Trainspotting (movie)
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Trainspotting is a 1996 black comedy film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh about a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh and their passage through life. It stars Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald. Author Welsh also has a small role, as drug dealer Mikey Forrester.
The movie's screenplay was adapted from Welsh's novel by John Hodge. Interestingly, the screenplay does not contain any overt references to the non-drug-related hobby of train spotting but instead is a reference to a method of injecting heroin that users refer to as 'trainspotting'.
Its release sparked controversy in some countries, including the UK and USA, as to whether it promoted drug use. However, it was generally praised as an inventive, highly effective film. In 1999 the film came 10th in a BFI poll of British films, while in 2004 the magazine Total Film named it the 4th greatest British film of all time.
The film's release was supported by an imaginative marketing campaign using flyers inspired by rave culture and posters of each of the main actors. Owing to illness, Kevin McKidd went on holiday having finished shooting for the film and did not attend the photoshoot for the posters, a fact noted often when discussing his relatively lacklustre post-Trainspotting career.
Sequel
Boyle has stated that he intends to make a sequel to Trainspotting which will take place 20 years after the original film, based on the sequel book Porno. He is reportedly waiting until the original actors themselves age visibly enough to portray the same characters, ravaged by time. There have been rumours that a feud between McGregor and Boyle may make that impossible, although this has been dismissed as speculation by several sources.
See also
- The Trainspotting Soundtracks were two best-selling albums of music centered around the film. The first is a collection of songs featured in the film, while the second includes those left out from the first soundtrack and extra songs that inspired the filmmakers during production.
- Corrour station is the setting for the "great outdoors" scene in the film.
- Talgarth Road
- Archie Gemmill