Everything is true, we are told, except for the parts that Jonathan Larson made up. Miranda additionally gives us a way into and out of the film by establishing the context for Larson’s legacy and providing clarification of the part-biopic, part-filmed-stage-performance that we are viewing. Miranda, and cinematographer Alice Brooks (who also shot In the Heights released earlier this year), use a standard widescreen aspect ratio that sometimes gives way to replicated home video in the appearance of VHS playback, matching the archival footage of Jonathan Larson that plays over the end credits of the film. The film uses the construct of Larson’s stage version of tick, tick…BOOM! as an overarching frame narrative within the movie, allowing Garfield’s Jon to periodically narrate his story during this stage performance that is interspersed throughout the described events playing in real-time. She wants Jon to go with her, but he avoids the conversation for as long as he can, even to the point of forgetting it needs to be had. For a small price, she blows my mind.” Jon’s friend since childhood, Michael (Robin de Jesus), recently gave up acting to pursue a more financially stable career in advertising, while Jon’s girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp) was offered a job teaching dance in the Berkshires. To pay the bills, Jon works at the Moondance diner, waiting tables and writing songs about every seemingly unimportant thing that comes to mind: “Sugar, she’s refined. He spends his days calling every producer in New York City, trying to contact his unreachable agent, and struggling to write a new song in Act II for his female lead, a suggestion made by the increasingly supportive musical theatre legend, Stephen Sondheim (Bradley Whitford). We join Jon (Andrew Garfield) in the week leading up to a workshop of his musical, Superbia. The result is a loving tribute to the spirit of an artist who never lived to see the lasting impact he’s had on both the work and the artists of the contemporary musical theatre world. It became somewhat of a cult hit over the years, with numerous notable productions before receiving the movie musical treatment from first-time director Lin-Manual Miranda, the Pulitzer Prize winning songwriter of Hamilton. Following Larson’s death, the musical was reworked into a three-person chamber piece, with one actor playing Jonathan and two additional actors playing Michael and Susan, Larson’s best friend and girlfriend. So began the legacy of Jonathan Larson which, in retrospect, goes back far before the creation of Rent.įollowing the failure of a futuristic rock musical called Superbia, which took a majority of Larson’s 20s to write, the songwriter created a new musical entitled tick, tick…BOOM!, an autobiographical “rock monologue” performed as a solo show by Larson in the early 90s about his struggles as a musical theatre writer, his fears of turning 30, and the greater AIDS crisis that was devastating the theatre community around him. On January 25 th, 1996, Larson died at age 35 of an undiagnosed genetic disorder the day before Rent’s first performance. However, the show’s creator, Jonathan Larson, wasn’t able to see any of this success. It had a “downtown” sensibility, spending years in developmental workshops and studio productions before finally opening on Broadway, receiving multiple Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and a 12 year-long run. Not only did the show expand upon the kinds of music styles you might hear in a mainstream musical, the story amplified the voices of communities that were rarely represented on the Broadway stage. When Rent opened on Broadway in the winter of 1996, it changed the landscape of musical theatre forever.
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