Trainspotting

Abstract

Trainspotting was released in New York in July 1996, ten months after its UK première. It took $262,000 on its opening weekend and continued to attract audiences, earning $12 million at the US box office after eight weeks. By Hollywood standards this is not a large sum — in seven weeks Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996) grossed $285 million — but Trainspotting’s career abroad exceeded expectations, it ‘travelled’ well, receiving excellent reviews and high-profile publicity in Europe and the USA. As a low-budget, parochial film which certainly did not exemplify the conventional virtues and values of Britain, utilising broad Scottish accents (some dubbing was necessary for American release) and dealing with risqué subject-matter, it would, at first sight, appear to be destined for short theatrical domestic release followed by a video career. John Hill has argued that:

[T]he most interesting type of British cinema, and the one which is most worthy of support, differs from the type which is often hoped for — a British cinema capable of competing with Hollywood and exemplifying the virtues and values of Britain. A different conception of British cinema recognises that its economic ambitions will have to be more modest. However, its cultural ambitions can, and should, be correspondingly more ambitious: the provision of diverse and challenging representations adequate to the complexities of contemporary Britain. (Hill, 18–19)