========================================================================== The Sprocket Trainspotting Interview Interview with Trainspotting team: Danny Boyle (Director), Andrew MacDonald (Producer) and John Hodge (Scriptwriter). ========================================================================== LJS: The book is so episodic, there are so many characters and sometimes you don't know who is speaking - was that the main problem you had in adapting it? JH: Yes, it reflects the way the book was written - it was conceived as a series of short stories. There's so many characters, so much internal monologues, so much going on - it makes the book entertaining, but it is a problem. Once we'd chosen Mark Renton as the charcter with the strongest voice to lead us through this world and his journey things became easier. We constructed this round him - his voice had the greater insight, and was the most entertaining. LJS: You changed some character's roles, and cut some i.e.: it's Allison's baby that dies and you lose Matty and Billy's deaths and transfer that onto Tommy. JH: With the cast we've got and with it being a film we made them all visually distinct with costume etc. AMacD: We had to make a film. Even though the book is the most important thing it was capturing the tone - we had to make a 90 min. film with some semblance of a narrative. That was our personal choice. We could have made the Altman 3 hour version or the Ken Loach "done it all real on location" version but that was our choice. That's the strength of Walsh's writing, also in "The Acid House" and "Maribou Stork Nightmares" - he uses fantasy and surrealism - both great film techniques. We used voice-over and freeze-frame to transfer the overall tone of the book. People will notice the changes because it's such an important book for a lot of people. Welsh has said that the film is like a remix of a record - it's just one interpretation. All the stuff we've left out - there's another five films in there. John and Danny's favourite part is "Memories of Matty" - those 15 pages could be a film in itself. LJS: Did you see drug taking in its most general terms i.e. getting "out of it" as a metaphor for the political sway of the last 16 years? All the characters are trying to escape from their lives. DB: It's interesting - I'd like to say "yes" but it's an interpretative eye on it. If I was honest, I'd have to say no, I didn't set out to do that. Lot's of people do make films like that, but we wanted to make a film that spoke to a cinema audience from 16 to 25, who have a lot of alternatives. If you're going to make a film about Heroin addicts in Edinburgh you've got to tell it in a way that echoes the book. One reason why the book was so successful was that it's written in such a ferociously relentless energetic way, a complete contrast to how drug taking does make you feel. We wanted to use what Welsh had used through the vernacular in the book as a way of presenting the story - not as a vehicle for an agenda. Walsh's purpose is more general - it's to give a voice to a certain type of person who tends, on the whole to be dismissed. A criticism has been made of how dare Renton be an addict and clever, as if all addicts are stupid - it's to show that all humanity is there in all its complexity. You can't take sides either paternally sympathetically or in a morally dismissive way. JH: In a better world Renton would be a high achiever. We found out from the folk at Carlton Athletic (a rehab group whose methods of taking people off drugs is by taking them off totally, apart from tobacco - and by use of "Confession" sessions, where they confess what they did to their families and friends) was that the spectrum of human characteristics was all there too. DB: That's the tragedy of the social system - there's incredible potential in people, and it gets lost. Renton achieves some of his by dumping his background and dumping his friend and leaves them. That's how society organises itself - the high achievers gather. We all gather in London with the "media brats", while people we were at school with stack shelves in ASDA - people who were really good at stuff like drawing, now nothing... LJS: Do you see the film as striking a blow for devolution? JH: I don't think Renton would see his speech (delivered on a hill outside the city) as a diatribe on devolution. I see that speech as a lament of what was called "the good society" that existed in post war Britain - Renton wouldn't acknowledge that because he's so anti-everything. LJS: The vitality reminded me of Once Were Warriors. AMacD: I've been asked by the Guardian paper to name a film I would have nominated for an Oscar - that was my film. I think it captured the society and background of a society that we don't know much about in a dynamic energetic way - like Ken Loach meets Mad Max. My pitch for "Trainspotting" was through films like "Alfie", "A Clockwork Orange", "Goodfellows" and the Beatles' films - that it was going to have a lot of energy and that would express both sides the lows and highs of the story. "Once Were Warriors" was fantastic, made for no money, but took more than "Jurassic Park" in New Zealand. We're proud that "Trainspotting" is British financed, released in Britain, made FOR Britain - if it works anywhere else it's a bonus. LJS: The film hung onto the fact that as in the book, you do actually like the characters. JH: Yes, you do like them, but you don't want to be them, you want to see them. People mistake that for glamorising them - we don't want people to identify with them - we want them to want to watch them. LJS: I didn't feel it glamorised them at all, and it was 50 minutes until we had a close up shot of a syringe. AMacD: That was intentional, to show the devastation - to use it to full effect. LJS: But you still kept the humour of the book. JH: That's important, it's what makes the book enjoyable. People retain their sense of humour in adverse circumstances - to the bitter end. LJS: I've read that you were able to cast it pretty quickly and easily. Was it just knowing people, or was it that easy? I totally believed in all the cast. DB: One of the things is that in Scotland you've got a dozen brilliant young actors so to cast a film like this is actually pretty easy, as long as you don't get too lost in casting. If you hand a script like this over to actors like that you're 97% of the way home. I think what audiences come to see - what they relate to (and you can have all the style in the world you like) but if they don't believe in those people you can forget it. It doesn't matter if they're stars or not: the audience has got to connect with them - that's who they go to watch - who they remember - who they'll see again. That's how the star system evolved - because Steve Seigal apart, they're f******g good. These are as good actors as you're going to get anywhere in the world and if you give them the material they just blaze. LJS: The music - it's obvious that you have to have Lou Reed and Iggy Pop because they are mentioned, but the opening sequence is so stunning.... DB: You've got to start of a film well. We were talking about the opening of "A Matter of Life and Death" - the air crash - You've got to state your objections, to say "Watch this f*******g film!" JH: Every Bond film does that - it's a shame that the other 90 minutes are not so good! LJS: You had used "Leftfield" in Shallow Grave, so was it obvious who else to pick for the soundtrack? There's some cover versions as well as New Order's "Temptation" that you used. DB: We had this problem, that when you mine into the book, it's set in the 1980's, and with a film, the costume designer wants to know if you want to do it as a period piece. We didn't want to do that, so one of the ways we chose was to keep them in the same costume, and try and give you a feeling that you were moving from the mid 80's through music; through dance music in London through to Britpop, which is now - so the feel of the film is now. END