RENT

US, 2005, 135 minutes, Colour.
Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Rosario Dawson, Jesse L. Martin, Wilson Jermain Heredia, Idina Menzel, Tracie Thoms, Taye Diggs.
Directed by Chris Columbus

Rent was one of those Broadway musicals, like Hair, that dramatised the social questions and issues of the times. One of the difficulties with this kind of play is that it can date because it is so anchored in the ethos of the period or the location in which it takes place. Rent has been seen on stages throughout the world and is still popular, after ten years, in New York. Many of the younger audiences of the 1990s found that the music and the rhythms were theirs and that the lyrics as well as the plot and characters were what they could identify with. Older audiences sometimes found it too ‘modern’ a rock opera and too loud, drowning out for them the problems that were being explored.

Now, Chris Columbus has achieved a long-held ambition of brining Rent to the screen (after directing the first two Harry Potter films). He has made an effective job of it and has been able to blend the stylised aspects of any musical with a sense of realism in New York streets and apartments. The film opens with the main characters standing, spotlit, on a bare stage and singing the theme of time passing, the 525,600 seconds in a year. We accept that it is a stage musical on screen. But, then it goes out of the theatre and immerses us in the harsh life of New York, 1989-1990.

Jonathan Larson, who died unexpectedly just before Rent opened, based his scenario on Puccini’s La Boheme (something like what Oscar Hammerstein did with Carmen Jones, although he kept Bizet’s music as well). This Bohemian lifestyle is not Paris but New York, a world of painters, songwriters, performance artists, teachers, dancers, strippers, transvestites, addicts, dealers, muggers, AIDS-infected men and women and people involved in the variety of sexual relationships. The music and songs bring all these issues to the fore but always in the context of time passing, dependence and love, betrayal and anger, the imminence of death. The film ends with near-death experience, a sad death and a funeral ritual.

Six of the eight central characters are from the original cast and bring an enthusiasm and dedication to their work. Film star, Rosario Dawson, as Mimi is a new addition. They all communicate an intensity and strong personalities, even when they are unlikeable.

One of the difficulties is that while Bohemian types and artists (and would-be Bohemians) are making stands, many are simply angry and using protest and revolution to manifest their anger rather than having a firm belief in the ‘free’ life and lifestyle. This comes up when the documentary maker who is narrating the story sells his footage to the TV networks and then signs a lucrative contract before denouncing himself as ‘selling out’. This ‘them and us’ stance seems more than a little phony in the context of a show on Broadway or a multi-million dollar moving exalting the Bohemian way. The characters come across as ‘counter-cultural yuppies’.

1.The popularity of the stage musical? In the United States? New York? Around the world? The audience appeal? Younger audiences identifying with it? Older audiences not identifying with the characters, lifestyle – or even the music?

2.The range of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize? Touching the nerve of the 1990s? For the younger generation? For the 1980s AIDS generation?

3.The success in opening out the stage musical? The prologue with the characters on-stage, singing in the theatre in the spotlight? The use of the streets, New York locations and landscapes? Alphabet City? Apartments, warehouses, restaurants? An authentic feel despite the stylised musical?

4.The use of Puccini’s opera, La Boheme? The transfer to the bohemian life of New York in the 1980s? The parallels? Meaning? Death – and near-death experience and coming to new life and hope?

5.The rock operetta, the 20th century parallels to the classic opera? The heightened story and characters? The stylised presentation and sets? The characters in song, the lyrics? Artificial and communicating? Rent and the style of contemporary music, the songs? As illustrating character, plot, issues? Message?

6.The range of songs, the 525,600 minutes? The seasons? The emphasis on time? On the now? On illness and death? Love, betrayal, hurt? Protest? The end of the millennium? The defence of stances? Illustrating the main characters? The opening, the voices? The collage at the end, Angel’s Funeral – and the image of Angel over America?

7.The bohemian lifestyle? How authentic, how artificial? People involved with the arts, anti-commerce, anti-media, anti-sellouts? Yet this being idealistic? The characters, in fact, being kind of counter-cultural yuppies? Their emphasis on freedoms, the different manifestations, individualism, lifestyle? The place of drugs, addiction, dealers? The role of sex and sexuality? Commitment? Transvestites? Same-sex relationships, of both men and women? Presenting this bohemian lifestyle? Advocating it or not?

8.The character of Mark, the narrator, his shooting the film, the scenes from his film, documentary, the documentary documenting life over one year? Ordinary life, the streets? The dealers? Protesters and police? Brutality? Filming his friends? Filming the support group and getting their permission? His songs, self-assertion, writing the bike in the street? His relationship with Maureen, its collapse, her dumping him for Joanne? Yet going to fix the sound system for her concert? The clash with Joanne, the Tango Maureen? The imagination of a stylish tango group? Sharing the apartment with Roger, supporting him? Friendship with Mimi, encouraging Roger? Getting some money and going to the restaurants – when normally he had no money? Ben and the past sharing of the apartment, his change of attitude, taunting Ben? The protest, his filming the night, filming the police, selling it to the television station, its being used for the news? The offer of the contract, his going with Joanne and signing the deal? His continuing to work for television – and his considering that he had sold out? His finally finishing the film? Angel’s death, showing it after the funeral?

9.The character of Roger, his health, addiction? In the apartment, the clashes with Ben? Friendship with Mark? Seeing Mimi, her inviting herself up, the drug issue? His reform? Going to the support group? His angers? His later jealousy of Ben and the past relationship with Mimi? Her drugs? His songs? The protest, his anger with Mimi? The collapse of the friendship, his going to Santa Fe, driving, life in Santa Fe, his return?

10.The character of Ben, his past sharing with the group, his marrying Wolf, the threats to their apartment, the building of a cyber centre, his temptation to them, to prevent Maureen protesting, wanting to build a facility where they could work on their films and music? The protest itself, the meal afterwards, his defence of himself? Mimi and the past relationship? His locking the doors, taking all their possessions? His returning them – and Mimi intervening for them? His not being able to reconcile with the group?

11.Mimi and her character, her life, the S&M dancing, the club? The past relationship with Ben? The drugs, her addiction? Flirting with Roger? Coming up to his room, getting the drugs back? Her life and dancing, seeing her perform? Her relationship with Roger, the change? Going to the protest? Her being hurt by Roger and his song, his apology? His leaving, her disappearance? Searching for her? Ben and her intervention to get their possessions back? Her collapse, bringing her to the loft, her dying, Roger singing his song? (And the song being particularly startling, her reviving, the near-death experience, seeing Angel and coming back?

12.Collins and his character, his being an academic, having AIDS, getting the key, being bugged? Angel coming and helping him? The relationship with Angel, their being together, gay love? The protest? The songs illustrating his character? Going to the group with Angel? Their explanations and talking? Angel’s hospitalisation, death? The funeral and his speech?

13.Angel, transvestite, Brooklyn, helping Collins? Tough and able to face up to thugs in the street? The relationship with Collins? The clothes, his passing as a woman? Going to the group, in the subway? The protest? The illness, AIDS, hospital, the group supporting him in hospital? Death and the funeral? His fact being the final image of the film?

14.The support group, the leader, each introducing themselves? Their work, talk? Illness – and the collages of meetings with various individuals disappearing?

15.Maureen, the voice in the background? Her relationship with Mark? Her dumping Mark, the relationship with Joanne? Calling her Pookie? Her demands on Mark? Loud, the portrayal of her protest, her performance, songs? The mayhem? The aftermath in the restaurant? The relationship with Joanne, Joanne wanting commitment? Maureen going with Mark and Joanne to the TV office, flirting? Her continued flirting, even at the engagement party? The engagement, the support of her parents? Her songs? Her being at the funeral?

16.Joanne, her character, Harvard-trained lawyer, professional? The relationship with Maureen? Helping with the setting up of the protest concert? The clashes with Mark? The Tango Maureen scene? The protest itself? Helping Mark for his contract? Her anger with Maureen’s flirting? The engagement party, her parents? Her angers?

17.The two groups of parents, putting on the expensive engagement party? Their speeches? Acceptance of their daughters’ sexuality?

18.Illness and death? Angel dying? Mimi not dying? Their gathering for the funeral? The song, the speeches?

19.The end, a year having passed, the use of the Christmas and New Year season? The contrast of the two years? The final hope at the end?