Film Journal 1

Movie: Rent

Scene: The end of the opening scene

Scene Running Time: The last 1:01 will be analyzed of the total scene.






Description of the scene: This last portion of the scene opens up with two men dumping a bin full of flaming papers out onto the street. It starts with the camera tilting up on the two men with a close up of just them before moving into the establishing shot of the entire apartment complex. The lighting is very dark, which brings out the color of the flaming papers that are fluttering down. It turns into a dolly shot as the camera follows the paper move down onto the street of cars. There is then a close up of a particular car that is on the street. The lighting continues to be dark and the focus continues to be on the flaming papers. The "noir" of this scene then jumps out of the car. He is dressed all in black, in the bad part of town. There is a dolly shot of him as he begins to sing his complaints. The shots shift between this man and the two men that are still up on the balcony as they shout at each other in song. The shot of the two men begin as a low angle shot before moving into a regular close up shot. As the song progresses, the camera pans around the apartment complex as everybody contributes to the flaming papers. All shots of people on the balconies are low angle shots. The scene ends with a low angle shot on the street, with the Noir guy standing in the middle of a crowd who is yelling at him. It then goes into another establishing shot before a low angle shot of the two men. It then pans and tilts around the complex again, before completely ending with the original two men.