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OverviewIn 1996 Trainspotting was the biggest thing in British culture. Brilliantly and aggressively marketed, it crossed into the mainstream despite being a black comedy set against the backdrop of heroin addiction in Edinburgh. Produced by Andrew Macdonald, scripted by John Hodge and directed by Danny Boyle, the team behind Shallow Grave (1994), Trainspotting was an adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s barbed novel of the same title. The film is crucial for understanding British culture in the context of devolution and the rise of ‘Cool Britannia’. Murray Smith unpicks the processes that led to Trainspotting’s enormous success. He isolates various factors – the film’s eclectic soundtrack, its depiction of Scottish identity, its attitude to deprivation, drugs and violence, its traffic with American cultural forms, its synthesis of realist and fantastic elements, and its complicated relationship to ‘heritage’ – that make Trainspotting such a vivid document of its time. Although it heralded a false dawn for British film-making,Trainspotting is, Smith concludes, both authentically vernacular and yet transnational in its influences and ambitions. In his afterword to this new edition, Murray Smith reflects on the original film 25 years after its release, and its 2017 sequel T2: Trainspotting also directed by Boyle. Smith also considers Danny Boyle's subsequent directorial career, with highlights including Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Murray SmithPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Imprint: BFI Publishing Edition: 2nd edition Weight: 0.202kg ISBN: 9781839022166ISBN 10: 1839022167 Pages: 128 Publication Date: 18 November 2021 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsReviewsAuthor InformationMurray Smith is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Kent, UK. His books include Film, Art, and the Third Culture: A Naturalized Aesthetics of Film (2017) and the co-edited volumes Thinking Through Cinema. (with T. Wartenburg, 2006), and, with Steven Neale, Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (1998). Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |