Why RENT is the bane of my existence — Page 4

yeah that is the one i mostly post on a lot..its a good one we talk about a bunch of random things and most of the time it goes back to anthony....i cant wait im going to dinner with my mom and then we are going to see RENT again...this will be my forth time..

Well have fun...

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amen

alright ill be waiting. LOL.
elvenprincess971 Ye i know alot of people at my school and younger who said they cryed through the whole movie.

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Different levels and types of appreciation/understanding, some of which comes by unalterable circumstance.

And that's cool.

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Updated On: 12/2/05 at 09:48 PM

I love your summary at the end... The 5 reasons are so true, and with changes could be applied to the obsessive Wicked fans, Les Miz fans (It's over...they are all dead now...deal with it) and those oddballs in the Phantom camp who figured out his "real name" is Eric... he isn't real!

That said, I applaud your courage to out those Rentheads, but your initial reasoning (lack of character development, etc.) is so uninformed it is laughable. Rent is not perfect (remember it is forever frozen in an unedited, let's-not-even-try-to-guess what Jonathan Larson would have done to improve it state), but even in draft form it is a masterpiece, reflective of its time, place and still says so much in a universal way. No day but today...the world would be so much better if everyone lived a little more like that. Of course, the end never seems near when you are 19 (lucky you).

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true feline, I understand that....I just think it affects different ages differently.....

saw it again today, sadly only 10 people in the audience.....8 over 45, one about 17, and one maybe 30

littlefish, where have you been? I've missed ya!

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Littlefish, I love this thread too...

Elphaba, the ideals of the characters in RENT always confused me. As a person who would like to work as a creative artist for a living, it is my dream to get paid to do this so that I can more easily bring my ideas to the table, rather than wasting my time setting tables for yuppie 50 year old women or stacking stock rooms. While I am not necessarily saying I need to make millions of dollars doing this (although I won't say it wouldn't be nice) it would be nice to be able to support myself doing what I want to do. Mark had this opportunity, and he wastes it, and here's my little essay(these seem to be becoming routine... I swear I'm trying to edit myself) on why RENT needed way more development:

Not only are Mark and Roger unrealistically lucky (having their RENT foregone for a year? IN THE EAST VILLAGE? Jesus, even in the late 80s NY, what a dream) they also don't really seem to do much of anything. Mark walks around video taping things for some reason (according to one review he doesn't manipulate his video camera correctly :P Not that I would know) and Roger is working on the same bad song. Artistic ideals aside, they are deadbeats. Even at the end of the story, Collins rewires a machine to provide free money to people. Free money? Wait, why didn't Collins get caught on a video camera and thrown in jail?

When Mark is offered to get his messages out to a broader population, without ever there being any indication that it would edited, he denies it. There's never even a dramatic question of him selling out. In fact, he DOES get a controversial message out. They WANTED him to do put controversial issues on t.v., if you're following the story closely, which it seems to me is just what he wanted to do. There are plenty of people who have found commercial success by being challenging and subversive.

I think in these respects RENT is actually a story about people who turned down their dreams for bohemian ideals, the bohemian ideal being that art is wholly personal, and then a year later they realized that was a stupid idea. Roger sings a whole song about it, One Song Glory. Roger wasted his chance at being a rock star presumably because of drugs and then depression because he contracted AIDs, although it's never directly explained, and Mark his chance at working in film and television for some vague ideal (to make a documentary? What? About what? AIDs?). Roger redeems himself by finding love, but Mark never finds that thing, he is the outsider who observes, which is the most dramatically genius part of the story.

What I'm saying is that RENT is full of a lot of dramatic choices that happen without reason. A musical allows for these sorts of things because nobody really expects realistic character development (although I think lots of musicals are a lot more solid than this one is). But you can really hear the god in the machine turning in this show sometimes. That's what makes me so sad. I don't think RENT is a genius show. It feels like an early draft of a show. He took another story and then put a lot of other things on it. I think Larson had a lot of potential as a writer and composer and he had great things in his future. I just think if he had lived to harness both the heart of RENT and the dramatic ingenuity and daring he had the potential for, he could have made something truly artistically genius. And I get sad when I think about that.

But to encourage actual discussion, feel free to refute what I say... it's possible I've missed something in the story, perhaps that one of the characters says... I've seen it on stage twice and the movie once and listened to it countless times, so perhaps there is a problem with the actual storytelling? :P

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RENT is obviously appeal to different age groups and different personalities, that's a givin'.

God this thread is funny to read.

I think age matters to an extent.

Obviously a 19 year old will comprehend more than a 13 year old (or we could at least hope so.) However, a 35+ year old usually has had more life experiences, thus, giving them a different perspective on RENT.

Not necessarily better or worse, just different.

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Well, kudos to roninjoey for showing that you can have a difference of opinion and still engage in civilized discussion. Too often on these boards, we see ideas rejected simply because of the manner in which they were expressed. People like IHATERENT are really detrimental to the original purpose of these boards - personally, I love hearing from people who have a different opinion than I do. Imagine how boring the world would be if everyone thought the same way.

And I'll admit, a lot of what roninjoey had to say had me thinking "wow, he's got a point. I never thought of it like that." I guess I don't examine things as closely as others, or when I do I don't let it detract from the enjoyment I get out of the show (if it's a show I like, that is).

I've really enjoyed the latter parts of this thread, as well as the "question for the RENT experts thread." We don't see enough discussions like these. I think the 'Unpopular Opinions' thread was a real turning point, and I hope people get more comfortable voicing their differences of opinion...that is, in a respectful and thoughtful manner.

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OK, I know I'm totally showing my age by responding...but I really liked Roninjoey's post.

Regarding Mark...this was always the character in the show I related to most, and one of the reasons I loved "Rent".

I interned with a cable news show when I was in college, doing camerawork for reporters on assignment. It was perfect--this is what I loved to do most (like Mark, I carried my camera everywhere as well), and it also gave me experience to put on a resume, and helped me get a job when I graduated.

One problem...I hated it. Yes, I knew what I was getting into. But when I really had to go to these places and film things like fires and funerals, I felt like I was turning into one of those jerks who sticks a camera into someone's face during the worst moments of their lives. It was an awful feeling.

This was right around the time "Rent" opened. I loved the show, and I could totally relate to Mark having to take the sleazy tabloid job. "What You Own" was and is my favorite song from the show. I had an equally miserable job at the time, and "Rent" became my therapy that whole time I worked there.

(FYI, I had my "I quit!" moment about 7 years ago. I work on another end of that media now, and I love it. and I still take my camera everywhere.)

Shows like Buzzline aren't an opportunity for anything. They didn't care about the riot--they wanted violent footage to run on their TV show, and hired Mark to get more of it. It's very hard to keep true to what you want to do and get a decent paycheck at the same time.

I was wondering if the riot was loosely based on the riot in Tompkins Square Park in 1988? It was videotaped by someone who sold the footage. Since the movie takes place in 1989 and I read Jonathan Larson had originally written it into the play, I thought that might have been the basis for it.

I haven't seen the show in years, but I saw the movie twice last weekend and I loved it. The messages were still pretty clear, even 9 years later.

I don't think the vampires were mentioned in the movie...were they? but in the stage show, at the very beginning of WYO we see Mark ending a segment, and he says that up next is a story about "Vampires who are compulsive bowlers" or something along those lines.

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