Trainspotting (1996)

Oh Danny Boy(le)!

Trainspotting is the second film by director Danny Boyle and is the film adaptation of the Irvine Welsh novel of the same name.

It’s insane to think that within three years of its release, the BFI placed it No. 10 on their list of the top 100 British films.

It’s noteworthy that it’s squished in between Powell and Presburger’s The Red Shoes and David Lean’s Bridge Over the River Kwai. Its importance to British cinema comes not only from its subject matter but also from the fact that it took the very stuffy British film market and turned it on its head

This film kickstarted the rise of the cool British film much like Tarantino did in America with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

How does one cover such a tricky subject as drugs on screen in a way that doesn’t feel like a D.A.R.E. advertisement?

Well, for Danny Boyle, that starts with a place of understanding.

“We were determined to show why people took drugs … you had to show that it was fun and that it was awful,” he said in an interview with BBC One.

Boyle knew that we as the audience needed to enjoy watching the trips so we are able to understand what draws them to do it, otherwise it feels as though it is a fruitless journey.

This scene feels like a magic trick.

An incredibly disgusting trick, but a magic trick nevertheless.

Danny Boyle gives a glimpse behind the scenes in a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly.

“Thankfully, in reality, the bathroom set was anything but grimy[...] It was meticulously clean,” remembers the director, adding that all the fecal-looking elements were, in fact, different kinds of chocolate.

“The set smelled really sweet — delicious, really, kind of like a confectionery. You could have licked the chocolate right off the bowl.”

He credits McGregor for selling the illusion that Renton flushed himself down the toilet, which was accomplished the way one would on the stage.

“We used a half toilet and, when he slips down, there’s a slide on the other side,” Boyle says. “Ewan claims it was his idea to twist around. It was great fun.”

Ewan McGregor almost did heroin to get into character.

No seriously.

Speaking on the 'Smart-Less' podcast, McGregor said:

"At first, early on, I thought, 'How can you play a heroin addict without having taken it?’ I was young and I thought, 'Fuck it, just do it'. And also John Hodge, our writer, was a doctor, so I thought he could probably get us some and administer it so we don’t die."

Later in the interview he went on to say: "'I didn't do heroin and I've never done it but I did think about it. It did cross my mind and I did say to Danny (Boyle) 'Do you think we should do it?'

"I thought I'd do it with Danny, I just wanted to get fucked up with Danny. But we didn't. Because, of course, as soon as we started the first thing I remember doing was meeting heroin addicts in Glasgow.' But it just really became apparent that that was a really disrespectful idea to the people we were working with."

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