Rent directed by Chris Columbus,  English with a little French, color,  135 min.

By Donald H. Harrison

Viewers most likely will focus on other, flashier characters—which could describe almost all of them— but I found myself paying particular attention to the character of Mark Cohen (Anthony Rapp), the documentary film maker through whose eyes and lens we meet most of his "bohemian" friends who struggle to pay their rent while living with AIDS.

Some have suggested that Mark is a self-portrait by Jonathan Larsen, the late creator of the Broadway musical "Rent," whose work was adapted to film by Columbus. There's a scene where Mark goes with one of his friends to an AIDS support group, but he says awkwardly, "I don't have..." and asks permission to film the session.  When Larsen died just before the opening of his Broadway musical, many falsely thought it was because of AIDS.  But he "didn't have" the disease either; instead an aortic aneurysm cut him down in his prime.  

Larsen, Jewish and  heterosexual,  may not have "learned to tango with Nanette Himmelfarb, the rabbi's daughter, at the Scarsdale Jewish Community Center" as the character Mark Cohen did, but he grew up just a couple of Westchester County towns away in White Plains. 

From the messages left on Mark's answering machine, we get the idea that his mother fits the stereotype of the overprotective Jewish mother.  Besides for the sake of his art, one reason he is living in a loft in the East Village area of New York City with would-be songwriter Roger Davis (Adam Pascal) as his roommate is simply to establish his own identity.

There is a telling scene reuniting Mark with Maureen (Idina Menzel), his former girlfriend who left him for a lesbian lover, Joanne (Tracie Thoms). A performance artist, she has just staged a rent protest which Mark has filmed with his hand-cranked camera. She wants to film him, but he snatches back his camera, saying:  "Look, this is not my bar mitzvah; give it back to me!"   His unwillingness to reveal himself may have been the reason she left him; as one whom everyone—man and woman—wants to possess, Maureen also needs someone who will allow her to be a possessor.  Mark "didn't have" this either. 

When a boy becomes a bar mitzvah, he leads the Torah service, chants the Haftarah, and provides the congregants with an interpretation of the readings, often applying lessons from the biblical text to modern times.  He is the center of attention, and, in one sense, Mark may simply have been telling Maureen, "it's not my time to be the center of attention, I'm here to observe.  It's your show."

The bar mitzvah also is a time of transition, when, according to Jewish tradition, a boy become a man—not in the sexual sense (although the ceremony is timed around puberty), but in the sense of his acceptance of  the responsibilities of Jewish adulthood.  He is no longer an apprentice in matters of Jewish ritual; now he can wear a tallit, he can be called up to the bima for honors;, and however haltingly, he can even  lead the congregation through its prayers.  He is supposed to do, not to simply observe.

Like many a journalist and documentary film maker, Mark is committed to observing and recording the action around him. But watching it, understanding it, analyzing it, reporting it, documenting it, all are different from doing it.  Whether its AIDS, or a full commitment to his friends' 'Bohemian' lifestyle, Mark doesn't necessarily "have it,"—although occasionally he can get caught up in a moment and dance with others on a long table, as in the remarkable production number about La Vie Boheme.  

All this, perhaps, accounts for my particular curiosity about Mark.  He is Jewish. I am Jewish.  He is a journalist. I am a journalist. I grew up in New Rochelle, between White Plains and Scarsdale. I even have a cousin whose husband's name is Mark Cohen. 

My rabbi, Leonard Rosenthal of Tifereth Israel Synagogue in San Diego, sometimes chides me with my outsider-insider role. Yes, I embrace my Jewish identity, but in matters of religion, I prefer more to observe than to participate—although I too can get caught up in the moments, such as a joyous circuit around the sanctuary during Simchat Torah. However, there is quite a difference between the fictional Mark Cohen and myself.  I am at least a generation older, and am not likely to change.