Danny Boyle explains why the opening of ‘Trainspotting’ couldn’t be made today
There are some movies that just seem to capture the social and cultural thinking of the times, and when it comes to the 1990s, there are few films that do the decade justice, quite like Danny Boyle‘s 1996 black comedy-drama Trainspotting, which was adapted from the 1993 novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh.
The film sees Ewan McGregor play Mark Renton, an unemployed heroin addict from Edinburgh who courses through a rather gritty life, taking drugs with his friends whilst trying (and failing) to get clean. McGregor’s performance is of the top drawer, as are those of Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald.
Trainspotting is absolutely littered with iconic moments, and even from the off, audiences know that they’re in for a real treat of genuine intensity. The film opens with Renton and Spud being chased down the street by two shop detectives before they’re both thrown over the hood of a car.
Boyle and a number of the Trainspotting production team have admitted that they would be unlikely to film the scene today in the same way they did back in the 1990s. It all comes down to the laissez-faire approach that many movie sets had toward health and safety, particularly that of the cast members.
In the book #25 Trainspotting, Jay Glennie interviewed several figures from Boyle’s film, including the director himself, and was told about the dangerous filming of the opening scene, in which McGregor and Ewan Bremner (Spud) were actually hit with the quad bike Boyle was riding on chasing after the actors.
Glennie wrote: “Breathing hard, McGregor and Bremner waited for the cry of ‘action!’ as Boyle and Tufano jumped on a quad bike, with the motorcyclist instructed to go faster and get close to the pavement. Their tight schedule decrees they have to leave Edinburgh that evening, and they’re determined to get their shot”.
The writer continued: “Off camera, Saul Metzstein (location assistant) is running alongside Boyle and Tufano and ‘politely’ pushing startled shoppers out of the way. The pace has quickened, and a smiling Boyle can feel he is getting the shot he needs. A cry and a thud broke his concentration. Looking down, he saw a tangle of legs and arms and a look of bemusement on the face of Ewen Bremner.”
The production manager, Lesley Stewart, admitted that today’s productions would ensure that actors were comfortable with perhaps being thrown over a car, but back then, if the script called for it, then that was what would happen. Bremner had said that he could remember the bike “getting closer, literally blowing the hairs on my neck”.
There was certainly a sense of naivety on the set of Trainspotting, but that’s perhaps what makes it such a good work of cinema. There was no crowd control, just filmmaking, and Boyle admitted, “You’d never get permission to film this way now.” Maybe that’s the best from a health and safety point of view, but in terms of filmmaking, nothing beats the real thing.
