Trainspotting Closing Sequence
Narrative Overview:
After Begbie starts a bar fight and Spud gets his hand cut with glass, the four of them go back to the hotel room with the money. Early that morning Renton wakes up, as his no-diegetic narration starts again mirroring the start of the film, and justifies taking the money. As he walks out the door he makes eye contact with Spud who shakes his head but doesn’t alert the others. The rest of the film is Renton making his way across London, and Begbie crashing out when he discovers the money is gone. The film ends with the iconic zoom shot of Renton walking towards the camera smiling and repeating his original choose life monologue but this time agreeing to its message. There is also a short shot from inside a locker where Renton placed some money earlier and Spud finding it.
The scene begins with Renton’s narration initially rejecting capitalism like the start, but this slowly changes and goes full 360 to him accepting and aspiring towards the “boring” middle class lifestyle
Born Sippy non-diegetic compiled score, not 70s heroin indie but electro dance- new beginnings
Birds Eye view shot of them all in circular room, all equals
Looking into mirror metaphor for facing reality, throws out vodka and drinks water
Slow pace glance object shots to signify Renton making a decision and not acting impulsively like the rest of the film
As beat drops in song Renton takes the bag from Begbie
As narration justifies why he should take the money and why each character doesn’t deserve it, there are shots from Renton’s PoV of the men in the room, ending with Spud who stares back and shakes his head
As Renton walks down the street the edits are in time with the music, and there is a weird sideways shot that pans up with the bag and becomes an upside down shot (no other way to explain…)
Extreme wide shot of him walking right to left over the bridge- wrong way for conventional filmmaking- represents walking back to reality and conventionality?
Final shot wide lens extremely zoomed in making his facial features indistinguishable from anyone else- blurring into rest of society and as gets closer to camera the audience is metaphorically going into his own head as he is still narrating all the things he plans to do
The narration is lyrical and poetic (like start of film) and almost in time with the song
Coda at end of the film where Spud finds the money, tying up lose ends and redemptive of Renton as a changed man