OPENING Sound and Cinematography Analysis (Ideology and Narrative)
-Sound: ‘Lust for Life’ by Iggy Pop (written while Pop and Bowie were getting clean, urge to experience life fully, Renton’s self-destruction is to experience life outside of an oppressive system)
Choose Life monologue + Running (consumerism, first three lines align with beat of music then stability dissolves into chaos, binary oppositions)
Pleonastic car stopping (comical/action vibes, fantastical nature of drug life)
Cinematography: CU of Renton and Spud laughing (childlike, fantasy, exciting)
MS freeze of Renton from inside the car (like a mug shot but also like a spy intro binary oppositions of fantasy vs reality)
Handheld camera (instability)
CU of Renton being hit in the head by the ball (failure to prosper in society with rules, roles and expectation)
LS of him falling backwards in the fame and MCU of landing on the floor at home (life forces him backwards so he chooses to do it on his own terms)
Zoom to MS of Tommy cornered with the ball (cornered into drug use- accessible for working class)
Begby CU slide tackle (aggressive masculinity)
OPENING Mise-en-Scene Analysis (Ideology and Narrative)
-Costume: Tight jeans and yellow tank top (everything is basic necessity)
Baggy T-shirts vs matching football kits (class, not kitted out for society, crumble under the pressure and turn to drug use)
-Hair and Makeup: Renton in the chase looks pale and red-eyed/half-dead from drug use
-Props: the football ⚽️
Heroine needles
Strap
-Performance: Begby constantly annoyed, laughs at pain
-Setting: Grey Edinburgh high-street vs orange walls
No furniture (rejection of consumerism)
OVERDOSE/COLD TURKEY Sound and Cinematography Analysis (Ideology and Narrative)
-Sound: ‘Perfect Day’ very on-the-nose
Pleonastic bolt lock (trapped by addiction and class)
Dark & Long (Dark Train) by Underworld (endless journey, euphoria, cycadelic, hope, club vibes)
Screams
-Cinematography: framing with the carpet, appears filmed from within the floor (coffin/ground, existing on the edge of life, blanket, comfort through heroine with working class struggles)
CU on bolt (trapped by addiction and class)
LAS of parents (vulnerability, at their mercy, generational wealth)
2-Shot MS Begby (Begby and fantasy before reality, binary oppositions)
LS of Spud (guilt)
Uncomfortable MCU of parents
OVERDOSE/COLD TURKEY Mise-en-Scene Analysis (Ideology and Narrative)
-Costume: Pyjamas (boyish)
Slacks, shirt and tie (reminder of potential to fit in)
-Hair and Makeup: pasty and red eyed (sickly)
-Props: needle, strap
-Performance: weird jump (dehumanise)
Posh with mother superior
Dead weight (at the mercy of society)
-Setting: train wall paper (grew up surrounded by it Class)
CLOSING Sound and Cinematography Analysis (Ideology and Narrative)
-Sound: ‘Born Slippy’ by Underworld (Underworld plays during withdrawal, symbol of hope and growing away from origins, up-and-coming, gets louder- embracing the world changing and moving with it)
Walking + Rhythm and rhyming of monologue (chaos constructed into stability- new equilibrium)
VO “I ripped them off” (Thatcher and individual over community)
-Cinematography: LAS when sneaking out (gaining control, peaceful new equilibrium)
ELS on the bridge (far away no longer tied to his corner of Edinburgh or London, granted freedom and autonomy by money)
Zoom and blurr of him walking towards the camera (becoming one of us- we’re the new equilibrium)
Bird’s-eye shot of Begby wrecking the hotel (small and childlike)
CLOSING Mise-en-Scene Analysis (Ideology and Narrative)
-Costume: police uniforms (reality setting in for Begby)
-Hair and Makeup: he looks healthy (new start)
-Props: cash bag, passport (both grant freedom)
-Performance:
-Setting: Leaving it
