Moulin Rouge: A Film Rollin’ on Ecstasy (John David West)

Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film Moulin Rouge tells the story of a young writer, Christian (Ewan McGregor), who moves to Paris in search of bohemian ideals of truth, beauty, freedom, and love.  He soon meets a theater group, which includes Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo). They are putting together a play to present to the owner of the Moulin Rouge.  He helps them complete the play, which they call “Spectacular! Spectacular!”  They take Christian to the Moulin Rouge where he meets Satine (Nicole Kidman), a courtesan and a dancer.  The story is a basic boy meets girl: he’s privileged, innocent, and in search of a dream; she’s poor, corrupt, but has a heart of gold. Hollywood loves a hooker with a heart of gold. It’s been told countless times, however, through the Lurhman’s slant storytelling the film is visually dazzling, and, indeed, dressed up as a “spectacular spectacular.”

The film begins with the look of a silent film in black and white, high above “1900” Paris.  We see the Eiffel Tower on the far left of the screen and Sacré-Coeur towering on top of Montmartre on the upper right. David Bowie’s “Nature Boy” is heard sung hauntingly in a melancholy tone by the Toulouse Lautrec character as we look out over the Paris skyline.  The camera, accompanied by the sound of gentle rushing air, rapidly zooms forward towards Montmartre and then rushes down to the streets, which are alive with busy pedestrians.  A priest stands on a corner across the street from a large gate in the shape of a Hellmouth. (The Hellmouth was used in medieval theater to dramatize the entrance to hell as the gaping mouth of a monster.)  The gate is topped with a sign that reads Montmartre.  The Hellmouth suggests that we are about to enter the hell of Montmartre, the underworld of Paris.  The camera slows down as the priest warns us not to enter: “. . . turn way from this village of sin,” his words are muted and distant. The camera speeds past the priest and up to the gate as if to deliberately disobey the priest’s warning. (The priest foreshadows the young man’s father who, in a later scene, tries to convince him not to go to Paris.)  Then the camera zooms across the street to three full-figured prostitutes, slowing down as we pass them, focusing on the third prostitute as she stares back at us.  This momentary pause on the prostitute shows us that these are the type of people we are interested in, that we are going to spend the next two hours with this element of society.  

After passing the prostitute, the camera speeds up and zigzags through the dark streets until we come to an young attractive, scruffy, long blond-haired man; he appears to be high. He is perhaps a drug addict or dealer.  Again we, the camera, seem to look at him as we pass.  As he notices us, he leans forward, stares back until his eyes drift up.  Once again, the camera slows down to observe this person of questionable moral character, showing us once more, that this is the type of person the story wants to explore.  Across the street from where he stands is an awning with the words Bar Absinthe.  Aside from the overlapping images indicating that the blond man is most likely intoxicated on absinthe, the bars name foreshadows events that will occur later, as several characters consume absinthe and hallucinate into a fantastical musical number that leads them into the Moulin Rouge.

After passing by the Bar Absinthe, the camera then rises above the street, turning a corner as it moves forward and up to the second story of a building, gliding past a large sign that reads L’Amor, as the camera moves the film rapidly shifts from the distant and monotonous black and white to a color.  The camera’s target is the window of the apartment building; it passes directly through the L’amor sign and in through the window, symbolically entering a love story through the L’amor sign.  Romance, however, is not found on the other side of the sign, but rather suffering.  This visual surprise is yet another image shift in the story.  In a dingy apartment, a young man, Christian, sits on the floor clutching a beer; he is distraught, unshaven and surrounded by empty bottles of booze.  Next, we see a series of quick cross fades: a dusty typewriter; Christian standing frozen before the typewriter, papers strewn across the floor; Christian still sitting in front of the typewriter; and finally Christian inserting a blank sheet of paper into the typewriter.  The next shot cuts to a close-up of the paper as he types the words: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” These are words from the song “Nature Boy.”  Finally, we hear the Christian speak for the first time in voice over: “The Moulin Rouge, a nightclub, a dance hall and a bordello . . .” and thus the introduction ends and the movie begins.      

Luhrmann states in the liner notes of the Special Edition DVD that “[the] whole stylistic premise has been to decode what the Moulin Rouge was to the audiences of 1899 and express that same thrill and excitement in a way to which contemporary movie-goers can relate.”  Luhrman uses well known pop songs.  He edits the film like a music video. This helps connect contemporary audiences (who might have been alienated by the film’s historic distance) with music that is current thus serving as a bridge between today and Paris in 1900.