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Hey Folks-

Friday Flicks is tough to get in on time when I'm in a show. I'll have to write a few and have them in the hopper, I guess.

Anyway, I went last week to see the movie "Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway". Basically, they filmed a few performances from the final week of the run of Rent and edited them into one show video. A very well made one. I was moved watching this film as much as I'd ever been watching the actual show. It occured to me that as powerful and well crafted as this particular film was, is exactly how lacking in power and craftsmanship the 2005 movie version is/was.

"Why is this?" I thought to myself. "Why does the same exact material feel so real and honest in one case and so fake and contrived in another?"

I have a couple of theories that maybe are applicable elsewhere, but definitely are focused on this particular case.

Theory 1) Age.
I honestly believe that the biggest mistake they made in making the 2005 film was bringing back the original 1996 Broadway cast for the majority of the roles. I think, largely, that the play is about living the life of the young. There's a sharp contrast made between the adults and the heroes, and I think that's undermined when Maureen is 35 instead of 25. At 25, her attitude of rebellion is pretty inspiring in places, and sort of endearing. At 35 you kinda want her to get over herself. Not that Idina Menzel isn't great, but the ages are important.

The character of Roger, to me, is the best example of this. Roger is infected with AIDS, and his whole "thing" is that he's trying desperately to make his mark on the world before he dies. I think that whole scenario wields more power if he's tragically young. Not that AIDS is ever NOT tragic. That said, my point is undercut by the fact that Will Chase, who plays Roger in the good movie version is actually a month older than Adam Pascal...

Actually wait... I have a better way of explaining it. It's neat to bring these people back, but for me, bringing these same people back, who at the time were all fresh faces and have all moved on to other things... they've been spoiled. On some level the play is about people struggling in their youth, so having these unknowns really adds a level of freshness that was lost when they brought back the original, now successful, now recognizable people. The greatest thing about Rent when it came out was that these people were so real. They were largely unaffected theater outsiders. I liked that.

Theory 2) Style.
Here's the thing... I don't think movie musicals work well. They used to. West Side Story is one of the top 20 movies of all time, in my opinion. The problem now, is that movies in general now strive toward more realism in general, unless they are SUPER stylized (Eternal Sunshine and Across the Universe are both examples.) In 2005, they could have done Rent in a super stylized way and they'd have been more successful. In fact, the play itself is very stylized, so why go from that to creating a "realistic movie with people randomly singing". It's like... Chicago was successful both commercially and artistically because that show is already so much about style and Rob Marshall held on to that. Instead you have Angel singing "Today 4 U" on a Subway train and Mark riding his bike and singing "Halloween" and I just can't deal. It's a contrivance. The "Filmed on Broadway" version was so good because they didn't have to change the stylistic concept. It works already.

Theory 3) Reality.
The movie musicals that best work today are the ones that are about show business or performing or music already. (Hairspray, Dreamgirls, Chicago). They have these built in excuses to sing or dance or whatever. It aides the audiences along with their willing suspension of disbelief. The most common criticism of movie musicals from those not used to that genre is "Nobody just starts singing. How do they all know when to join in?" and shit like that. Movies have the implied responsibilty to be more realistic, and it just isn't. On stage, there's a much greater willingness on the part of the audience to suspend their disbelief. The line between actors and characters is a little murkier. The person in the balcony may not have any clue that Roger is 38. It's pretty easy to tell in HD on the big screen. Angel and Collins singing "I'll Cover You a nebulous "nowhere" place in the show doesn't set off alarms. Angel and Collins doing the same thing on a REAL subway train does set off alarms. When you can see the lights and the scaffolding, you accept that you're not in a REAL place.

There are more theories, certainly, but I guess the main point overall is this...

Rent was a show created to be dirty and unhomogenized and real....or...as real as a musical can be. By glossing it up and taking away it's organic, chaotic quality, it loses it's power. It's anarchic bent that makes it safe for Collins to rewire an ATM machine or for them to break into apartment buildings.

If you've never seen Rent before, do anything you can to see the new "Filmed on Broadway" version. You won't regret it. Then see the other and see if you agree.

To Adapt or Not to Adapt

Hey Folks-

Off to a rockin' start when I'm already falling behind after only one entry. So, today is going to be a delayed "Friday Flicks".

As many of you may know, I have a B.A. in Drama. This, by no means makes me an expert on anything, but I do have a pretty extensive base of knowledge about certain things, and Shakespeare is one of them. I took several Shakespeare classes. I've been in several Shakespeare plays. I've directed, critiqued, analyzed, read, and otherwise plunged myself into the world that is Shakespeare. I only say this all to preface this particular blog...

If there is one thing I hate AND love most about Shakespeare's plays, its the flexibility of them.

By "flexibility", I mean that they lend themselves to a lot of "out-there" interpretations. "Hey! How 'bout we do The Merchant of Venice, but instead 1500s Venice, we set it in 1930 and make them all gangsters." or "What about doing A Midsummer Night's Dream...ON THE MOON!" Like I said... I love this and hate this.

I believe in making Shakespeare accessible. It's beautiful language. The stories are pretty timeless (mostly because they were borrowed by Shakespeare too). Still, the language and the froofy costuming alienate teens or people who feel that it creates a barrier between them and the story. I can see that and respect that, which is why I have no problem with setting a play in a new time or location to break down that wall. It's really when the new thematic 'overlay' doesn't do anything but add a gimmick that I have the problem.

This brings us to today's list...

The Top 5 Modern Shakespeare Films

5) Love's Labour's Lost (Branagh again). I actually don't love this movie, but I do think that the updated theme is one of the most interesting, and this a good fit for this list. Branagh takes one of of the lesser known Shakespeare plays and puts in squarely into the 1930s and films it like a Hollywood musical. It wasn't great. It wasn't spectacularly received. It was you know... a movie. Still a really fun idea. So...here it goes.

4) 10 Things I Hate About You. What's that you say? That's not Shakespeare? Well, actually it is. I mean... it's his plot. It's The Taming of the Shrew, made modern and teeny-boppery by Heath Ledger's dreaminess and Julia Stiles's shrewishness. First, let me just say that on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being as close to Shakespeare's original vision and 10 being so unrecognizable that he'd be all "Hey...this is vaguely familiar...Did Chis Marlowe write this?", this movie is at about an 8.5. There is no remnant of Shakespeare's original dialogue (aside from some winks to the bardophiles.) It's set in modern day California. Still, if you know the original play, I really think that the movie does a great job of keeping the same sort of playful feel while being completely and totally perfect for the MTV generation. It's not a great movie on it's own, but it does exactly what it set out to do. Good enough for 4th place on my list.

3) Hamlet (the Kenneth Branagh version). On that same scale we're looking at a solid 1.5. I mean...not even a standard deviation. He didn't even cut any of the dialogue, which is pretty much done in every production of Hamlet anywhere. The thing is 4 hours long, for pete's sake. I have some general criticisms of this movie in general... for example, I think Branagh is sort of condescending to the audience, in that he sometimes skips over trying to act in the speeches and just does them as quickly as possible, as though the viewer will not care about the meaning and just be impressed at the dexterity of his tongue. That said, I think his bringing the setting into a slightly more modern, militaristic age freshened up the prose jjuust enough to make the list. Plus, the performances as a whole are phenomenal.

2) Titus. Julie Taymor makes me uneasy. She's an undeniable talent. She's one of the more creative folks in the film/theatre industry. She's also a crazy narcisist who makes me want to not watch her movies, just because her whole "I'm a big artist" vibe drives me nuts. Her adaptation of Titus Andronicus, "Titus", is really spectacular. It's not, you know...one of the most deep plays in the Shakespeare canon. Many folks consider it the most inane of all of the tragedies. It's an excuse to chop people up, basically. It's the Shakespeare version of Saw, or Hostel. Torture porn. BUT it's good. And Taymor's take on it, as though it's coming from the imagination of a child, where the periods are a little skewed. It's like they took fascism and sort of.. smeared it. There's a little of a lot of different styles, but it's all internally consistent. It's a little hard to quantify, but Taymor makes violence compelling in a way that Eli Roth can only dream about.

1) Romeo + Juliet. Well... It was inevitable that this movie would show up on the list. I like it enough to place it at #1. In a way, it's almost shocking in the adaptation. The dialogue is the same, the plot is unchanged, but the setting makes it so... shockingly different. Romeo and Juliet is arguably Shakespeares most familiar work. It's read in every high school. It's performed in every community theater. Everyone knows it, and yet Baz Luhrman made it so new with just a change of setting that I think there's no other place it could even POSSIBLY appear on the list. Courtyards become beaches and arcades, and swords become guns, and suddenly the same tired story is brand new. It's also really entertaining, and that counts for a lot.