Trainspotting: Quarter of century

February 23 marks the 25th anniversary of Danny Boyle's film "Trainspotting" hitting theaters in the UK.

The film "Trainspotting" is based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by the Scottish writer Irvine Welsh, who spent his youth among drug addicts and became the only one among his company who survived the AIDS epidemic.

Scottish producer Andrew MacDonald came up with the idea to make a film based on the Irvine Welsh novel as soon as he read the novel in December 1993. In February 1994, he shared his idea with Danny Boyle and John Hodge, with whom he recently made the film "Shallow Grave", which became the debut feature film for all three. The idea was received with great enthusiasm. However, Irvine Welsh did not immediately agree to grant the trinity the rights to film his first novel. Only Danny Boyle's commitment that the future film would not be shot in an arthouse or semi-documentary manner made it possible to convince the author of the novel.

Before becoming a screenwriter, John Hodge was a physician and often dealt with heroin addiction. Some of his experiences were included in the script. In particular, the episode with drug addicts stealing TV from a nursing home.

Due to a tight budget of £ 1.5 million, most of the scenes had to be filmed in one take. Thanks to this, the film was shot in just 35 days. This was largely due to the fact that the shooting was carried out at the height of summer in Scotland, where it gets dark in summer not earlier than 23:00, and in the morning the sun rises at 4:30. Thanks to this, Danny Boyle and the company could squeeze in a lot of filming in one day (the director usually came to the set by seven in the morning and finished no earlier than half past nine in the evening).

From the very beginning of work on the film, Ewan McGregor and no one else was supposed to play the main role. And this is absolutely understandable, since he also successfully played the main role in the previous film, created by Danny Boyle and his comrades - in "Shallow Grave". But even knowing that the main role in the film is guaranteed to him, Ewan McGregor, in order to prepare for the role, read many books about crack and heroin. He also traveled to Glasgow and met people from the Calton Athletic Recovery Group, an organization for recovering drug addicts, where he was taught how to make a spoonful of heroin injections using glucose powder. He even thought about trying a heroin injection on himself in order to better understand his character, but still he was smart enough to give up this idea. In addition, Ewan McGregor has lost almost 13 kilograms to get as close as possible to the character.

Despite the low budget, PolyGram committed an almost unprecedented £ 800,000 to promotion and advertising, such was their confidence in the film's success.

Three months after its premiere, in May 1996, Danny Boyle's film "Trainspotting" was presented at the Cannes International Film Festival as part of an out-of-competition screening.

Also in 1996, Danny Boyle's film "Trainspotting" received a nomination for the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film of the British Film Academy. But by the decision of the film academy, this prize was awarded to Nicholas Hytner's film "The Madness of King George". But outside the UK on the European continent, the film receives several prestigious film awards: the Audience Award at the Warsaw International Film Festival, the Czech Lion Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the Danish Bodil Award for Best Non-American Film.

But in the United States, the success of Danny Boyle's film is much more modest: not a single Golden Globe nomination and only one nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for an Oscar. Senator Bob Dole generally accused the film of glorifying drug use, although he later admitted that he had not watched the film. (Just like in the USSR: "I haven't read Pasternak, but I condemn him.")

However, the evaluations of Danny Boyle's "Trainspotting" by professional film critics have a generally cautious enthusiasm, that is, delight with reservations. For example, the New York Times film reviewer Janet Maslin, in her review entitled "Bad Taste in a Vile Story Doesn't Rule Out Fun", wrote:

"At the heart of the "Trainspotting" phenomenon is a clever dissonance: the film's characters may be outlaws, but its directorial style is gleeful in slick, conventional ways. After their misanthropic first collaboration, "Shallow Grave," Danny Boyle (the director), John Hodge (the screenwriter) and Andrew MacDonald (the producer) return with a much more exultant film and turn inexcusable merriment into a large part of its appeal. Dark as its subject matter is, this film manages the incredible trick of remaining jubilant and fresh. And in the face of AIDS, crib death, drug overdose and staggeringly vile bathroom jokes, that is no small feat."

Roger Ebert rated the film three out of 4 stars and wrote in his review:

"Strange, the cult following “Trainspotting” has generated in the UK, as a book, a play and a movie. It uses a colorful vocabulary, it contains a lot of energy, it elevates its miserable heroes to the status of icons (in their own eyes, that is).... But what else does it do? Does it lead anywhere? Say anything? Not really. That's the whole point. Drug use is not linear but circular. You never get anywhere unless you keep returning to the starting point. But you make fierce friends along the way. Too bad if they die."

According to the Russian film critic Yevgeny Nefedov, Danny Boyle's film “Trainspotting” is "a purely cinematic extravaganza, a stream of hallucinations captured (saved) on film, albeit outwardly and extremely believable, and even cutting eyes with defiant naturalism ... Life - with all physiological details like the consequences of indigestion, with the "toilet" life, with the eternal search for a great buzz."

As for the moviegoers' appraisal of the film, it should be noted first of all that with a total production and promotion cost of £ 2.3 million, Danny Boyle's film “Trainspotting” grossed £ 48 million, or $ 72 million. In other words, the film paid off more than 20 times. 74% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this movie ratings from 8 to 10.

With that said, FilmGourmand rated Danny Boyle's "Trainspotting" at 8.348, making it 396th in the Golden Thousand.