gawd, i love this movie for so many reasons. sort of the last hurrah of the '90s. the movie version seems more succinct and impactful with the slammed door, yelling at her from within, and then opening the window to get that last jab. the music was already all of those things: foreboding and upbeat, albeit a bit muted in the headphones, and then loud and adrenal at the right moment when he turned it up (excellent song choice whoever the music guy was- screaming You're Gonna Miss Me Baby. nice.). i would've liked to have seen the sweeping cruise down the rows of music, but we get plenty of that visual throughout the film. i'm assuming it's there to set up the fact that he's a hardcore music afficianado and has lyrics and guitar riffs dripping from his pores. yes? the film version definitely sets the pace of the rest of the movie.

I loved the tracking of the stereo headset cord along its distance and Laura having to disconnect him from his music obsession before he even knows she's there. I would have like to have seen the rows and rows of music, the evolution of music as an increasingly private and lonely experience, but it worked well having him breaking the fourth wall immediately, ironically talking to us with intensity while he's so disconnected from his personal life. He and Laura have their last confrontation at the best place - at his equipment, his escape and obsession. There's no tug when she leaves, he lets her go as people throughout his life have always gone. She has a slight struggle at the door but doesn't bump her luggage down the stairs. It's a clean breeze through his life, as they've all been, suggesting his misery came before the music. There's a path worn for such things. He doesn't put away a photo of a funky family. He's a product of his own circumstances, his own romance with his misery. He yells at her from above (she's not at the top, he is) and from a distance, yet he comes back to the intimacy of strangers watching his story. It's very well put together in the filmed version and much cleaner in establishing his character right out of the gate. He makes us a partner in his misery, hooking us with the soundtrack of our own lovelorn angst. Great example to track from the paper to its legs.