This
film is based on the novel written by Irvine Welsh, which describe
the life of the young – drug, clubbing, love and friendship- set in
Scotland in the 1980's. Danny Boyle, who is famous as a director of
“Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Beach” directed it in 1996.
The
main character, Mark Renton, is addicted to Heroin which he buys
from a man called “the mother superior”(!). He leads an idle and
funny life with his friends who are also Heroin addicts.
*Political
and economical context -Thatcherism
In
the 1980's, UK was at a turning point. Margaret Thatcher in the
Conservative Party was elected as prime minister in 1979. She pursed
various policies such as privatisation to rebuild the economy which
had been on the verge of collapse, what is called British Malaise.
She succeeded in rebuilding the national economy, on the other hand,
a large number of people lost their jobs by her policy and she
adopted preferential policies to the people in high-income class.
This leaded a tremendous gap between the rich and the poor.
*Social
context-Spread drug and AIDS
Drug
Edinburgh
has long history of opium, which dates back to the end of 17th
century. This drug spread dramatically among people in the middle
class, then heroin was compounded for the first time in 1884.
According to an article, most
of world's opiate drugs are produced in Edinburgh and it continues
until now. In addition, in the 1980's large quantities of cheap
heroin is inflowed from Pakistan. It seems that this environment
could be one of the significant factors which lead the drug abuse
such as youth in the film.
AIDS
The
first emergence of this disease in the world is 1980's . Especially
in Edinburgh, it is reported the AIDS epidemic occurred by injection
drug use much more than other area. This reasons are assumed that
selling hypodermic syringes in pharmacies was limited in 1970's and
the “Syringe
exchange program” was introduced in Edinburgh later
than other area. Therefore, 1980's was the age of mounting public
opinion against AIDS.
The
scene where Renton visits Tommy ( he is not heroin addicts at first
but started to use since he broke up with his girl friend) after the
HIV test which proves Renton as negative is very impressive owing to
the drastic change of Tommy's appearance and life by serious disease and
HIV.
*Identity
of Scottish
As
mentioned above, this film is set in Scotland, so most scenes are
shot in Glasgow and cast spoke strong accent of Scottish English.
In
this film, there is the scene where Renton and his friends talked
about Scotland.
“I
hate being Scottish. We're the lowest of the fucking low, the scum of
the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that
was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English, but I
don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by
wankers. We can't even pick a decent culture to be colonized by. We
are ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs and all
the fresh air in the world will not make any fucking difference.”
From
this masochistic opinion of Renton, I could understand complex
feeling of Scottish against English.
*Main
theme- Choose a life! and neoliberalism
"Choose
a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big
television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and
electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and
dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a
starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear 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 life ... But why would I want to do a thing like
that?"
I
think this lines contains the resistance against stereotype and
socially accepted idea to happiness. Characters in the film lives in
a life out of these concepts. However, in 1980's, social welfare, which had been provided people fully since the end of WWⅡ, was cut down
dramatically by Thatcher. It meant the begins of the age of
self-responsibility. Moreover, the competitiveness in various
aspects of their life became harder by her deregulation policy. I
assume these things made people feel the desire for much better life
than others with their own ability and fear becoming loser in the
society. Director describes “the losers” attractively and vividly, so I think many people who are exhausted with the
competing life can be saved by this movie and given a chance to
consider what we really want to do.
reference
wow～，your background is so enough, after reading your article, i could understand a few history about scotland and england.your picture and short video let your article to be not boring.
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