Trainspotting social and cultural contexts

The film Trainspotting portrays social and cultural contexts very well in a post Thatcherism era, in the way that the film deals with the effects of Thatcherism and the lack of work for young people in the working class. Thatcherism legacy lived on through the 90s and still developed a lot of unemployment among the UK and this is shown in Trainspotting from the lack of work shown in this film and the fact that none of the main characters have jobs shows that there are still Thatcherism policy is still going on. The characters attitude in this film is lacking motivation in the way that they are choosing heroin over life and are not trying to find a job which contrasts the views of the government which one politician said "get on your bike and find work" which tells us that the characters in this film are not standing by the government and are choosing to live a bad life rather then getting and job and being working class. Also Renton's voice over also tells us that he does like to work and doesn't want to have a job by him saying that he chose heroin over life and that he doesn't want to live life the right way. The mise-en-scene in this film shows that there are not a lot of opportunities for the characters as the film is set in a place that is not very rich and is on a counsel a state which shows the characters as poor and living life well, Also the scene where Spud goes to get a job and messes up on purpose so that he doesn't have to work and that he can live his life work free and have the hassle of work and the responsibilities that come with it.

The music in this film represents the drug and rave culture in the 90s by the upbeat music and the heavy raving and drug taking at this time was made possible because of the type of music that was being played at this time and was a way for the young to rebelling against the government. The songs in this film like "Perfect Day" and "Lust For Life" were classic rave songs at this time and were extremely popular at this time for the way that the song was upbeat and was a song that anybody could dance to. This contrast with the characters because these songs represent a good life and show life in a good way and connect with the motivated where as on the other hand the characters in this film are not motivated and they use these songs of a way of irony towards the characters as they are disappointed with being Scottish in this film as Renton says that "It is sh*t being Scottish" which shows a sense of disappointment towards there culture.                  

Comments

  1. A Bateman25 April 2018 at 02:49

    Can you give some more specific details of how the deprivation and the working class aspects of the film are shown through the mise-en-scene? for example, you may comment upon the costume, the setting (with examples), the characters behaviours and what they do etc. This will help you to illustrate more fully what you mean.

    Perfect Day and Lust For Life are not actually rave songs, they are used ironically because of the sentiment in their words and what is actually happening to the characters, you might also consider the uplifting classical music from the opera Carmen by Bizet and how this too provides juxtaposition as it is used during the scene when Renton is trying to break his drug habit.

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