Most of the criticism of Moulin Rouge seems to indicate that the
person speaking has significantly misunderstood the film. Yes, it is an unusual
film in most aspects (except for the plot), but I believe that everyone
involved knew exactly what they were doing—this is reinforced if you listen to
the commentaries on the DVD, where the method behind the madness is revealed
(for example, much of the criticism is levelled at the film’s first twenty
minutes; in the commentary the writers Baz and Craig reveal that they were
purposely testing the audience in those first twenty minutes—looks like they
succeeded!)). As well, despite the fact that, with much of its content and its
execution, it obviously belongs in pop-culture, I think it’s also, surprisingly,
quite a literary film, inasmuch as many of the ideas that shape it have a long
literary history, something that probably goes overlooked by most of Hollywood.
Perhaps the juxtaposition of unconventional style, techniques, objectives, etc.
(when was the last time you saw a
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The Editing: Much criticism has been directed at Moulin Rouge’s hyper-kinetic editing style, but what most people seem
to be unaware of (especially surprising among actual film critics) is that (I
believe, anyways) several sequences in the film eschew the Hollywood (almost)
universal of continuity editing (that is, editing the film in such a way as to
make the editing almost invisible, according to a set of rules developed over
the years) in favour of montage editing (that is, editing the film in such a
way that the editing becomes very obvious, and the graphic differences between
the shots are maximised). When used effectively,
as I feel it is here, this sort of editing is very good at conveying emotions
and feelings, over the plot and individual characters. Now, not the whole film
is edited in this manner, as in a narrative film this would be rather
counter-productive, not to mention frustrating for the audience, but there are
two significant sequences done this way: the sequence from the time Christian
first arrives at the Moulin Rouge to the time Satine appears; and the “El Tango
de Roxanne” sequence. Notably, these two sequences are songs,
which makes the montage editing more understandable, as it were, to the
audience, since this is the style in which music videos are edited, for the
most part, so we’re used to seeing it in the context of a song.
o The Moulin Rouge Sequence: A goal when making this film
was to communicate to audiences of today what the Moulin Rouge would have felt
like to patrons in 1899; therefore we have Fatboy Slim’s version of the “Can-can” instead of the Offenbach
brass-band original; the very bright lighting to convey the feel of the first
light bulbs; brightly coloured costumes that draw on the iconic fashions of the
past hundred years, etc. etc. We also have the sequence edited in an
intentionally confusing, overwhelming way where snippets of all the different
things happening all collide with each other in a very kinetic way in an
attempt to convey to the audience watching the film what it must have felt like
to be there. Also, remember, this story is being narrated to us by Christian
who has just arrived in Montmartre, had his first taste of Absinthe, and been
thrust into the world of the Moulin Rouge; completely overwhelmed, this is what
it appears like to him. (This is also similar to the much shorter scene in Baz
Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet where Romeo
takes the drugs, then goes to the
Capulet’s party, where he is completely overwhelmed by weird people and musical
numbers.) This sequence does not advance the narrative in any significant way;
it serves solely to introduce us to the underworld of the Moulin Rouge, making
montage editing the better choice for conveying the feeling of the setting to
the audience. In fact, if you view this sequence in terms of continuity, it
makes no sense at all. People jump from one place to another, then back again;
at one point Zidler is in the sky above the Moulin Rouge, then in the garden,
then back in the sky, where he falls towards the Moulin Rouge and back flips
through the garden. In the structure of a conventional narrative, this makes
absolutely no sense, but in the context here, this style of editing, throwing
convention and continuity to the wind, serves perfectly to express the sense of
freedom and chaos at the Moulin Rouge.
o The “El Tango de Roxanne”
Sequence:
This is one of my favourite sequences in the film, and one of the most
brilliant examples of editing I’ve ever seen. The parallels between the Tango
downstairs and the dinner with Satine and the Duke upstairs are brilliantly
brought out as the tension builds. As the scene between Satine and the Duke
escalates towards violence, the Tango becomes more and more violent, and the
length of the shots becomes shorter and shorter. Combined with the building
music, this creates a great tension, which builds and builds, until all you see
are shots of everyone yelling, then Chocolat punches
the Duke, Nini falls to the ground, and the music
stops. Again, this sequence is in a large part an expression of the way
Christian is feeling; there are major discontinuities in the shots of Satine
and the Duke if you look closely—they go from eating at the table to kissing on
the chaise lounge, back the table, etc.—which, inter-cut with close-ups of
Christian, suggests that many of these shots may just be in his head; consumed
by jealousy, he imagines Satine kissing the Duke as the Argentinean sings. In
the cuts between Christian and the Duke, there is a strong juxtaposition in
their movements; a shot of Christian walking towards the camera might be
followed by a shot of the Duke walking away from the camera, e.g. But at the
same time, similarities between the movements of Christian and the Argentinean,
and Satine and Nini are brought out by the cutting; Nini’s fate in the Tango, thrown from man to man until her
jealous (true) lover abandons her, and she lies broken on the floor, suggests
what Satine’s fate might have been. Also, many of multitude of the dancing
couples bear a rough, superficial resemblance to Satine and Christian: young
men with dark hair, young women with red hair, etc., underlining the fact that
this is in fact the oldest story in the book; Christian and Satine are not the
first couple to have this problem, nor will they be the last. While this
sequence serves to advance the plot as well, its main purpose is to express
feeling and emotion, and to draw parallels (also with the sub-textual triangle
of art, sex, and commerce, but we’ll get into that later), and for this the
montage editing is used masterfully.
o ‘Breaking the Rules’: For the most part, aside
from those two sequences, the rest of the film is told with the usual
continuity editing style (for example, Christian is almost always on the left
side of the frame, and Satine is almost always on the right), but there are
places where the ‘rules’ are broken. Most obvious is the ‘crossing of the axis’
(a brief explanation: when two characters are talking, film-makers generally
cut between ‘over-the-shoulder’ shots of each character in close-up; in order
for continuity, each character’s face must always appear on the same side of
the frame—e.g., Christian on the left side, looking right towards Satine, and
Satine on the right, looking left towards Christian. (For an example, see “Come
What May”, where Christian is always
on the left side of the frame, and Satine always
on the right) If you imagine the characters standing on an imaginary axis, the
camera must always remain on the same side for this to work. If, say,
Christian’s close-up is shot with the camera on the near side of the axis, he
appears on the left side of the frame; but if Satine’s close-up is shot with
the camera on the other side of the axis, the far side, she will also appear on
the left side of the frame, which can be confusing for obvious reasons, e.g.,
they don’t appear to be looking at each other, etc.). Again, this is done only
rarely, mostly during songs. In “Your Song”, for example, when Christian is
singing to Satine just before they leap out of the elephant, Baz crosses the
axis for their close-ups. But why? Well, perhaps to emphasise that the lovers,
too, are breaking the rules by falling in love, or maybe to emphasise their
coming together (they both appear on the same side of the screen) Other
examples: when Zidler is performing the first bit of “The Pitch” to the Duke, swooshing from one side of him to the other, Baz again
crosses the axis, cutting from shots in front of the Duke to shots behind the
Duke, with the result that it often appears that the Duke is looking at the
opposite side of the screen to where Zidler is. I’m not really sure why this is
done here; maybe to emphasise the Duke’s confusion about what’s going on. The
other example of crossing the axis is less obvious because it’s combined with
the camera circling around the actors (something I’m not a huge fan of, but
anyway), and it’s not during a song, it’s when Satine runs back to Christian’s
garret after the Tango. Again, I think it might be done to emphasise the
lovers’ breaking of the rules: not only have they fallen in love, but now they’re committing the cardinal sin
of not going on with the show.
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Mirrors, Veils, and Performances: As a courtesan, Satine is always performing,
and always creating her appearance to be what others want it to. She looks in
the mirror while getting ready to meet the Duke as a smouldering temptress; she
looks in a three-way mirror when she’s getting ready to go and deceive
Christian; when the Duke gives her the diamond necklace, they’re both reflected
in the mirror as she asks him about the ending (and he agrees to Christian’s
ending, now Satine has conformed to his ideals). This need to look how others
want her to is a defining characteristic of Satine as an object. But, when she
falls in love with Christian, all this changes: he loves her for who she is,
not for who he wants her to be. (that she is who he wants her to be is why the
Duke wants her—it’s no coincidence that he builds her a new dressing room— and
why he’s so easily duped into thinking she’s like a virgin) In Christian’s
garret, she doesn’t need to wear her elaborate costumes—and the only mirror is
small and dirty, and out of the way. Even before that, though, just before “One
Day I’ll Fly Away”, when she’s sitting at her dressing table in front of the
mirror, when she starts thinking about Christian, she gets up and moves away
from the mirror. The only time that Christian and Satine are reflected in
mirror is when he turns up in her dressing room, trying to pay her, because that is the only moment
when thinks or her as an object, a commodity that can be bought. When Satine
has to really put on a show, though, when she really has to deny her true
feelings and be convincing about it, this is signified by her wearing a veil:
when she goes to the dinner with the Duke, and has to convince him that she
loves him, not Christian, she’s wearing a veil, and when she has to go to
Christian to convince him that she loves the Duke, not him, she’s wearing
another veil. And, just in case we miss the point, in both cases, she steps
through curtains in each instance, to emphasise the fact that she’s on a stage, that she’s acting. (more on onstage/offstage below)
v
Bird-in-a-Gilded-Cage: A classic symbol, the bird in a gilded cage is used to represent
a beautiful woman trapped in a role she can’t escape. (for an example from
another film, see the ‘flying scene’ and others from Titanic) Reference to this occurs throughout the film; most obvious
is that Satine actually has a pet bird in a gilded cage. She addresses it when
she’s getting ready to meet the ‘Duke’ the first time; when Christian is giving
his poetry reading, it’s in the background, and, most importantly, when she
learns she’s dying, and that she can’t leave with Christian, but has to deceive
him, it’s in the foreground of the shot. Interestingly, at the very end of the
film, the bird in its cage is seen outside Christian’s garret, with what looks
like the pale pink wrap Satine wore while she was with Christian on top of the
cage. Another obvious example of a reference to this is the “One Day I’ll Fly
Away” song that is Satine’s theme. In Christian’s line from the “ELM” that
“love lifts us up where we belong / Where eagles fly
on a mountain high”, there is a common solution to the problem: love can set
you free; later on, during “Come What May”, there is a flock of birds visible
flying over
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Seasons May Change, Winter to Spring: Symbolism in the Weather: This line from “Come What
May” is echoed (as are other lines from the song, throughout, like “storm
clouds may gather” (when the lovers are pulled apart) and “stars may collide”
(when they come together) at the end of the film, when the windmill sails turn,
changing winter to spring, as Christian’s voice over tells how after months of
despair he was able to sit down and write their story. Spring as a symbol for
rebirth is nothing new, but if you look closely, you can see the seasons change
throughout the film, to reflect what’s happening in the narrative. Christian’s
voice over tells us he arrived in the summer, “the summer of love”, and that’s
when he falls in love. Later, when jealousy has started to consume him, during
the Tango, when Christian is standing below the Tower looking up at Satine and
the Duke, time has progressed and it is now fall; there are brown leaves on the
ground around Christian. And after Satine tells him she’s staying with the
Duke, there is a shot of the last leaf falling from a tree. This, of course,
coincides with the breaking of the storm, complete with thunder and lightning,
to tell us that something is wrong. Then, later that night, when Satine has
died and the camera ascends through the roof of the Moulin Rouge, it is snowing
out. Snow, of course, covers things over, making them look, well, shiny and
new. Then, the transition to spring as Christian completes his journey out of
the underworld. To emphasise, this journey, it is night when he begins to write
(not to mention, sepia-toned black-and-white), and when he finishes his story,
it’s day (and we’re back in colour). Like much else in this film, the weather
does not make much sense from a strictly logical, realistic point of view, but
this is not a realistic film. The weather, like many other things, is used
symbolically, to convey feelings, emotions, and the general atmosphere, with
few words. When thunder crashes in the background, or the last leaf falls from
a tree, everyone knows what that means.
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Darkness and Light: Like almost everything in this film, the lighting is far more
symbolic than realistic, with often large contrasts between light and dark. A
scene in which this is most obvious is the scene near the end of the film
between Satine and Zidler in her dressing room. When Zidler appears behind
Satine and tells her that the Duke is going to kill Christian, she is standing
in a brightly-lit alcove off the main room, and she stays there until she grabs
Christian’s coat and turns to leave for good; she is almost out of the dark
dressing room and into the brightly-lit hallway when Zidler tells her she’s
dying and she stops in the doorway, with half her face in the dark and half in
the light; she turns and goes back into the room, which is now very dark.
Satine had almost made it out of the dark underworld, but is pulled back; her
dialogue with Zidler emphasises this, as he reminds her they’re “creatures of
the underworld, [they] can’t afford to love.” For Christian, this lighting
scheme is reversed: when he throws the money at Satine’s feet and goes to leave
the kingdom forever, he is walking into the darkness, and Satine, onstage,
wearing white, is very brightly lit. The inter-cutting between Christian
walking away and Satine singing to him highlight this difference. Here, the
lighting emphasises the fact that if Christian leaves then, he will be lost
forever in the underworld, a broken, destroyed man. If he goes back to Satine,
however, as he does, he will not have abandoned his ideals of love, but he also
will have learned something, and be able to move on eventually, out of the
underworld. In Satine’s dying words, she makes sure he will go on, and it is in
telling their story that Christian is able to complete his journey.
v
Windows and Doors: Taking a page out of many melodramas, doorways in Moulin Rouge become sort of problem
areas, difficult to pass through, especially for Satine. Again, this is most
evident in the scene where she tries to leave the Moulin Rouge, but Zidler
stops her. Satine stops in the doorway when Zidler tells her she’s dying, and
she stands there until she has accepted that she actually is dying, when she
goes back into the room. In the doorway, she’s right on the thresh-hold of
being able to leave, neither one place nor the other, and she has to make a
decision. Doorways are also used to bring out changes in Christian and Satine’s
relationship: twice we get the shot of Christian turning as the door to his
garret opens, and Satine come in, once just after the Tango, and once just
after “The Show Must Go On”. The first time, Satine runs straight across the
room and into his arms: she has just refused to sleep with the Duke, and their
relationship is stronger than ever. The second time, however, she doesn’t come
in the room, but stands in the doorway as she tells Christian that she’s
staying with the Duke; it is Christian who then crosses the room to her. She
steps into the room then, as she struggles to control her emotions, but the
final confrontation comes in the doorway, as she tells Christian that the story
really ends with the courtesan choosing the maharajah. This wouldn’t have
happened at all if Christian hadn’t grabbed her as she was leaving and held her
in the doorway. “The Moulin Rouge is my home,” she tells Christian, explaining
the inexorable pull it has on her, “but you can leave any time you want.” This
is emphasised through Christian being associated with windows, where Satine is
associated with doors. Many times, Christian is shown standing at the window of
his garret, looking across at the Moulin Rouge (more often than not, waiting
for Satine), emphasising the fact that he’s really only a guest there, so to
speak; he steps in and out of the windows of his garret onto the balcony with
ease. And, at sort of the height of his and Satine’s relationship, during “Come
What May”, they are shown several times standing together in the window there.
The conversation just before “Come What May”, where Satine tries to break up
with Christian, but he won’t let her, takes place in part through a window,
with Satine standing inside, and Christian outside. By the time Christian
starts to sing, Satine is outside too. In fact, most of the portions of the
film that take place outside involve falling-in-love, being-in-love, happy,
problem-free parts of their relationship: much of “CWM”, most of the “ELM”, and
the Dance Across the Sky, where they first fall in love. Love will set you
free, and being outside is an expression
of being free.
v
The Music: Much has been said about the fact the Moulin Rouge uses contemporary pop songs in a period setting, but,
watching the film, I never found it strange at all (well, except for the
Bohemians partying to “Children of the Revolution”). The fact that I didn’t
find it strange is perhaps a little strange, but, like Baz has said, using
popular contemporary music in period musical films has been around as long as
the musicals themselves. Because, if you think about it, characters suddenly
breaking out into song is such an artificial device anyways, what difference
does it make if they’re singing music from their time or ours? Furthermore,
even if Moulin Rouge had been done as
a conventional musical, with all songs written especially for it, those songs
would still be contemporary songs, written and sung in a modern style, and they
wouldn’t have been around at the time the story is taking place anyway. Using
songs that the audience is familiar with helps to break down the barriers and
the apprehension that many people feel about musicals, and it really helps the
audience to understand and identify with the characters. When Satine sings “we
are living in a material world / and I am a material girl”, or Christian sings
“how wonderful life is, now you’re in the world”, or the Argentinean sings “you
don’t have to put on that red dress, / walk the streets for money”, everyone
knows exactly what is going on, and a ripple of recognition runs through the
audience. When “The Sound of Music” is used as Bohemian poetry, it’s an in-joke
that everyone’s in on, and everybody likes being in on a joke. Before I saw the
film, I read an interview with Baz Luhrmann where he described the film as
being more of an opera than a musical, which somewhat confused me, since I tend
to think of operas as being sung-through, and I knew Moulin Rouge wasn’t. But then I saw it, and I understood. It’s an
opera in the sense that the songs advance the plot, they stand in for the
dialogue, instead of in your typical musical, where the narrative goes along,
and periodically stops for a musical number. Perhaps the only number in the
film that cannot be seen as advancing the narrative is “Sparkling Diamonds”
(with the exclusion of the dialogue in the middle), which functions much more
as a traditional musical number, that is, its main purpose is too introduce
character. At the other end of the spectrum, we have the “ELM”, a sung
argument, where the characters trade off every one or two lines; it could be
done as spoken dialogue, although it would sound pretty silly, and wouldn’t be
half as convincing. The genius of using these pre-existing songs lies in the
fact that they all sound as though they were written specifically for the film.
It only took a little tweaking of some of the lyrics in a few of the cases, and
a slight re-orchestration, to make them sound more musical-theatre-esque, and, for the medleys, to flow together. In terms of
that, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and “Material Girl” are a perfect
match for each other, since “Material Girl” is essentially a more contemporary
version of “Diamonds” (as anyone who’s seen the music video for “Material
Girl”, where Madonna re-enacts the scene from Gentlemen Prefer Blonds where Marilyn Monroe originally sang
“Diamonds” will know) As for the other medley, well, I think it deserves a
section of its own:
o The “Elephant Love Medley”: This is constructed
brilliantly in the way Christian slowly wins Satine over with his songs. To
begin, he is singing to her, but she won’t sing back, she speaks her replies.
Then, after he has worn her down with “All You Need is Love”, she starts to
sing her replies, but, while she sings to the same tune Christian started with,
she sings the wrong lyrics. Then, she sings the right lyrics to the right tune
(“Silly Love Songs”), although it’s one that Christian didn’t begin singing,
she’s starting to come around. But then she pulls back, going back to singing
the wrong lyrics to the right tunes. Finally, Christian wins her over, with a
verse or two of “Heroes”, and she starts singing the right lyrics to the right
tune. And for the grand finale, Satine and Christian sing together in harmony:
he has finally won her over with his poetry.
v
“Spectacular Spectacular”—When Art
Imitates Life, and Vice-Versa: The whole idea of a play-within-a-play is very Shakespearean,
especially in its reflection of the plot of the actual film. Thus, you get the
somewhat bizarre occurrence of the entire rest of the plot being explained at
the beginning of the second act of the film, in “The Pitch”. This is able to
work since the plot we’re dealing with is not exactly full of surprises, also,
since it’s told in flashback, we already know how it ends. I appreciate,
however, that they managed to do this without a lot of ironic,
self-referential, post-modern digs at the conventions of the film, as this gets
really old really fast. Luckily, it’s hard to be really ironic and cynical when
you’re jumping up and down, singing a song to the tune of the “Can-can”, so the
closest we get to this is when the Duke asks, “and in the end should someone
die?”, and they all look at each other. Interestingly, all the elements of the
actual play are evident in “The Pitch”, from the Taj-Mahal-esque
backdrop to Satine’s costume to the red-and-white petals (The Doctor is throwing
them over the others in “The Sound of Music” interlude), making the actual play
have that much more resonance. After the plot is laid out, we get some examples
of actual scenes as Christian is writing the play, most notably the “Thank you
for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love” scene, which Christian
finds himself acting out later on. (and which begs the question: if he hadn’t
written this scene, would it still have happened?) The irony here, is of course
that while he’s writing this scene, he and Satine are so very much in love that
they can laugh at the ridiculous thought of anything like this ever happening.
Then, there’s the whole thing about the ending of the play; once the Duke
realises that the play is actually a mirror of what’s happening with him,
Christian, and Satine, he must have the play end his way, and so there’s the
feeling that however the play ends, so the love story off-stage will end too.
And, as it plays out, this proves to be accurate. With Christian coming onstage
in the Penniless Sitar-Player’s costume and speaking the lines of dialogue he
wrote for the play, the line between art and life is officially crossed. The
costume and script underscore the fact that Christian’s acting here, and there
is a hint of Fate too, as though he is being guided by a higher power to do
these things. But, when
v
Art, Sex, and Commerce: For those who have called Moulin
Rouge one-dimensional, I offer this slightly allegorical sub-text as
evidence to the contrary. The love-triangle between Christian, Satine, and the
Duke is paralleled sub-textually by the triangle of art, sex, and commerce.
This sub-text is not that noticeable in the film unless you’re looking for it;
I didn’t notice it until I read a mention of it in the book on the making of Moulin Rouge, then the next time I saw
the film, I was looking for it; there’s also some sly references to it in the
DVD commentary. Perhaps where it first pops up in the film is at Christian’s
poetry reading to Satine. Thinking he’s the rich Duke, she sets about trying to
seduce him so he’ll invest in the show; Christian, however, is only interested in
actually reading his poetry to her, and he ends up seducing her with the
poetry. When the Duke comes in, Christian, the artist, has to hide, while
Satine seduces him—and, unlike Christian, that’s what he’s there for— but in
the end, she really wins him over with Christian’s poetry. Then, at the
emergency rehearsal, all the artists are trying to sell their story to the
financier—but, of course, they don’t have one, so they have to make it up on
the spot, and throw all sorts of flash and razzle-dazzle at the Duke so he
won’t notice. And, what do they emphasise in this pitch? Not their values of
truth, beauty, freedom, and love, but the spectacle, the special effects, how
much the audience will love it, how long it will run for—oh, and let’s not
forget the sex (the ‘tantric can-can’?). And, the
Duke has a few ideas of his own, which they either applaud (the magical sitar
giving the game away), or ignore (someone dying in the end). So, the Duke
agrees to invest, but on the condition that he won’t have to share Satine with
anyone, especially not the writer. But,
the young writer and the lead actress conduct their affair right under the
financier’s eyes, and all goes well, until he finds out and threatens to walk.
Satine’s last, desperate attempt to appease him fails when she can’t ignore her
love for Christian (she’s made the transition from commerce to art), and things
go downhill from their. The show goes on—with the financier’s ending, not the
writer’s, and Satine is trapped in it. But, when the artists seize control (“no
matter what you say / the show is ending our way”) they get the ending they
want, and the Duke is shut out, despite his last attempts to regain control. By
punching the Duke, Zidler makes up his mind which side he’s on, and the curtain
falls on the happy ending, to the audience’s delight. The happy ending is the
last thing the Duke sees before he leaves, but unbeknownst to him, behind the
curtain another drama is unfolding. The moral of the story? Art=good,
commerce=bad. Well, perhaps it’s not quite that simple, but the film can be
seen as a something of a battle between two ideologies: “Diamonds Are a Girl’s
Best Friend” vs. “All You Need is Love”, but no matter what’s going on with
those, “The Show Must Go On”.
v
“Like a Virgin” and Other Foreshadowing: Lots of foreshadowing in
this film. Obviously, “Spectacular Spectacular”,
discussed above, is a major example of this, but there are other examples of
more subtle foreshadowing. For example, the “Like a Virgin” number parallels,
in a strange way, what happens when Satine does go to the
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Romance and Love Vs. Sex and Money: This is sort of tied-in with
the art-sex-commerce triangle and the “Diamond’s Are a Girl’s Best Friend” vs.
“All You Need is Love” conundrum described above, because that’s the choice
Satine has to make. As she says to Zidler, “all my life, you made me believe I
was only worth what someone would pay for me,” but now, with Christian, she is
made to see that there is something better than money: love. During “Diamonds”,
the cuts from Satine back to Christian, and then the Duke, are very revealing
of the current state of affairs: before the first cut to the Duke, Satine is
taking diamond jewellery, and the rakes are throwing money at her; before the
first cut to Christian, Satine knocks a bouquet of roses out of a man’s hands
with a look of disgust. It takes Christian a while (and a lot of silly love
songs) to make her realise this, but finally she turns her back on the
diamonds. Unfortunately, since you need conflict in a film, it’s not that easy
so along comes the Duke, who represents the “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”
way of thinking, at the opposite end of the spectrum from Christian’s “All You
Need is Love”. But, the Duke is also interested in ‘wooing’ Satine; rather
unfortunately for him, romance has no place in a business relationship. A brief
exchange between Satine and the Duke perfectly crystallises this: when they
first meet, the Duke kisses Satine’s hand, saying “a kiss on the hand might be
quite continental”, but Satine pulls back with “but diamonds are a girl’s best
friend”. In other words, she’s not interested in romance from him, just money.
With Christian, however, it’s very different: they’re in love, there’s no money
involved (he is, after all, penniless), and so it’s all about romance: dancing
across the sky, secret love songs, reading poetry to each other in bed, etc.
And so Satine turns her back on the sex-and-money of her profession, for the love-and-romance
Christian offers. But, reality intrudes, and she is forced to spend some time
with the Duke. There’s a bit of a running joke in the film (it comes across
more strongly in the abandoned edit of “Come What May”) that every time the
Duke tries to do something romantic with Satine, Christian always ends up
coming too, and of course Christian and Satine only have eyes for each
other—luckily, the Duke is easily duped. Essentially, the Duke is helping along
Christian and Satine’s love affair, by taking them on picnics, boating on the
v
Underworlds and Upperworlds: Well, I suppose that I’d
better say something about the Orpheus myth that the film is based around. For
anyone who isn’t familiar with the myth, here’s a little background: in Greek
myth, Orpheus was essentially the world’s best poet, with an incredible gift
for poetry and music. When his true love, Eurydice, was taken to the
underworld, he journeyed after her. He enchants the king of the underworld,
Hades, with his poetry, and was then allowed to take his true love back to the
upper world with him—on the condition that he trust she was following him, and
not look back until they were out of the underworld. But, overcome with fear
and doubt that the untrustworthy King of the Underworld was tricking him, he
looked back just before they reached the surface, and she was lost to him
forever. So, obviously, Christian is the Orpheus character, who journeys into
the underworld of the Moulin Rouge (and, just in case you miss the fact that
the Moulin Rouge is an underworld, there’s several references to it as such),
and finds his true love, Satine, and enchants Zidler, the king of the
underworld, who gives him the job writing the show for the Moulin Rouge. Here,
though, instead of the failing of doubt, he succumbs to the failing of
jealousy. Satine dies, and he eventually emerges from the underworld older and
wiser. There is a reference to the looking-back at the very end of the film,
where Christian is leading Satine offstage, and he looks back as she starts
gasping for breath. Now, aside from Greek myth, the under-and-upper worlds here
also have to do with Nietzsche’s theories in The Birth of Tragedy. (Please stay with me here, I’ll try to make
it interesting, and it won’t get too technical since I haven’t actually read
the book myself) The theory here goes that there’s the upper, or Apollonian,
world of control and order (intriguingly, in Greek myth, Apollo is also the
father of Orpheus—coincidence? I think not)—in Moulin Rouge, this is the world Christian has escaped from, and the
world the Duke represents; and the under, or Dionysian, world of lack of
control (Dionysius is also the Greek god of drinking and orgies, etc.)—this is
the chaotic world of the Moulin Rouge, where freedom rules and anything goes.
These fit in perfectly with the construction of Moulin Rouge, and I’m sure if I actually read the book, there’d be
even more that would apply. As well, the Dionysian underworld is associated
with creative inspiration, so it’s no coincidence that Christian comes up with
such brilliant poetry while he’s at the Moulin Rouge! Also, as regards Satine,
when she first enters, she descends from the ceiling singing “Diamonds”; later,
this is reversed, when she rises from beneath the stage in “Spectacular Spectacular”, singing an ironic version of “Diamonds”.
v
Fantasies: Everyone’s behaviour in Moulin
Rouge is driven in large part by their desire to achieve a personal
fantasy. Before Christian comes along, these fantasies mesh nicely: Satine’s
fantasy is to be a real actress, Zidler’s fantasy is to turn the Moulin Rouge
into a theatre with a smash-hit show, the Bohemians’ fantasy is to write the
write the world’s first bohemian revolutionary show, and the Duke’s fantasy is
to have a love affair with Satine, for the privilege of which he is willing to
invest in the show. But with everything going so well, there’s no conflict, and
you need conflict in a film, so along comes Christian, a self-styled penniless
poet with a perfectly idealised conception of love that immediately clashes
with the mercenary world of the Moulin Rouge. In fact, before the film is over,
his fantasy of love will have overturned the fantasy of money, and destroyed
the underworld in the process. He has turned his back on the main thing (money)
occupying everyone’s thoughts at the Moulin Rouge, and his fantasy, to fall in
love, upsets everyone else’s. When Satine falls in love with Christian, she
ignores the Duke, who threatens to leave with the deeds to the Moulin Rouge,
leaving Zidler without a business and the Bohemians without a show. Zidler only
convinces him to stay by feeding the Duke’s fantasy of Satine being in love
with him (and a virgin). The Duke falls for it because that’s what he wants to
believe, also a large part of the reason he is blind to being duped for so
long. Zidler exploits the Duke’s fantasy just as the Duke exploited Zidler’s to
get to Satine, etc. The arena where all these fantasies are played out is, of
course, where everyone’s fantasies are played out, popular entertainment.
Christian makes the plot of “Spectacular Spectacular”
play out as his fantasy of his relationship with Satine, and they use the play
as a means to conduct their love affair right under the Duke’s eyes, right from
the time Christian thinks up the plot until the play ends his way. Once the
Duke figures out what’s going on, however, he demands to see his fantasy played
out onstage, not Christian and Satine’s. But, over the course of the film,
Christian has won over not just Satine with his fantasy of love over money, but
most everyone else as well, and the Duke gets shut out in favour of ‘the
greatest thing’. After the triumph of the fantasy, though, real-life rudely
interrupts when Satine dies. That wasn’t part of the fantasy, that wasn’t how
anyone’s version of the play ended, but it happened anyway. The characters
themselves are in essence fantasy constructs too, their archetypal nature
evident in that they can be boiled down to a description: ‘the Penniless Poet’
or ‘the Courtesan’; in fact, we never learn some of the characters’ names at
all, they’re simply ‘the Duke’ (and all the more evil for it) or ‘the
Unconscious Argentinean’. Christian’s idealistic penniless poet could have
stepped straight from a novel; Satine, the quintessential hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold,
the most beautiful courtesan in all Paris, and dying from consumption (the
ultimate malady for 19th Century Parisian courtesans), is the
embodiment of (seemingly) unattainable courtesan perfection, perched atop her
trapeze; Zidler, in his ring-master’s outfit, is the consummate showman; and
the Duke, with his moustache just right for twirling as he concocts his evil
plans to separate the lovers, is right out of a Victorian melodrama (&
extra points for his pitch-perfect sneer at ‘love’ in “The Pitch”). Together,
Satine and Christian, with their passionate but ultimately doomed affair,
embody the star-crossed lovers. These fantasy characters inhabit a fantasy
world, of rooms inside elephants, and lovers’ garrets with large red ‘L’Amour’ signs across the front. The lovers fall in love in
a fantasy dance-across-the-sky sequence, where the concerns of reality
completely fall by the wayside. Even the rain in this sequence is silver
confetti (in contrast to the real rain Christian stands in later, when his
fantasy is threatened), and to add to the fairy-tale-like quality, Christian is
accompanied by the Man in the Moon. This is emphasised later, with the Duke’s
comment, “let Zidler keep his fairy-tale ending”.
v
Miscellaneous:
o At the end, the “CWM” reprise
and “Coup d’Etat” sequence can be seen as sort of a
symbolic marriage for Satine and
Christian: she’s dressed in a wedding dress, for her role in the play, and they
come together in front of an audience to exchange the vows of “Come What May”,
then, the gun hits the Eiffel Tower and makes a sound like a bell, which could
either a) signal their ‘marriage’, or b) be a ‘the-bell-tolls-for-thee’ warning for Satine. (Bells can also be heard
in the distance during the “ELM”, and at several other points throughout.)
o During the rehearsals for
“Spectacular Spectacular”, Zidler is dressed like an
old-time
o There is a motif repeated
throughout in the décor of the Moulin Rouge of a woman riding a winged horse;
it often shows up when Satine has to choose between Christian and the Duke
(during “Diamonds”, it’s on the pillar that separates Christian and the Duke,
pointing towards the Duke; during “Gorecki” it’s
visible behind Satine; during “The Show…”, stagehands are raising a logo of a
windmill between two of these women on winged horses above the stage as Satine
steps onto it.)
o The Duke is shown in extreme
close-up when he’s at his most evil; this serves as a sort of subliminal signal
to the audience, as villains are more often shown in ECU than heroes.
o Another classic camera move
is, as the Duke realises about Satine and Christian, the camera slowly zooms in
towards his face, a sort of equivalent to the light-bulb-above-the-head.
o Like all classic tragedies, Moulin Rouge ends on an uplifting note
of hope for the future. Yes, Satine has died, but Christian has gone on,
journeyed out of the underworld, emerging older and wiser, having told their
story so it will live on forever.
o Did you notice how there
seemed to be
o When Christian, Satine, and
the Duke are in a room together, more often than not they are arranged in a
triangle, to emphasise the love triangle. This is especially noticeable in the
‘I Haven’t Quite Finished Writing that New Scene’ scene, where Christian and
the Duke’s heads are right next to each other in the same frame, as they both
look towards Satine.
o During the scene where
Christian and the Bohemians are first rehearsing the play, you can hear some of
“The Lonely Goatherd”, from The Sound of
Music as background score, which I think is hilariously perfect, since they
are performing “The Sound of Music”, Christian is dressed as a poet/goatherder, and he’s looking for love.
o When the Duke is talking to
Zidler at the rehearsal about how Satine is spending all her time with the
‘damned writer’, some stagehands walk by in the background with a backdrop of
an Indian building that has a rather
phallic-looking roof.
o Like most films, Moulin Rouge is divided up into 3 acts,
but unlike most films, the divisions are marked by songs. The end of the first
act, where everyone is introduced and the plot is set up, is marked by “Your
Song”, where Christian and Satine fall in love.
Then you get the second act, with them being in love, and the plot
builds. Then, for the third act, the beginning of which is marked by “The Show
Must Go On”, there’s the climax and the denouement, as the lovers are “pulled
apart by an evil plan, / but in the end she hears his song / and their love is
just too strong.” There’s a nice symmetry to these transitions, with the lovers
coming together at the end of the first act, and being pulled apart at the end
of the second, before finally coming together at the end of the third.
o Diamonds: Satine, the star of
the show is ‘the sparkling diamond’, the other girls at the Moulin Rouge are
the Diamond Dogs, and their erstwhile owner—and seller—, Zidler’s
first name is Harry—as in Winston.
o The kimono
v
Things to Ponder:
o When did Christian have time
to write the Duke’s ending for “Spectacular Spectacular”?
Obviously, that’s the Duke’s ending we’re seeing onstage, where the Evil
Maharajah is about to marry the Hindu Courtesan, but Christian wouldn’t have written
the ending that morning, since he and Satine were planning to leave, and later,
after Satine left him, he was in no shape to do any writing.
o How did Christian get his coat
back? He put it on Satine when she went to go pack; later on we see her put it
on when she’s leaving to go back to Christian, but she never makes it out of
the room. But, when Christian sneaks into the Moulin Rouge that night, he has
his coat back on.
o The contract between Zidler
and the Duke, which we see a couple times in close-up, looks as though it were
written on a computer, something they did not have in even this version of
1899. Why didn’t they just type it out on a typewriter?
o Why, when everyone speaks with
British accents, is all the written matter seen in French? Obviously, the
convention of everyone using British accents is used so that a) the audience
can understand, and b) the characters can understand each other (Christian and
the Duke are English, remember, while Satine,
o Why does Satine go to all the
trouble of getting laced into the red dress, then change into the
black-lingerie ensemble before going to meet the Duke in the Red Room, then
change back into the red dress after everyone’s left? While the costumes make
sense for the themes of the film (sex vs. romance, etc.), it makes for some
slightly confusing continuity.
v
Oops!
o When the Duke first appears in
the Red Room, Satine takes his hat and cane and sits with them on the bed. As
she sits down, his hat falls off the side of the bed. Yet, when we next see the
bed a couple minutes later, there are two top hats on it—Christian’s, from
earlier, and the Duke’s, which has apparently jumped back up there all by
itself!
o When Satine faints after “Gorecki”, she is wearing a different dress than when she
started singing.
o In the ‘Contract’ scene with
the Duke and Zidler, the Duke’s hair fluctuates between two slightly different
styles.
This story is
about truth, beauty, freedom, but above all, love…This story
is about truth, beauty, freedom, but above all, love…