisian trip through the darkest recesses of Edinburgh low-life, focusing on Mark Renton and his attempt to give up his heroin habit, and how the latter affects his relationship with family and friends: Sean Connery wannabe Sick Boy, dimbulb Spud, psycho Begbie, 14-year-old girlfriend Diane, and clean-cut athlete Tommy, who's never touched drugs but can't help being curious about them... Written by Michael Brooke <michael@everyman.demon.co.uk> Never let your friends tie you to the tracks.

See more » Genres: Drama Motion Picture Rating ( MPAA ) Rated R for graphic heroin use and resulting depravity, strong language, sex, nudity and some violence | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 9 August 1996 (USA) See more » Also Known As: £4,703,433 (UK) (15 March 1996) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia There has been some confusion over the title as none of that particular activity actually takes place in the film. Irvine Welsh has since gone on record to explain the title, comparing the unusual hobby to heroin addiction, ie, something that only the people who indulge in that pastime truly understand. To them, it makes perfect sense. See more » Goofs Length of the ash on the joint that Renton and Dianne share after Renton visits Tommy. See more » Quotes [first lines] Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : [narrating] 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 leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck ... Profile pictures of the cast are shown during the beginning of the end credits. See more » Connections Words and Music by Ian Craig Marsh (as Ian Marsh) / Martyn Ware / Glen Gregory Published by EMI Music Publishing Ltd/Sound Diagrams Ltd/Warner Chappell Music Ltd Courtesy of Virgin Records Ltd (United Kingdom) – See all my reviews Renton is a heroin addict. He is one of a group of friends who live their lives day to day and hit to hit. When he tries to kick the habit he manages it for a while but eventually falls back into his old way. Meanwhile his friends are as messed up as he is, whether it be Spud's pathetic addiction, Begbie's violent rages or the fact that he is sleeping with a girl who still goes to school. When it came out this film was very hyped, the poster became a must-have on every student's bedroom wall and the media went nuts over it's supposed glamorisation of drug use.

The plot is very difficult to summarise, as it doesn't really have a narrative flow other than the very disjointed experience of Renton. However it manages to be very funny and imaginative all the way, using many different tricks and touches to be funny. The dialogue is very well written and I must admit I found it a lot funnier than the last few comedies I watched. The media may have condemned this film as promoting drug use, but I can only imagine that they watched a different film from me. Sure, the film shows drugs as being fun and enjoyable but, like Renton says, `why else would we do it?' However the film clearly shows a massive downside where people's lives are destroyed, people OD and lives go day to day just trying to get high. True, it does show this downside in a stylish and funny way but there is no question that the film is promoting drug use in any sense. Too often I see films that are style over substance; Trainspotting gets it just perfect, stylish but not at the expense of dialogue, character or film. It is helped by a great cast. McGregor jumped to stardom off the back of this role and he deserved it.

He keeps his character both likeable but repulsive at the same time and carries the film with surprising ease. The support cast is excellent, even if they lack the same good character of Renton. Whether it is the comic Bremner, the violent Carlyle or the tragic McKidd. While not all their characters are well developed, they do all give good accounts of themselves, whether it is comic or showing the effects of heroin on their lives. Overall this is a great film that is refreshing to see now without all the `cult student cool' hype or media feeding frenzy over it's supposed pro-drug approach. It is stylish, funny, depressing and downright sobering. 207 of 255 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes

Question: Who wrote the book 'Trainspotting'?
Answer: Irvine Welsh