Sunday, July 21, 1996
Director Danny Boyle spotlights the futility of drug abuse in
his latest movie ‘Trainspotting’By Michael Horowitz
Summer Bruin Senior Staff
A year and a half ago at the Sundance Film Festival, a British
director named Danny Boyle showed off his successful first project,
a viscous little thriller called "Shallow Grave." But he already
had his sights set on his next project, a movie he touted to
unbelievers as a positive heroin film.
"It won’t be a depressing, grim film, ’cause we’ve all seen
that," he said of the already underway production. "We don’t need
another. We know that already."
Boyle wanted to show why drug users use drugs, and more
importantly, he wanted to uncover that spark of vitality that
exists even in the most desperate of environments.
Now it’s the summer of 1996. Boyle is sitting in the much
warmer, more relaxed confines of the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly
Hills. And if things were good for him last year, they’re looking
even better now.
His film, "Trainspotting," based on the book of the same name by
Irvine Welsh and adapted by John Hodge, has become a phenomenon in
Britain. What Welsh considers a "remix" of his material has netted
around £12 million  the British equivalent to a $100
million blockbuster. And now the swirl of hype and controversy that
rocked Europe has hit the states.
"What was genuinely subversive about the book was that here was
this landscape that was normally so desperate with life sliding
away, and yet (Welsh) dealt with it with such incredible humor and
vitality," said Boyle. "So you finish the book and feel
exhilarated, and I hope people finish the film and feel uplifted
… It’s bizarre because you have to sort out why you feel like
that in such a landscape  and that’s when people kick in and
say it’s irresponsible, it glorifies drugs and things like
that."
The title of the film is taken from Welsh’s quote about a hobby
in which mostly male Brits watch trains go through stations and log
their serial numbers. "Trainspotting is a futile occupation," said
the novel’s author, "as is drug taking."
While the book is a collection of episodes with no true central
characters or plots, Boyle, producer Andrew MacDonald and writer
John Hodge (the nucleus of the "Shallow Grave" team) sat down and
listed the things they liked most about the novel, and worked from
there. After thinking about their preferences for a while, they
came up with what Boyle considers the key to the work.
"It’s not a documentary about what happens to you when you take
heroin," said Boyle. "What (Welsh) is trying to do is celebrate the
spark of life that is at that age really, when you use heroin.
"Nobody does when you’re 40, you’re all finished. It’s about
mayhem and transgression. That’s why it’s celebratory, and that’s
why it’s actually positive and optimistic. He shows how that
survives, even in the most desperate circumstances."
To show these conditions, the filmmakers researched the drug and
its addicts. "Trainspotting" shows the complexity of what they
discovered, as the drug doesn’t affect everyone in the story
equally. "It doesn’t kill the people it should kill, people sneak
away unfairly. There’s no justice."
Predictably, the film has its share of critics who deride it for
glamorizing heroin use, but Boyle contends that the film is a
warning, and believes the judgment wasn’t his to make.
"It’s designed for an audience who don’t want a film to begin
with a prescriptive moral agenda," he said. "Thirty years ago in
Britain it was immoral for homosexuals to make love or be portrayed
in any kind of way at all. Now it’s changed. You have to be honest
and truthful to yourself and the people you respect really. That’s
my credo  rather than a moral agenda that can be set for you
by other people."
Writer Hodge says he tried to present a clear and balanced case,
but argued "I don’t think anyone will come out of this film wanting
to try heroin."
Boyle also feels that the people with moral agendas are
overlooking other societal blights portrayed in the film, namely
alcoholism.
"Ironically of course, despite all the talk of drugs and
everything, the biggest danger in the film and biggest danger in
Britain is alcohol.
"It’s a massive problem, particularly in Scotland, where people
drink themselves into complete oblivion," he said, "and before they
reach that, there’s always some rite of passage violence.
"You’re not allowed to say that. It’s like Bob Dole and tobacco,
there’s such financial interest involved, you’re not allowed to
criticize these kinds of things really. And then people say you’re
condoning heroin. There’s such hypocrisy."
Surprisingly, financing such a controversial project was
relatively easy. Channel 4 in Britain, the filmmakers’ previous
partner in "Shallow Grave," was, in Boyle’s words, "supportive and
non-interventional."
"We always thought it would be a small film and we’d have enough
support in Britain after ‘Shallow Grave’ to pay for it. We didn’t
realize it was going to be like this."
Certainly the film has done better in Britain and in Europe than
they expected, but the filmmakers are wary of the reception the
film will find here. "Shallow Grave" did gangbusters abroad, but
only made a disappointing $3 million here.
"I just drove across America from New York to L.A. to try to get
to know the country a bit better  because we’re going to make
a film here  and I only knew New York and L.A., which I
imagine are distorted prisms from which to look at a country. And
it is amazing driving across the Midwest and meeting people who are
very big-hearted, genuinely big-hearted people and quite faithful,
optimistic, religious people  we’re very cynical about that
in Britain, we imagine it as some kind of apple pie conspiracy with
some hidden agenda. It was a real eye-opener to me.
"There was a feeling of people who did belong and wanted to
belong to something bigger than themselves  and of course the
nature of this film is the opposite, it’s about people who don’t
want to belong.
"I have to say, despite what Miramax would like me to say," said
Boyle, "I can’t see (‘Trainspotting’)’s appeal in Peoria or places
like that. I walked around there and saw these guys in a shoe-shine
shop and thought ‘it’s just never going to play here, and why
should it play here?’"
The film that will play there is "Alien 4," one of the many
films Boyle was offered to direct after his "Shallow Grave" outing.
He chose to make "Trainspotting" instead.
"The business people here are very sharp," he said of Hollywood.
"If they see you can make a half-decent film they’re onto you very
quickly. And that’s very flattering obviously, but once we’d kind
of gone through that, we decided to make our own films really.
"(‘Alien 4’) was a great script and I was a big fan of the first
two ‘Alien’ films, a huge fan. Tom Rothman, who runs Fox now,
really wants to get different sensibilities involved in these
franchises. The problem is that it’s all storyboards, it’s all
preparation, and also post-production and computers and all this
kind of stuff  and I’m not very good at that.
"I like working with the actors and stuff like that," he said.
"That’s what attracted me to it, the chance to work with Sigourney
Weaver and Winona Ryder and an alien, but once you overcome that
naivete you realize that getting in on celluloid is actually a blip
for the studio. That’s just a distraction for 12 weeks where they
spend a lot of money and then they can get it back in the computer
room."
So the gang that has brought you "Shallow Grave" and
"Trainspotting" is all set to bear down on "A Life Less Ordinary,"
an American romantic comedy starring mainstay Ewan McGregor and
just-signed Cameron Diaz. With the film to be distributed and
funded by Polygram and Twentieth Century Fox, Boyle is taking steps
toward Hollywood, but by his rules.
"We can always make films," he smiled. "We just want to do them
on a slightly smaller scale than Hollywood imagined.
"The pressure here is to spend more money. You say you want to
make a film for $10 million and the next time they ring you back
they say ‘this $10 to $12 million dollar film’ and you’re like
‘hang on, it’s $10 million.’ And the next time they ring you back
it’s $12 to $15. Stuff like that is very bizarre. It’s a different
mentality. I think they think you’re not proud if you’re not
spending."
Boyle holds the new film will be "slightly subversive, but not
unpleasantly so."
Probably less shooting up in this one, but he smirked as he
considered his past record. "Again it won’t play in Peoria, but
maybe Cameron Diaz will get us there."
Ewan McGregor, star of last year’s "Shallow Grave," plays yet
another shifty character in "Trainspotting."
McGregor (left), Ewen Bremner (following) are heroin addicts in
"Trainspotting."
"Trainspotting" director Danny Boyle plumbs the depths of heroin
abuse.