Personally, I never really cared for the stage musical and will not likely see the movie. In my opinion, the choregraphy of the stage version is too busy with bodies flailing about all over the place at certain points. I've seen plenty of straight plays and musicals on and off Broadway, with a preference for the former. It took two sittings for me to cull the underlying story from all the noise and circus acts on stage.
I don't aim to offend anyone but most of the people over the age of 30 that I know who've seen the stage version felt that the characters were a bit cartoonish akin to the west coast Cockettes of years past, a perception which I don't attribute solely to casting. None of us expected the musical to be a melodramatic tear-fest despite subject matter but the characters were underdeveloped. There was very little interaction between the main 'Rent' characters and others outside their clique.
To me the musical's redemption is the interaction between Angel and Tom Collins. Any writer regardless of medium knows that a character only becomes interesting when he or she is placed in imminent danger and we observe how this character deals with the crisis. The protagonist requires an obstacle either externally or internally. Tom met his in the form of the muggers and his impending demise due to his illness. Angel wrestled his own demons. Their story was THE STORY waiting to be unleashed with the back story of Rodger and Mimi giving the whole work the heft required to make the running-time cut for a Broadway mounting and suitable for adaption to feature film. The rest of the play (and movie by most accounts)was fodder. The Joanne and Maureen pairing added little to the story as did the protest against Benny. Mark, the narrator could have been used to better effect also.
There is a reason why 'Brokeback Mountain' has received so many plaudits and 'Rent -the Movie' hasn't that transcends orientation, station in life, and ideology. It is my opinion that red state America has grown weary of inner-city-themed music and other fare that espouses blue state values. It is too easy for staunch social conservatives and fundamentalist Christians to paint the characters of 'Rent' as "degenerates".
The brilliance of 'Brokeback Mountain' from a commercial standpoint is that it puts what is still a hard pill for many to swallow in the powdery form of an iconic American hero, the cowboy. A same-sex love story has been made palatable to folks that ordinarily have a hard time with the concept. And it accomplished this feat by keeping the story centered on two focal characters. Older audiences and red state denizens like movies that have simple plot lines (w/o too much subplot), well-developed focal characters that we can root for or hate on and jaw-dropping scenery, all wrapped in good cinematography that doesn't jolt the senses like some of today's music videos with cameras panning all over the place.
I predicted early on that 'Rent - The Movie' would not meet critical or public acclaim. With just a little imagination one can see that the "Angel & Tom Story" had the perfect makings of a precursor to 'Brokeback Mountain'. I'm sure though that many of you will argue that comparing the two films is like comparing apples and oranges given the different genres. My take on it still is tell a great story and all boats rise together.
#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.
Updated On: 1/8/06 at 01:19 AM
