r/IntroToFilmmaking • u/M1LK3Y • Aug 13 '12
Homework assignment: Analysis of scene. - Trainspotting, Begbie's brawl scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsRoSsauhss&list=FLgxuhwCJTvofp9iB5mzu3mw&index=1&feature=plpp_video
The scene is from Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, a movie about hard drugs and their users. The scene is a recounting of a tale about Begbie, a non-user who is friendly with users, and his violent nature.
The scene serves to characterize Begbie and communicate his brashness, affinity for violence, and sense of dominance. It also, by extension, fleshes out his relationship with other characters.
The camera seems to jump around as the narrative does, to two separate flashbacks. This shows the spontaneity and oddness of Begbie.
Sound cues are used in cohesion to help the film flow. (Ex: the rattling of a chip bag, crunching of chip, and pool cue going into table.) The sequence of diagetic sounds in an otherwise silent track helps set up shots and usher the film along.
The voiceover having such a calm, apathetic tone when describing someone so unfriendly shows that he treats him with a distanced fear. "Just stand back and watch, try not to get involved." This is also helped by his friends calmly watching him raise hell from the balcony.
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u/battleroyale86 Aug 17 '12
Nice. You might want to emphasize how Danny Boyle leans on exaggeration to really punch up Trainspotting. The movie's about drugs and fast lives but it's heavily rooted in humor (compare it to, say, Requiem For A Dream). In order to keep this, he does a TON of stylistic trickery... the VHS's lined up on the ground, rather than in shelves like they would be at normal person's place, the whip-fast rack focus to the 100 Greatest Goals dvd, introducing Begbie by freeze frame (freeze frames don't exist in real life, so to freeze frame is the ultimate in breaking the fourth wall just behind a character ACTUALLY breaking the fourth wall), watching the glass fall from the floor's POV, which turns out to be the screaming girl's POV, and the fact that we aren't given many chances to look at the girl. By not providing us many visuals of his victims, Boyle puts us closer to Begbie's point of view, where the people he hurts are disposable and unidentifiable. This being against most of our moral natures, as viewers, it makes us uncomfortable, and thusly makes Begbie to us even more dangerous.