[lit-ideas] Re: Rent, the Movie

  • From: Andy <min.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 08:01:30 -0800 (PST)

Is that what they were burning?  It just made it look like hell.  Also, Mimi's 
death scene worked for me because I believe in near death experiences even 
though there's a lot still to be understood about them.  And of course Mimi saw 
(an) Angel...white light...burning manuscripts...heaven/hell.  
   
  Runaway Train was not just an action film, nor was it an allegory.  It reeks 
Nietsche, probably among other things.  Jon Voigt even says the words "what 
doesn't kill me makes me stronger".  What the runaway train embodies off the 
top of my head I can't say. 
   
   
  

Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}        
        I wrote that my knowledge of Puccini?s La Boheme didn?t help me 
appreciate Rent, but while walking the dogs a bit ago I wondered if that was 
true.  There were many references and parallels to Puccini?s opera.  The 
burning of the manuscripts in the beginning also occurs in the opera; although 
they didn?t throw them out the window if I recall correctly.  No point in being 
too slavish.  
   
  I didn?t take their fighting with each other seriously.  Rudolfo breaks up 
with Mimi in the opera and is reunited with her on her death bed.  I expected 
the movie Mimi to die, but like in monster movies she twitches back to life 
after having a vision of the recently dead Angel.  Joanne has trouble accepting 
the flirtatious Maureen?s behavior, but the latter tells her she can?t help it. 
 Everyone comes on to her and she?s a friendly girl.  Take me as I am, she 
tells Joanne and apparently the latter does.  At least they haven?t broken up 
by the end of the movie.  
   
  I watched Runaway Train years ago but didn?t see it as a metaphor for 
anything.  Sometimes a movie is just a movie.  Did the director intend 
something serious with that movie?  I?m not arguing, I just wasn?t aware of it. 
 But if the Warden is the Devil, who is Jon Voight?  Are you saying Runaway 
Train is better than Rent?  Offhand I don?t see any points of comparison.    
Runaway Train is an action movie and Rent is a musical with hints of operatic 
pretension. . . unless you are seeing them both as metaphors of Hell, i.e., New 
York and the Train are both metaphors for Hell.  Eric might object to at least 
one of those metaphors.
   
  Lawrence
   
    From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andy
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 9:59 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Rent, the Movie

   
    A 5?!   Wow.   I wonder if I didn't lower your expectations so much that it 
would have made anything look good.   I think one can live for today, but one 
needn't do it on a perpetual high, and one can pay for today.  Or, what the 
heck.  We're all going to die, so why not have a perpetual high and lose a few 
years.  That's all it is anyway.   Except that when one is on a perpetual high 
one isn't really alive, at least in my opinion.  

     

    Also, they seemed to fight a lot for being such friends.  Even after the 
funeral they began fighting.  My explanation is the fighting was the result of 
the emotions popping out that they were otherwise medicating and pushing down 
with the alcohol/drugs/sex.  Anyway, glad you enjoyed it.  I haven't changed my 
opinion.  I still give it a 2, and only because you sparked some generosity in 
me.  

     

    BTW, what was the point in them throwing the lighted rags or whatever they 
were out the window in the beginning?  In the movie Runaway Train the warden 
(the Devil) walks through the prison where there are a lot of small fires going 
on, clearly it's hell.  In NYC it's the hell of their own lives?  What did 
Milton say?  (Or was it Shakespeare?)  The mind can make a hell of heaven and a 
heaven of hell.   Runaway Train (Jon Voight, not sure what year) is much 
better. 

     

     

    

Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

      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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