[lit-ideas] Rent, the Movie
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 20:57:16 -0800
I watched Rent this evening. It took me awhile to get into it. I thought,
"New York! Why does anyone live there? This musical has got to be
something only a New Yorker would appreciate." But then I warmed up to the
characters and enjoyed it. The first song I really liked was Santa Fe. But
the Maureen Tango seemed even better. Many of the characters have AIDS and
Mimi almost dies as a result of her drug addiction. Mimi does die in
Puccini's La Boheme, but in the movie Angel gets to die instead.
Jesse L. Martin may have the best voice, although Taye Diggs was up there as
well, but didn't have as big a role as Martin. But all of the voices were
good and strong; which would have been important for the stage musical.
Most of those in the movie were from the original cast of the stage musical.
The only way that being familiar with Puccini's opera helped me was to allow
me to suspend disbelief about the rampant AIDS and drug addiction of the
movie. All this was normal behavior for the movie - but perhaps it is the
modern day equivalent of Puccini's tuberculosis, of which Mimi died in the
play.
I probably should watch this again some time. I had a social question with
the "no future, no past, no day but today." It was by ignoring the future
that the AIDS sufferers and drug addicts got into trouble. I'm sure that
wasn't the intended message. Rather, since their lives were to be cut
short, live every day as though it were the last. One of the main
characters, Roger, works off and on throughout the movie on a song. He
wants to finish it before he dies and he expects to die soon, although he is
still going strong at the end of the movie. At best this "no day but today"
philosophy is ambiguous. Perhaps if I watched it again - more carefully -
the ambiguity might be eliminated, but I don't plan to watch it again
anytime soon.
I'm going to give it a 5 on Netflix. It is way better than most of the junk
I get from there.
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto
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