November 4, 2005

One hundred seventy two thousand frames in a movie
One hundred seventy two thousand chances to fail
One hundred seventy two thousand still frames to move me
How do I measure- measure Rent here?

In numbers - in dances
In dubious- chor-e-o-graphy
In boredom - in head shakes - in eye rolls, in strife
In- one hundred seventy two thousand in a movie
How do you measure Rent's place in my life?

How about bored
How about tired
How about sa-ad
Measure in frames
Seasons of loathe
Seasons of loathe

One hundred seventy two thousand frames in a movie
One thousand two hundred thirty cool camera pans
One hundred seventy two thousand frames in a movie
How do you measure the skills of Columbus, man?

What plays there on Broadway
On film won't give highs
It feels like a filmed play,
So some great music dies

It's time now - to speak out
From beginning to the end
Let's celebrate, remember that we
Won't have to see it again

Remember the Hair
Remember the Line
Remember Ma Donna
Measure in frames

Measure, measure your life in frames!

Seasons of loathe
Seasons of loathe

And now, in more traditional prose…

There are four great songs in Rent. Only one, "Take Me Or Leave Me," really got the chills of wow-dom running down my back. But that made it incredibly frustrating because it was shot so wrong and in such an incredibly misguided context in the film that it was nearly ruined.

If ever a number was built for the streets of New York, a song about a woman who always gets stares and her insecure lover finally taking their positions out loud to one another doesn't belong in the stuffy arrogance of a country club with their friends and family watching. I mean, deadly.

You can feel all the way through this film what it must have been like to see it on stage. It's not a huge insult. Ethel Merman never really translated to film. There are many others. Film is a very different medium.

If Rent: The Movie was cut by 30 minutes, since somehow, on film, the rent battle becomes truly uninteresting, it might have been really terrific. I would say that Chris Columbus would also need to be replaced, but if he had the insight to make the cuts, he might have had the insight to make the film a little more realistic visually and to stop playing musical numbers to an unseen proscenium arch.

The opening moments are key… on a bare stage… like a musical… but this is a movie… and we never go back to the metaphor of the stage… never. So that makes the opening little more than a stylized indulgence. And that's a shame.

Tracie Thoms is the standout in the cast… and she unfortunately has the smallest role among the central characters. No one come close to being bad in this film… but, for instance, Wilson Jermaine Heredia is so clearly supposed to dominate, but the way the film is directed just doesn't do enough to make that happen. Frustrating.

"La Vie Boheme" also frustrates, since Columbus decided to do the piece like a number from Milos Forman's Hair, I became acutely aware of just how much Jonathan Larson stole from Galt McDermot, Ragni and Rado, as well as from Jesus Christ Superstar. But the staging so frustrates because, for some unknown reason, the actors are playing to the bar like it is the fourth wall and the only attempts to three-dimensionalize it is walking down the bar. Argh.

The movie really suffers from respect for the material. There is just too much that isn't memorable. Again, you will find this in many very, very big Broadway shows. If you know Guys & Dolls from the movie, you can expect a few surprises in a stage production… but you won't really remember them much.

When a novel is converted for film, no one expects every word to be in the movie. But somehow musicals - especially cult musicals - think that they have to include it all. And I'm here to tell you, show your respect, and make your adjustments.

In this case, it's simple. Bennie and the rent are not interesting here. The love stories are what works. Maureen's protest doesn't feel like a protest at all, especially since the music focuses on the two people who love her. The "eviction" has no drama. What works is a romance between two heterosexual people with AIDS and two women and two men. It's a bit trite in 2006 for everyone to be gay, to be in a relationship with someone gay or who is a junkie, or to have AIDS, but there is no getting around that. Part of the reason gentrification no longer plays is because this is on film and so, instead of imagination, we get lofts the size of a third of a city block and you just aren't suffering for these people who won't pay rent, but seem to have plenty of money for booze and drugs, even though they often plead poverty.

They would have pissed off the Renties. But if the movie was better, that is a small price to pay.

Let's not even talk about the sex… which is talked about endlessly, but yet seems coy on screen.

I don't really like not liking this movie. A song like "Today 4 U" should kill on screen. But it just plain does not. A number like "The Tango Maureen" should be a great change of pace, but it feels like it is more central than it is, in part because Columbus changes to a fantasy sequence for the only time in the film… it just doesn't fit, charming though it is.

It could have been something. It could have been a contender… instead of a sad disappointment… which is what it is…

Shame.

E-ME.