Trainspotting

[YKTMX]

Just watched it on TV there. To my shame, I hadn't seen it before, despite being a fan of McGregor and the director.

I really enjoyed (to the extent you can a film like that) it.

I thought it was a decent portrayal of the nature of heroin addiciton, though I never really believed that the characters were poverty stricken, which was obviously part of the narrative.

I never thought for one moment that it glorified the subject matter. Ewan McGregor was as fine as ever, but Bobby Carlye stole the show as Begbie, a totally realistic, but at the same time cartoonish, sociopath.

Fine film.

[Danton]

Robert Carlyle's portrayal is every bit as menacing as say, Robert Deniro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver - He deserved an oscar...

[YKTMX]

I wouldn't say he was AS good as De Niro in that movie, though there are similarities in the characters. Though you are slightly more sympathetic towards Travis I think. He has some motive, whereas Begbie is just insane.

[Danton]

I've met people like Begbie, and at the time the film first came out I was living with two lads from Dundee - on the Talgarth road (where Renton sells the flats) - these guys were'nt on scag but were hardcore speed & E freaks, as was I at the time... I can empaphize with Begbie, I don't beleive he is insane, his behaviour is typical and perhaps expected of many working class males from schemes and estates who find it difficult to express themselves..

Travis Bickle on the other hand is a sick, psychotic murderer who became a anti-hero by default, he murdered in cold blood four or five men because he found prostitution distasteful....

[YKTMX]

I disagree. Travis is a war veteran, disgusted by the society he has come back to. Anything pure that he sees becomes ultimately corrupted by this society. Travis is alienated whereas Begbie controls his envrioment by surrounding himself with people he feels are inferior.

Begbie is totally unsympathetic, whereas I got the sense that it was outside forces affecting Travis, not the other way around.

[Danton]

Begbie is a product of his enviroment and his worst crimes are cowardly acts of minor violence - such as kicking people in the gonads...

Do we excuse Travis's acts of multiple homicide because his "pure" America is tainted by hookers and pushers... His look of disgust as black kids play in the street says it all... "One day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets"

[YKTMX]

Begbie is a product of his enviroment and his worst crimes are cowardly acts of minor violence - such as kicking people in the gonads...

And "glassing" and "chibbing" people at random.


Do we excuse Travis's acts of multiple homicide because his "pure" America is tainted by hookers and pushers... His look of disgust as black kids play in the street says it all... "One day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets

Let's not forget that it is a pimp and a sleazy landlord who Travis does indeed kill. Not that that excuses the violence, but his violence does have a context, unlike Begbies, which is random aggression.

You're incinuation that Travis may be racist is interesting, had never really crossed my mind before. There isn't a great deal in the movie to support this. He does after all support a DEMOCRAT in the film. At least I assumed Palantine was a democrat. :)

[Danton]

He tries to assasinate Palintine no? Memory failing...

Travis, I view as a self appointed judge, jury and executioner.. Begbie as an ignorant violent thug - both undesirable..

Anyway we agree they are both great performances in great movies, which is why they arouse such debates...

[YKTMX]

He tries to assasinate Palintine no? Memory failing...

He goes to a rally contemplating it I think.


Anyway we agree they are both great performances in great movies, which is why they arouse such debates

Absolutely.

[Hate Is Art]

Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit-crushing ga me shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your futu re. Choose life.

I Loved The Film! Best Film I have EVER seen!

[Hegemonicretribution]

Great film absollutely fantastic book..and Begbie is the biggest nutter, cold calculated and yet still largely unpredictable. Laws apply only for him, and he administers immediate and definite retribution to law breakers, even if it is looking at him funny. Still there is slightly more to him, the bit where he sees his father almost hints at something that was once human.

[''electra'']

The script was great but it was terribly directed.Don't tell me you didn't get sick with that toilete scene!I nearly threw up!Yuck... :ph34r: I couldn't eat anything the next day!

[Urban Rubble]

So was the film super edited for TV ? Well, I guess you wouldn't know not having seen it on video.

Was the part where shit gets splattered everywhere on TV ?

Anyway, great movie. Begbie is my hero ! j/k

[Danton]

Originally posted by Urban [email protected] 21 2004, 03:10 AM
So was the film super edited for TV ?
No, Channel 4 will screen absolutley anything, and I mean anything...
Spuds shit slpattering scene was present and correct...

[Urban Rubble]

Yeah, I guess I'm used to American TV.

[Organic Revolution]

that movie was perhaps better than anything i have ever seen

[Felicia]

lol

I saw it for the first time last week :P

[Ralph]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2004, 10:03 PM
I saw it for the first time last week :P
congratulation :P

[Floyd.]

You miss the point of the film by focusing on secondary characters to the lead. At the heart of it, it wasn't about violence it was solely about drugs and their effects. As for the book I'd rather read junky by william s. burroughs