With their first feature, SHALLOW GRAVE, director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald and screenwriter John Hodge established themselves as one of the UK’s most important filmmaking partnerships since Powell and Pressburger. Their second film TRAINSPOTTING was recut for its US theatrical release, as well as for the US and UK home videos. With this filmmaker-approved edition, the Criterion Collection is proud to present the only home video release of TRAINSPOTTING in its original UK theatrical version.
BLU-RAY EDITION 1996 93 MINUTES COLOR SURROUND 1.85:1 ASPECT RATIO TRAINSPOTTING is under exclusive license from Sony Home Video TM © 2022 by Film4. All Rights Reserved. © 2022 The Criterion Collection. All Rights Reserved. Cat. no. CC1477L. ISBN 7-1551500-853-2. Warning: unauthorized public performance, broadcasting, or copying is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in the USA. First printing 2022.
Trainspotting
Irvine Welsh’s darkly comic first novel Trainspotting screams to life in this acclaimed film adaptation from the collaborative team of director DANNY BOYLE, screenwriter JOHN HODGE, and producer ANDREW MACDONALD. TRAINSPOTTING follows the life of unrepentant heroin abuser MARK RENTON (EWAN MCGREGOR), as he struggles to escape the responsibilities of life and friendship. Critically lauded and equally controversial, TRAINSPOTTING is a harshly beautiful portrait of friendships devastated by urban blight.
1996
SPECIAL FEATURES • Screen-specific commentary by director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, screenwriter John Hodge, and actor Ewan McGregor • Nine deleted scenes with commentary • Video interview with Irvine Welsh, author of the novel Trainspotting Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Stereo / Audio Commentary Dolby Digital Subtitles: English Main title: 1080p
Supplementary material: 480p Laserdisc source
The Criterion Collection is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions of the highest technical quality, with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film. Visit us at Criterion.com
Design and Layout - pineapples101@gmail.com
LD 325
Trainspotting
The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents
Irvine Welsh’s darkly comic first novel Trainspotting screams to life in this acclaimed film adaptation from the collaborative team of director DANNY BOYLE, screenwriter JOHN HODGE, and producer ANDREW MACDONALD. TRAINSPOTTING follows the life of unrepentant heroin abuser MARK RENTON (EWAN MCGREGOR), as he struggles to escape the responsibilities of life and friendship. Critically lauded and equally controversial, TRAINSPOTTING is a harshly beautiful portrait of friendships devastated by urban blight. With their first feature, SHALLOW GRAVE, director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald and screenwriter John Hodge established themselves as one of the UK’s most important filmmaking partnerships since Powell and Pressburger. Their second film TRAINSPOTTING was recut for its US theatrical release, as well as for the US and UK home videos. With this filmmaker-approved edition, the Criterion Collection is proud to present the only home video release of TRAINSPOTTING in its original UK theatrical version.
BLU-RAY EDITION 1996 93 MINUTES COLOR SURROUND 1.85:1 ASPECT RATIO TRAINSPOTTING is under exclusive license from Sony Home Video TM © 2022 by Film4. All Rights Reserved. © 2022 The Criterion Collection. All Rights Reserved. Cat. no. CC1477L. ISBN 7-1551500-853-2. Warning: unauthorized public performance, broadcasting, or copying is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in the USA. First printing 2022.
Trainspotting
Trainspotting
SPECIAL FEATURES
1996
• Screen-specific commentary by director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, screenwriter John Hodge, and actor Ewan McGregor • Nine deleted scenes with commentary • Video interview with Irvine Welsh, author of the novel Trainspotting
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Stereo / Audio Commentary Dolby Digital Subtitles: English Main title: 1080p
Supplementary material: 480p Laserdisc source
The Criterion Collection is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions of the highest technical quality, with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film. Visit us at Criterion.com
Design and Layout - pineapples101@gmail.com
LD 325
Trainspotting
The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents
Irvine Welsh’s darkly comic first novel Trainspotting screams to life in this acclaimed film adaptation from the collaborative team of director DANNY BOYLE, screenwriter JOHN HODGE, and producer ANDREW MACDONALD. TRAINSPOTTING follows the life of unrepentant heroin abuser MARK RENTON (EWAN MCGREGOR), as he struggles to escape the responsibilities of life and friendship. Critically lauded and equally controversial, TRAINSPOTTING is a harshly beautiful portrait of friendships devastated by urban blight. With their first feature, SHALLOW GRAVE, director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald and screenwriter John Hodge established themselves as one of the UK’s most important filmmaking partnerships since Powell and Pressburger. Their second film TRAINSPOTTING was recut for its US theatrical release, as well as for the US and UK home videos. With this filmmaker-approved edition, the Criterion Collection is proud to present the only home video release of TRAINSPOTTING in its original UK theatrical version.
DVD EDITION 1996 93 MINUTES COLOR SURROUND 1.85:1 ASPECT RATIO TRAINSPOTTING is under exclusive license from Sony Home Video TM © 2022 by Film4. All Rights Reserved. © 2022 The Criterion Collection. All Rights Reserved. Cat. no. CC1477L. ISBN 7-1551500-853-2. Warning: unauthorized public performance, broadcasting, or copying is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in the USA. First printing 2022.
Trainspotting
Trainspotting
1996
SPECIAL FEATURES • Screen-specific commentary by director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, screenwriter John Hodge, and actor Ewan McGregor • Nine deleted scenes with commentary • Video interview with Irvine Welsh, author of the novel Trainspotting Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Stereo / Audio Commentary Dolby Digital Subtitles: English Main title: 1080p
Supplementary material: 480p Laserdisc source
The Criterion Collection is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions of the highest technical quality, with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film. Visit us at Criterion.com
Design and Layout - pineapples101@gmail.com
LD 325
Trainspotting
The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents
Trainspotting
I wrote Trainspotting between 1988 and 1990, though some of it had earlier genesis in notes and irregular diary entries going back to the early Eighties. I think I submitted it for publication in 1992, and it came out in 1993. It instantly became a “cult” book and was dramatized for the stage in 1994. The following year it was filmed and on its release became probably not just “the” cinematic event of 1996, but “the” cultural event with references to it in the media all but omnipresent in the UK and beyond. It’s not the sort of thing you would have expected, at the time, to hit the commercial base: a group of working-class junkies from Edinburgh doing little more than getting by and winding each other up. Almost everyone I spoke to about the sale of the film rights wanted to make a po-faced piece of social realism like CHRISTIANE F. OR THE BASKETBALL DIARIES; in other words, a piece of min-numbing tedium which nobody outside of a few broadsheet bores wanted to watch. REFRESHINGLY, ANDREW MACDONALD, DANNY BOYLE, AND JOHN HODGE SHARED MY VISION OF TRAINSPOTTING. AS RENTON SAYS IN THE FILM, TIMES WERE CHANGING, DRUGS WERE CHANGING, PEOPLE WERE CHANGING.
NOWADAYS, YOUNGER WORKING-CLASS PEOPLE GROW UP IN A SOCIETY IN WHICH THE MAIN INSTITUTIONS OF SOCIALIZATION, where kids learn MORALITY – the FAMILY, the COMMUNITY, the TRADE UNIONS and the CHURCHES – have been emasculated by the promotion of consumerism and the market economy. THEY grow up exploring a psychoactive terrain, stimulated by computer technology and advertising. For the rampant consumerism of the Eighties had other outcomes: Certain drugs, once the preserve of a bohemian elite, found their way into mass culture. DANNY, ANDREW, JOHN, AND MYSELF were all determined that the characters in Trainspotting were not victims, but ordinary punters functioning within this social reality. To portray them as victims, à la Sixties and Seventies “political art,” may have been useful in a welfarist society, such the postwar set-up in Britain. Here the (usually middle- or upper-class) artist cOULD WALLOW IN SHOWING CLICHÉD REPRESETATIONS OF MISERY AMD THE ADVERSE SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF WORKING-CLASS LIFE, IN ORDER TO TRY TO SHAME THE POWERS-THAT-BE INTO DEDICATING RESOURCES TO MAKE THINGS BETTER. Now all this approach provides is a smug affirmation for the bourgeoisie that it’s better to be on the monied side of the divide.
SO TELL US SOMETHING WE DIDN’T KNOW. An “important” picture nobody wants to see is ultimately just a self-important picture that nobody wants to see. TO MAKE ONE THAT IS HIGHLY WATCHABLE AS WELL AS CHALLENGING IS THE BEST KIND OF FILMMAKING. THAT WAS WHAT IMPRESSED ME ABOUT ANDREW, DANNY, AND JOHN: THEY WANTED EVERYONE, NOT JUST THE ART HOUSE AUDIENCE, TO COME AND SEE THE MOVIE. Screenwriter John Hodge, to his great credit, managed to tease the embers of a plot from the book into a reasonable flame, but this film is still largely fuelled by its characters and there are some amazing performances in Trainspotting. EWAN McGREGOR’S RENTON, to my mind, stands right up there alongside ROBER DE NIRO’S TRAVIS BICKLE in Taxi Driver. It’s probably the only time that we’ll ever see Misters McGregor, Bremner, Carlyle, and Miller on screen together, and the movie will go down in cinema history for that alone. MY OWN BIT-PART APPEARANCE AS A SMALL-TIME DEALER WAS PERHAPS A BIT LESS MEMORABLE, but it gave me a great deal of personal satisfaction to be up there in “the” British film of this generation. There’s at least one other reason why the film was so popular. Renton is a modern-day antihero. FORGET YOUR JAMES DEANS AND YOUR SID VICIOUSES; too many youths from BAD HOMES have bought into that “HOPE I DIE BEFORE
I GET OLD” bullshit. THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO THINK THAT’S COOL ARE THE SNIGGERING POSH KIDS WITH THE TYPEWRITERS, doing the social commentary thing – iconizing losers to encourage their peers to wannabe. A “GOOD-LOOKING CORPSE” IS ONE OF THE BEST FORMS OF SOCIAL CONTROL EVER INVENTED. FOR ALL HIS NIHILISM, RENTON’S FAR TOO CLUED-UP and not nearly enough of a suffering bore to take that predictable route. He’s in the tradition of modern British workingclass anti-heroes from JOHN LYDON TO SHAUN RYDER TO NOEL GALLAGHER, the boys who had their cake and ate it. The big challenge for us as we move into the next millennium is to learn how to share that cake out a bit more EQUITABLY. - IRVINE WELSH
Trainspotting
I wrote Trainspotting between 1988 and 1990, though some of it had earlier genesis in notes and irregular diary entries going back to the early Eighties. I think I submitted it for publication in 1992, and it came out in 1993. It instantly became a “cult” book and was dramatized for the stage in 1994. The following year it was filmed and on its release became probably not just “the” cinematic event of 1996, but “the” cultural event with references to it in the media all but omnipresent in the UK and beyond. It’s not the sort of thing you would have expected, at the time, to hit the commercial base: a group of working-class junkies from Edinburgh doing little more than getting by and winding each other up. Almost everyone I spoke to about the sale of the film rights wanted to make a po-faced piece of social realism like CHRISTIANE F. OR THE BASKETBALL DIARIES; in other words, a piece of min-numbing tedium which nobody outside of a few broadsheet bores wanted to watch. REFRESHINGLY, ANDREW MACDONALD, DANNY BOYLE, AND JOHN HODGE SHARED MY VISION OF TRAINSPOTTING. AS RENTON SAYS IN THE FILM, TIMES WERE CHANGING, DRUGS WERE CHANGING, PEOPLE WERE CHANGING.
NOWADAYS, YOUNGER WORKING-CLASS PEOPLE GROW UP IN A SOCIETY IN WHICH THE MAIN INSTITUTIONS OF SOCIALIZATION, where kids learn MORALITY – the FAMILY, the COMMUNITY, the TRADE UNIONS and the CHURCHES – have been emasculated by the promotion of consumerism and the market economy. THEY grow up exploring a psychoactive terrain, stimulated by computer technology and advertising. For the rampant consumerism of the Eighties had other outcomes: Certain drugs, once the preserve of a bohemian elite, found their way into mass culture. DANNY, ANDREW, JOHN, AND MYSELF were all determined that the characters in Trainspotting were not victims, but ordinary punters functioning within this social reality. To portray them as victims, à la Sixties and Seventies “political art,” may have been useful in a welfarist society, such the postwar set-up in Britain. Here the (usually middle- or upper-class) artist cOULD WALLOW IN SHOWING CLICHÉD REPRESETATIONS OF MISERY AMD THE ADVERSE SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF WORKING-CLASS LIFE, IN ORDER TO TRY TO SHAME THE POWERS-THAT-BE INTO DEDICATING RESOURCES TO MAKE THINGS BETTER. Now all this approach provides is a smug affirmation for the bourgeoisie that it’s better to be on the monied side of the divide.
SO TELL US SOMETHING WE DIDN’T KNOW. An “important” picture nobody wants to see is ultimately just a self-important picture that nobody wants to see. TO MAKE ONE THAT IS HIGHLY WATCHABLE AS WELL AS CHALLENGING IS THE BEST KIND OF FILMMAKING. THAT WAS WHAT IMPRESSED ME ABOUT ANDREW, DANNY, AND JOHN: THEY WANTED EVERYONE, NOT JUST THE ART HOUSE AUDIENCE, TO COME AND SEE THE MOVIE. Screenwriter John Hodge, to his great credit, managed to tease the embers of a plot from the book into a reasonable flame, but this film is still largely fuelled by its characters and there are some amazing performances in Trainspotting. EWAN McGREGOR’S RENTON, to my mind, stands right up there alongside ROBER DE NIRO’S TRAVIS BICKLE in Taxi Driver. It’s probably the only time that we’ll ever see Misters McGregor, Bremner, Carlyle, and Miller on screen together, and the movie will go down in cinema history for that alone. MY OWN BIT-PART APPEARANCE AS A SMALL-TIME DEALER WAS PERHAPS A BIT LESS MEMORABLE, but it gave me a great deal of personal satisfaction to be up there in “the” British film of this generation. There’s at least one other reason why the film was so popular. Renton is a modern-day antihero. FORGET YOUR JAMES DEANS AND YOUR SID VICIOUSES; too many youths from BAD HOMES have bought into that “HOPE I DIE BEFORE
I GET OLD” bullshit. THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO THINK THAT’S COOL ARE THE SNIGGERING POSH KIDS WITH THE TYPEWRITERS, doing the social commentary thing – iconizing losers to encourage their peers to wannabe. A “GOOD-LOOKING CORPSE” IS ONE OF THE BEST FORMS OF SOCIAL CONTROL EVER INVENTED. FOR ALL HIS NIHILISM, RENTON’S FAR TOO CLUED-UP and not nearly enough of a suffering bore to take that predictable route. He’s in the tradition of modern British workingclass anti-heroes from JOHN LYDON TO SHAUN RYDER TO NOEL GALLAGHER, the boys who had their cake and ate it. The big challenge for us as we move into the next millennium is to learn how to share that cake out a bit more EQUITABLY.
- IRVINE WELSH
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Trainspotting
TRAINSPOTTING I S U N WARNING: UNAUTH DER E X ORI ZE CLU D PU SIVE BL IC LIC PE EN R FO SE RM
Trainspotting - Criterion Collection Laserdisc Preservation https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/07580/CC1477L/Trainspotting:-Special-Edition Blu Ray - Region A/B/C DVD - Region All Audio: TBA Subtitles: TBA Main title: 1080p Supplementary material: 480p Laserdisc / DVD source
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