Post by Noah on Nov 25, 2005 21:01:13 GMT -5
Okay, I've now seen the Rent movie and I'm ready to talk about it.
First of all, I loved it. I knew I was going to love it, and I was right. If you love Rent, I think you'll feel the same way. If you don't love Rent, or if you have no particular attachment to the original cast, or if you're unfamiliar with the stage version, I just don't know. To me, the essence of the thing is so brilliant and beautiful, and so personally important, I have no ability to be objective. And I don't want to be objective.
That having been said, I did have a few problems with the movie.
One of my problems was not the age of the original cast members. A lot of people have been guffawing about this, as though 34 is over the hill. They're too old to be playing twentysomethings! First of all, they're not. Second of all, why can't these people be thirty? The only character whose age is revealed in the text is Mimi, who's 19. Some have suggested that to be a starving artist is acceptable at twenty-five, but not at thirty-five. This is such an offensive statement to me. I can't imagine anyone who really understands what Rent is about taking this view. What was romantic then, they posit, is pathetic now. They actually believe that struggling for your art is more pathetic than forgetting what mattered to you. I have no response to this, other than to say that Jonathan Larson's message is completely lost on these critics. Larson, remember, was a 35-year-old starving artist when Rent came to be.
Some of the snarkier reviews have said, essentially, "These people should shut up and get a job and pay their rent!" This is like watching Return of the Jedi and saying, "Luke should shut up and join the Dark Side." But this has always been a criticism of Rent, from the moment it opened at New York Theatre Workshop in 1996 -- "Why don't they just get jobs?" And I've always said, "Or, they could commit suicide!"
At any rate, the original cast members who are in the film all look great, and play their roles with the same youthful exuberance they brought to the show on Broadway.
The newcomers, Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thoms, also did a great job. Daphne Rubin-Vega and Fredi Walker, who created their roles on stage, were not viable for the film, and I can see that. But as good as they are, neither Dawson nor Thoms manages to cut as deep as their more seasoned co-stars. The greatest virtue of the Rent movie is that it preserves for all time the performances of Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Idina Menzel, Jesse L. Martin, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, and Taye Diggs. Even if it had nothing else going for it, that is more than enough.
It does have other things going for it. At its best, the film takes what was great about the play and gracefully translates it to another medium, maintaining the beauty and integrity of the source. The song "Rent," with squatters burning their eviction notices and throwing them out the window; "Santa Fe" staged on the subway; "I'll Cover You" with Collins and Angel enrapt while Avenue A surrounds them; "Without You" with Life Support members vanishing from their chairs -- these sequences work because they are so much like Rent, not in spite of the fact that they aren't.
I understand and respect many of the decisions Chris Columbus has made, with regard to edits, cuts, and additions. Still, though, I disagree with some of them. The fantasy sequence in "Tango Maureen" is great, but not really necessary; instead of those two minutes, I'd rather have seen the two minutes cut from "You'll See" or "Goodbye Love." I agree that "Contact" and "We're Okay" wouldn't have worked on film, but I think "Christmas Bells" and "Happy New Year" were worth a shot, and I missed them. The engagement party which frames "Take Me Or Leave Me" was fine, but again, I would have been happier to see more of the original material.
I think it was a mistake to place the story in a specific year, 1989. Using 1989 as a style reference was fine, and I agree that that's the time period Larson had in mind -- it's when the actual Alphabet City riots took place, and it's when Larson first started working on Rent. But it's apparent from his final draft that he was setting his story in an ambiguous late 80s / early 90s East Village, and therefore peppered it with references to post-1989 culture: cellphones, e-mail, Candace Gingrich, Thelma and Louise. Of these, only the Thelma and Louise reference survives into the film, and it does stand out as an anachronism. But more to the point, hearing Anthony Rapp's voice over specify that it's "December 24th, 1989" takes something away from Rent's timelessness.
The use of spoken dialogue between songs works sometimes, and other times it doesn't. Even the stage version has an occasional spoken line, and the film actually doesn't have much more. But because Columbus has cut much of the sung recitative, it feels like the dialogue-to-song ratio is more dramatic than it actually is. Some lines sung in the play are spoken in the film, and it usually works well enough, although when there are too many familiar lyrics spoken in a row, it does sound strange to those of us who are used to hearing it the other way.
Columbus may be right when he says that audiences would have a harder time accepting Rent as a sung-through film, but I'm not sure. Evita was sung-through, and people accepted it. It seems possible that the spoken dialogue pulls us out of the reality of the piece, making the singing seem like singing, as opposed to the natural way these characters communicate with one another.
Most of the musical numbers are filmed and staged to excellent effect. "La Vie Boheme" is everything it should be. Some numbers, notably "Today 4 U" and "I Should Tell You," actually work better on film than they did on stage.
The biggest missed opportunity of the movie is "What You Own," one of the most important songs in Rent. To me, the single most important moment in the whole show is in "What You Own," when Mark tells Alexi Darling, "I need to finish my own film -- I quit!" In this moment, Mark is making the "no day but today" decision; he's sacrificing money and comfort for the sake of his dreams, as an artist and as a human. It's what Rent is about; it's what Jonathan Larson was about; and that part of "What You Own" has always been one of Rent's most reliable thrills. In making the film, Columbus had the opportunity to stage this as an even more powerful and confrontational moment. But what he gives us -- Mark shouting "I quit!" to nobody in particular -- has less impact than it does in the play, when he delivers his resignation by payphone and slams down the receiver.
If Mark's "I quit" moment had been what it deserved to be, I might not have minded the admittedly incongruous shots of Roger among the mesas. The final third of the film feels rushed and incomplete, partly because of the material which has been cut, but partly because Columbus has muddled "What You Own."
A lot of what made Rent so effective on stage is that it's representational and abstract; there's a "sculpture" at stage left which variously represents a Christmas tree, a church steeple, etc. It's realistic compared to other musicals, perhaps, but the world its characters inhabit is also a fantasy. During the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the movie, I found the realism somewhat overbearing. Yes, it's thrilling to see this story unfold on convincing-looking Alphabet City streets, but I wondered if a less literal adaptation would have cut closer to the truth of Jonathan's writing. By "Today 4 U," however, I was taken into the world of the film. I suddenly realized the subtle genius of the Columbus take -- he took the least conventional musical on Broadway, and made a conventional film out of it.
It actually makes sense. Rent as musical theatre is cutting edge, but it would be ridiculous to try to make the film revolutionary. What I missed most, watching it, was the old sense that I was seeing something momentous, something which had never been done before. The movie isn't momentous. It's a tribute to a phenomenon. And that's what we wanted it to be.
Perhaps Spike Lee, if he'd wound up directing, would have brought a unique freshness to the material. But Rent already is a complete vision. It didn't require the sculpting of a visionary auteur; it required the humble services of a competant craftsman, which is exactly what Columbus is, and why his Rent movie is a worthy companion to the show.
A replacement for the show? No. The equal of the show? Of course not. It goes without saying that each of us who loves Rent has a laundry list of things we wish had been done differently. But if you step back from the agony of having waited for this movie, and if you step back from the golden moments you spent falling in love with the stage version, I think what comes across is a film no more flawed than the unfinished work which took the New York theatre world by surprise nearly a decade ago.
First of all, I loved it. I knew I was going to love it, and I was right. If you love Rent, I think you'll feel the same way. If you don't love Rent, or if you have no particular attachment to the original cast, or if you're unfamiliar with the stage version, I just don't know. To me, the essence of the thing is so brilliant and beautiful, and so personally important, I have no ability to be objective. And I don't want to be objective.
That having been said, I did have a few problems with the movie.
One of my problems was not the age of the original cast members. A lot of people have been guffawing about this, as though 34 is over the hill. They're too old to be playing twentysomethings! First of all, they're not. Second of all, why can't these people be thirty? The only character whose age is revealed in the text is Mimi, who's 19. Some have suggested that to be a starving artist is acceptable at twenty-five, but not at thirty-five. This is such an offensive statement to me. I can't imagine anyone who really understands what Rent is about taking this view. What was romantic then, they posit, is pathetic now. They actually believe that struggling for your art is more pathetic than forgetting what mattered to you. I have no response to this, other than to say that Jonathan Larson's message is completely lost on these critics. Larson, remember, was a 35-year-old starving artist when Rent came to be.
Some of the snarkier reviews have said, essentially, "These people should shut up and get a job and pay their rent!" This is like watching Return of the Jedi and saying, "Luke should shut up and join the Dark Side." But this has always been a criticism of Rent, from the moment it opened at New York Theatre Workshop in 1996 -- "Why don't they just get jobs?" And I've always said, "Or, they could commit suicide!"
At any rate, the original cast members who are in the film all look great, and play their roles with the same youthful exuberance they brought to the show on Broadway.
The newcomers, Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thoms, also did a great job. Daphne Rubin-Vega and Fredi Walker, who created their roles on stage, were not viable for the film, and I can see that. But as good as they are, neither Dawson nor Thoms manages to cut as deep as their more seasoned co-stars. The greatest virtue of the Rent movie is that it preserves for all time the performances of Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Idina Menzel, Jesse L. Martin, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, and Taye Diggs. Even if it had nothing else going for it, that is more than enough.
It does have other things going for it. At its best, the film takes what was great about the play and gracefully translates it to another medium, maintaining the beauty and integrity of the source. The song "Rent," with squatters burning their eviction notices and throwing them out the window; "Santa Fe" staged on the subway; "I'll Cover You" with Collins and Angel enrapt while Avenue A surrounds them; "Without You" with Life Support members vanishing from their chairs -- these sequences work because they are so much like Rent, not in spite of the fact that they aren't.
I understand and respect many of the decisions Chris Columbus has made, with regard to edits, cuts, and additions. Still, though, I disagree with some of them. The fantasy sequence in "Tango Maureen" is great, but not really necessary; instead of those two minutes, I'd rather have seen the two minutes cut from "You'll See" or "Goodbye Love." I agree that "Contact" and "We're Okay" wouldn't have worked on film, but I think "Christmas Bells" and "Happy New Year" were worth a shot, and I missed them. The engagement party which frames "Take Me Or Leave Me" was fine, but again, I would have been happier to see more of the original material.
I think it was a mistake to place the story in a specific year, 1989. Using 1989 as a style reference was fine, and I agree that that's the time period Larson had in mind -- it's when the actual Alphabet City riots took place, and it's when Larson first started working on Rent. But it's apparent from his final draft that he was setting his story in an ambiguous late 80s / early 90s East Village, and therefore peppered it with references to post-1989 culture: cellphones, e-mail, Candace Gingrich, Thelma and Louise. Of these, only the Thelma and Louise reference survives into the film, and it does stand out as an anachronism. But more to the point, hearing Anthony Rapp's voice over specify that it's "December 24th, 1989" takes something away from Rent's timelessness.
The use of spoken dialogue between songs works sometimes, and other times it doesn't. Even the stage version has an occasional spoken line, and the film actually doesn't have much more. But because Columbus has cut much of the sung recitative, it feels like the dialogue-to-song ratio is more dramatic than it actually is. Some lines sung in the play are spoken in the film, and it usually works well enough, although when there are too many familiar lyrics spoken in a row, it does sound strange to those of us who are used to hearing it the other way.
Columbus may be right when he says that audiences would have a harder time accepting Rent as a sung-through film, but I'm not sure. Evita was sung-through, and people accepted it. It seems possible that the spoken dialogue pulls us out of the reality of the piece, making the singing seem like singing, as opposed to the natural way these characters communicate with one another.
Most of the musical numbers are filmed and staged to excellent effect. "La Vie Boheme" is everything it should be. Some numbers, notably "Today 4 U" and "I Should Tell You," actually work better on film than they did on stage.
The biggest missed opportunity of the movie is "What You Own," one of the most important songs in Rent. To me, the single most important moment in the whole show is in "What You Own," when Mark tells Alexi Darling, "I need to finish my own film -- I quit!" In this moment, Mark is making the "no day but today" decision; he's sacrificing money and comfort for the sake of his dreams, as an artist and as a human. It's what Rent is about; it's what Jonathan Larson was about; and that part of "What You Own" has always been one of Rent's most reliable thrills. In making the film, Columbus had the opportunity to stage this as an even more powerful and confrontational moment. But what he gives us -- Mark shouting "I quit!" to nobody in particular -- has less impact than it does in the play, when he delivers his resignation by payphone and slams down the receiver.
If Mark's "I quit" moment had been what it deserved to be, I might not have minded the admittedly incongruous shots of Roger among the mesas. The final third of the film feels rushed and incomplete, partly because of the material which has been cut, but partly because Columbus has muddled "What You Own."
A lot of what made Rent so effective on stage is that it's representational and abstract; there's a "sculpture" at stage left which variously represents a Christmas tree, a church steeple, etc. It's realistic compared to other musicals, perhaps, but the world its characters inhabit is also a fantasy. During the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the movie, I found the realism somewhat overbearing. Yes, it's thrilling to see this story unfold on convincing-looking Alphabet City streets, but I wondered if a less literal adaptation would have cut closer to the truth of Jonathan's writing. By "Today 4 U," however, I was taken into the world of the film. I suddenly realized the subtle genius of the Columbus take -- he took the least conventional musical on Broadway, and made a conventional film out of it.
It actually makes sense. Rent as musical theatre is cutting edge, but it would be ridiculous to try to make the film revolutionary. What I missed most, watching it, was the old sense that I was seeing something momentous, something which had never been done before. The movie isn't momentous. It's a tribute to a phenomenon. And that's what we wanted it to be.
Perhaps Spike Lee, if he'd wound up directing, would have brought a unique freshness to the material. But Rent already is a complete vision. It didn't require the sculpting of a visionary auteur; it required the humble services of a competant craftsman, which is exactly what Columbus is, and why his Rent movie is a worthy companion to the show.
A replacement for the show? No. The equal of the show? Of course not. It goes without saying that each of us who loves Rent has a laundry list of things we wish had been done differently. But if you step back from the agony of having waited for this movie, and if you step back from the golden moments you spent falling in love with the stage version, I think what comes across is a film no more flawed than the unfinished work which took the New York theatre world by surprise nearly a decade ago.
