For better or worse, there's very little cross-over between the worlds of film criticism and Class A drug addiction. One of the great victories of the Trainspotting film is its nimble-footed depiction of the highs and lows of heroin dependency without once becoming too flip or too ponderous. The danger with a book like this is that some tweedy fellow might start harrumphing well-meaningly about injecting marijuana and ecstasy pipes in a Brass Eye style. It's a terrific relief, then, that this Modern Classic does the film justice by being just as deft and intelligent as its subject is. Murray Smith communicates his very evident love of the film with wit and verve, whilst maintaining a steely critical eye.
The BFI Modern Classics have inspired a host of copy-cat series now replicating like wild-fire at your local Waterstones, but none has the same class as the originals. For sure, individual titles might occasionally be too diverse in approach to get a grip on the range as a whole, but it's in tackling such ground-breakingly recent films as this that the series proves its mettle. For some the paint may barely be dry on Trainspotting but Smith is sharp in his dissection of its power and appeal, in a brisk and enjoyable style that belies the weightiness of its content. The book's real victory lies in Smith's persuasive understanding of the film's best features. In particular he gets right to the heart of Trainspotting's role in mid-Nineties Cool Britannia: the manner in which the film feeds from a matrix of modern British movements including Brit Art and Brit Pop, and thus places itself in the cultural front-line, inspiring others anew. Smith's detailed examination of the use of pop music songs within the film is especially enlightening, communicating with admirable precision just how the soundtrack pulls off a special double-whammy: reflecting and deepening the themes of the film with economy and subtlety, and selling truckloads of CDs too.
In many ways this fine volume qualifies almost as a how-to manual; that is, how to make a great British film with style and substance that defies every prejudice about our native film industry. It could usefully be issued along with every Film Council grant to try to beef up the sloppy standards of the usual output. At the very least it should be sent forthwith to one D. Boyle, in the hope that he'll remember why we got so excited about him in the first place and atone for The Beach without delay.
Reviewed by Andy Murray
