Renton's opening speech analysis - TRAINSPOTTING

From the start of the film we are aligned with Renton as he is the first character that we are introduced to through a number of close up shots of him running through the street. As he is running through the street, we also hear him talking. This dialogue is important as through this dialogue he reveals a small percentage of his personality to the audience. In this speech-like dialogue he vocalises his opinion on life; he declares that life is all about work, kids, bills, possessions, ageing and death. through this speech, it is unclear what Renton's attitude to life is therefore it is left to open interpretation from the audience. Renton could be celebrating life, satirising life, judging life or rejecting life. He ends this speech by saying how he chose to not choose a life like that, instead he chose heroin because its fun. This makes the film more enjoyable for younger audiences as they aren't hearing what they usually hear about drugs - films usually preach about how drugs are bad where as in transporting, Renton doesn't do this and instead he glamorises it and makes it clear that he chose drugs over life in order to have a better life. However this is ironic because in the end, he is the one that tries to get away from all the drugs and leaves his friends.  

While we are hearing Renton say all of this, there is also up-beat Iggy-pop music in the background as well as a lot of action happening on-screen which would usually distract us from what Renton is saying however Trainspotting does such a great job with putting action, music, and speech all together that we do pay attention to the words Renton is saying as well as watching the action and appreciating the music in the background.