Thom and I went to see the movie version of Rent, and it’s pretty good. The songs sound great, and it’s neat to see these performances up close instead of from an orchestra seat, but the whole thing was just… different. Being so familiar with the musical, I found it difficult to let the movie stand by itself. As it went along I was bopping to the music, but kept thinking, oh, they cut this or changed that. Where was the spark in Angel and Collins’ first meeting? What was up with “Take Me or Leave Me”? And so on. Maybe I just need to let it digest and watch it again in the distant future. (See also Jere‘s take for more of a play-by-play. And I was just re-reading some critics’ reviews, including Roger Ebert‘s, which pretty even-handed, though I don’t know if I’d call Jonathan Larson’s lyrics “ungainly.”)
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‘Rent,’ the movie
Thom and I went to see the movie version of Rent, and it’s pretty good. The songs sound great, and it’s neat to see these performances up close instead of from an orchestra seat, but the whole thing was just… different. Being so familiar with the musical, I found it difficult to let the movie […]
4 replies on “‘Rent,’ the movie”
i’d never seen the staged version, but i really enjoyed the movie!
RENT was never all that steamy as a stage version, but the movie version was definitely neutered. The “sex” scene was gone in addition to the changes you mentioned.
But, there were still many good things about it. Visually it was pretty interesting to look at, for example.
Despite being a New Yorker, I haven’t seen Rent. Marc and I did the ticket lottery a couple of times but didn’t get tickets. That was a long time ago, and we still haven’t bothered to get tickets, either at full price or through a discount service (TKTS or one of the online places). We may yet see it, but we haven’t gone yet.
Parts of it was filmed in SF on 6th and Market! So, part of my attention during the exterior shots of the alley was trying to figure out what was blue screened and what was shot in SF.