Richard Gere did all of his own dancing and singing, as did all the lead performers in Chicago.
I loved both MR and Chicago from the first moments of both movies. Chicago was wonderful to me because it was as if Bob Fosse was still alive - the music, the choreography were just so reminiscent of him that I had trouble remembering that he hadn’t directed it. Of course, the fact that it was his show to begin with and that the same composers who wrote Caberet wrote Chicago helped a lot.
Eve, it’s odd that you should have found the costumes anachronistic, because the costumer went to huge lengths to get not only period designs, but where possible, actual period garments and fabrics. Richard Gere’s suit was an actual suit from the twenties that happened to fit him very well, and (to my surprise) all of the costumes worn in the Cell Block Tango were taken directly from designs of the day.
As for MR, which if anything I loved even more than Chicago, pesch nailed it: it’s opera. Huge, melodramatic, overblown, grossly oversimplified, and through the music, somehow made intensely moving. And I loved Nicole Kidman (whom I had always found to be a rather cold, unsympathetic actress) in it. But in one of the interviews, she herself nailed one of the real appeals - she said something along of the lines of “Ewan would look at me, smile, start to sing, and I’d fall in love all over again.” MacGregor just projected enormous charm in the movie, and his smile can light up a room.
Do you get the idea that I watch the ‘special features’ of movies I enjoyed a lot? :
I’m going to assume that you’re aware that the music from The Pitch is the famous Can-Can from Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld (obviously the words are new). Unless you’re referring to something else, in which case never mind.
Well, I watched the extras this afternoon. I was kind of off-put that the green fairy didn’t appear for the “Your Song” sequence, but really enjoyed the behind-the-scenes info on Christians first visit to Moulin Rouge.
I asked my wife what she thought of it, and her response was rather touching. She said “I’m rather nuetral about it, but I’m really glad you did. I gotta tell you, I don’t think I could love a man who didn’t like those sort* of movies.” Awwwww. :sniff:
*Weepy romances, like English Patient, MR, even Titanic.
Don’t mind the threadjack… I pretty much started it, so that’s OK.
However, I gotta disagree. How else does the following stanza make any sense if he’s not talking about his partners’ eyes:
This unsurity (is that a word) in regards to the color of the eyes is causing him some irritation as he is composing the song, which he expresses prior to the above lyric:
You know, I’m going to have to back down from that. That was an assumption. I do not remember actually seeing Gere’s face and his feet going at the same time. You get his face and body moving around, then closeups of a pair of feet tap-tap-tapping. I’m still suspicious, but I admit I have no proof.
Oh, you should rent the special 2-DVD set with all the bonus features then, because it’s got a bunch of the costume sketches and photos of the finished pieces included! I had a lot of fun browsing through those. It’s especially good for the dance costumes, because the opening dance sequence is so high-paced that it’s difficult to catch the details of the different costumes. Those aren’t just generic can-can outfits, each one has a different theme. Some are easy to pick out at first viewing (the schoolgirl, the French maid), but others I had to look through the pictures to identify (the dominatrix, and the Scottish lass with a tartan skirt!).
I’m sure in the past a lot of people just through of her as “that tall Australian woman who’s married to Tom Cruise…she probably only gets to be in movies because of him.” Unfair but understandable, especially since some of her highest-profile work was in movies with Cruise. I don’t think I ever thought enough about Kidman before The Others to have a real opinion on her, but if pressed I’d probably have come out with something like that.
But after seeing The Others and then Moulin Rouge! I was convinced that Kidman was very talented and versatile, and that she just hadn’t been getting roles that showed off her abilities before. Maybe being Mrs. Cruise even hurt her in that regard. I have also read that she intentionally put her career on hold while their kids were young…reasonable enough, since I’m sure the family didn’t need the extra money!
Now that she’s doing such good work in a variety of films and is divorced from Cruise, I’m not sure why so many people still seem to have it in for her. I know a lot of people say she seems like an ice princess, but when I’ve seen Kidman on talk shows she always strikes me as a perfectly nice, warm woman…even a bit giggly!
I also thought her singing in Moulin Rouge! was lovely if a bit weak. Her voice is pleasant but not especially strong. Still, she was playing a consumptive, so perhaps the weakness is a virtue in this case.
Someone on these boards once posted something like “Ewan McGregor can sing…but he shouldn’t.” I enjoyed his performance, but I can see where such sentiments come from. Unlike Kidman he’s capable of really belting it out, and undoubtably benefited from the stage training he received as a young actor. From a purely musical standpoint his singing was sometimes a bit off, but I think from a musical movie perspective McGregor’s screen presence and charisma were enough to carry him through the rough spots.
It never grabbed me.
People who loved the movie don’t get that - but MR, never got me. And I love Strictly Ballroom, I love musical theater & opera, I love movie musicals. I will watch them over and over and over again. And I usually go for spectacle. But somehow or other, the combination of those actors, the pacing, the hyperstyling, the plot, the dialogue, the sometimes unfortunate choice of song (Though, Roxanne, if I’m remembering it correctly, was awesome), as a whole - I was deep into “I don’t care what happens to these people” territory very early on, and “die already” land long before she actually did.
I really wanted to like it, and I just didn’t.
I’ll probably watch it again, someday, but I’m in hurry to do so.
You might like it better a second time – for many peope I think it improves upon repeat viewing because you know what to expect and don’t feel like you’re being thrown from one thing to another. Then again, your opinion might not change at all. Like I said before, it’s possible to “get” this movie in the sense of understanding what it’s about and what it’s trying to do and still not actually like it. That comes down to personal taste, although I am a little surprised that a Strictly Ballroom, opera, and musical fan wouldn’t like Moulin Rouge!
Like you, a lot of people who didn’t like Moulin Rouge! mention unfortunate, inappropriate, or out-of-context song choices, and that’s a complaint I’ve never been able to understand. I thought “Heroes” failed to blend well with the rest of the big love medley, but other than that I felt all the music was perfectly chosen. But again, this is an individual thing. I think a lot of it depends on what sort of personal association people have with the songs that were used. For instance, I know a lot of people my age were downright furious about the use of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I was never a Nirvana fan, so it didn’t bother me to have the song reduced to the literal meaning of two of its lines. However, I can see how it might be upsetting or annoying for those to whom the song meant a lot more than just “Here we are now, entertain us!”
I laughed the first time I saw it out of sheer shock. Things kept happening that I did not expect! A man falls through the ceiling! A dwarf dressed as a nun! Bohemian revolutionaries singing something as mainstream as “The Sound of Music!!” Green fairies! Old men singing Nirvana! A moon singing! Jim Broadbent singing “Like A Virgin” ?!?!? Tangoing to “Roxanne!” Bollywood! For me, every single minute was a WHOOSH of wonderfulness, surprise and delight. I still laugh, even though I know what’s coming. My face hurts sometimes when I watch it because I’m grinning like a madman so much.
I caught and respected the tragedy (of Toulouse-Lautrec, of Satine) the first time, but it didn’t really affect me emotionally until I’d seen it a couple of times. By then, I knew the characters better. Knowing who they are via the plot the first time is very different from knowing who they are from familiarity upon subsequent viewings. When Satine died the first time I thought oh how sad. When I watch it now, I feel it when Christian cries out in anguish.
Is there anything we can explain that might help you give the movie another chance? The plot is simple but there’s so much going on that I can understand confusion.
SPOILERS ahead for someone who hasn’t ever seen it.
The way the movie starts gives you a big clue as to how to approach the film. The stage, the conductor, the red curtains…this is a stylized play and you should throw everything you know and expect about movies away right at the beginning. Paris, 1900, a grief-stricken Christian in his apartment, sits down at his typewriter to tell the story of Satine, who is dead. “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” While the “present day” Moulin Rouge is shuttered, dark, and in mourning, Christian’s memory calls up flashes of color, costumes, Harold Zidler, and his memories of the first time he visited. And Satine, though only briefly, because the memory is too painful (that’s my take anyway).
He decides to start at the beginning, so the camera pulls back from the memory of the Moulin Rouge, pauses over Paris, then zooms in on the train station (with the ever-so-wonderful Rufus Wainwright singing). An idealistic young man steps off the train, fresh from the country and finally away from his strict and disapproving father. He rents a room in Montmartre overlooking the Moulin Rouge. He wants to write about Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and that which he believed in above all else, Love (though he hadn’t experienced love yet).
Just then (it starts to get weird)…an unconscious Argentinean falls through his roof and is quickly joined by a dwarf dressed as a nun. The dwarf is Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Henri, the Argentinean (who has narcolepsy, and is the lead actor), composer Eric Satie, the lyricist Audrey (played by David Wenham, who was Faramir in LOTR), and, um, someone else, are upstairs putting together a very modern play set in Switzerland called Spectacular Spectacular. It’s a musical commissioned by Zidler for the Moulin Rouge, but these guys fully intend to write the perfect bohemian revolutionary play they’ve always wanted to write.
They recruit Christian to step in temporarily for the sleeping Argentinean as the sensitive Swiss goat herder, and he comes up with the perfect bohemian revolutionary song (“The hills are alive, with the sound of music…”). They all love it (“incandiferous!”) except Audrey, and when Henri suggests that Audrey and Christian work together on the lyrics, Audrey quits the group in anger, so it’s all up to Christian. They work up a plan to pass Christian off as a famous English writer, meet Satine and impress her so that she would insist to Zidler that Christian write the story and lyrics. After some deep doubts about his ability to be a true bohemian revolutionary, Christian agrees to become the voice of the children of the revolution! (I have a huge grin just thinking about this stuff)
To celebrate (it gets even weirder), they drink Absinthe, a powerful hallucinogenic (at least, it is in the movie) that was/is known as The Green Fairy, which is a reference to its often dazzling green color. The boys take our naive, confused, higher than a kite/drunk out of his mind Christian to the Moulin Rouge to meet Satine. Here, it gets even weirder. This shy green boy from the country has never seen anything like this explosion of color and costumes and weird characters and music! There is, yes, a VERY good reason for the confusing quick edit cuts in this part. You’e seeing it with Christian’s eyes, as he is seeing it and being completely freaked out and awestruck ("'cause it’s good for your mind"). And then…ahhhhhhh
Satine. Lowered from the ceiling on a swing, in a dusting of glitter and smoke, Satine. The Sparkling Diamond.
Christian falls in love (just like every other straight man in the room) and is overwhelmed when Henri tells him that he’s arranged a meeting between Christian and Satine that night, totally alone. Meanwhile, Zidler has a possible investor lined up: the Duke. Zilder, not knowing about the arrangement between Henri and Satine, has also arranged a meeting between Satine and the Duke. Zidler tells Satine (during the number) about the Duke and she wants to know what he looks like. A misunderstanding makes her think that Christian is the Duke and…
…this leads to the hilarious sequence in the Elephant apartment where Satine lives, when she thinks he wants to have sex with her (she is, after all, a prostitute) and they’re not at all on the same page as to what’s going on, until he starts singing. I feel badly for those who don’t like the “Your Song” scene, because that’s the key to everything. Satine quits being an actress/courtesan and becomes a human being. The artifice is stripped away and she stares at Christian in surprise and awe. He starts out singing just trying to impress upon Satine that he does have talent enough to write the show, but as the two start to meld, he’s pouring his heart out and writing the song on the spot, for her. They’re falling in love right before your eyes. It’s breathtaking.
But then, sigh, Satine finds out he’s not a Duke after all, just another of Toulouse’s oh-so-talented, charmingly bohemian, tragically impoverished proteges (I love how the music grinds to a halt when she realizes). It’s not that she’s shallow, really, it’s just that she’s been dirt poor and hates being dirt poor and doesn’t want to be dirt poor ever again. Plus, she has important plans, to leave the Moulin Rouge, to be a real actress, like her idol Sarah Bernhardt. Poor writers don’t figure into it. Rich Dukes do.
To make a longer but simple story short, Satine can’t help herself and falls for Christian anyway (“love lifts us up where we belong…” I despised that song before the movie, now I associate that line with Christian and Satine. Same thing with “I-yi will always love you” when the background bursts into a million pieces and the camera starts twirling around them. That’s my favorite bit in the whole movie. The moon sings, fireworks explode, “you’re gonna be bad for business, I can tell”). She must hide her love from the Duke though, because in exchange for financing Spectacular Spectacular, he wants Satine all for himself, and he holds the deed to the Moulin Rouge for collateral. They carry on their affair in secret while rehearsals are going on, (the play, by the way, was changed in the Pitch to the Duke, and becomes a story about a penniless Sitar player who falls in love with the most beautiful courtesan in the world, but they have to hide their love from the evil maharajah the courtesan is bound to marry - the play is mirroring the real life story - play very close attention to the Pitch in the Elephant: “and in the end should someone die?” and Satine and Christian’s private rehearsals: “thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love!”), until the Duke realizes what’s happening and tries to put a stop to it.
Christian writes “Come What May” as a song to put in the show that is actually a secret song of their love, so that no matter how bad things get or whatever happens, whenever Satine hears it or sings it, or whistles it or hums it, then she’ll know it means they love one another.
That’s not the end, but that’s all I’m going to write, mainly because I have to leave. I would like to add much more, but if you have any questions at all, please ask me or any of the lovely Moulin Rouge! lovers here.
I love this movie. It’s a pleasure just thinking about any one second of film, any one note of music.
Brief tangent here: I also despised the famous Officer and a Gentleman version of “Up Where We Belong”, but if you listen to Buffy Sainte Marie’s version (she’s the original songwriter) it’s very different and IMHO quite lovely. She performs it in a very simple, stripped down way, so it’s also very different from the Moulin Rouge! treatment.
I like the movie up until this part- and then it fizzles out for me. I havent seen the ending either. I get as far as the Roxanne tango scene and thats about it. But I still claim to like the movie and I liked Chicago as well.
So much of what is good about Moulin Rouge! is negated by that godawful frenetic pace. It’s insulting to the audience (“You have a neglible, MTV-addled attention span, and can’t be expected to sit still for any shot longer than five seconds”), and it’s unfair to the actors to have their performances shredded up into tiny bits. The director should have realized that each scene should dictate its own style and pace, and let the editing flow organically from the material.
I like how The New Yorker critic described the movie: Vincente Minnelli on LSD, Ken Russell at twice the speed.
But the Elephant Love Song Medley almost makes it all worthwhile.
FARAMIR was in Moulin Rouge?? It really has been too long since I’ve watched it. Mmm, David Wenham. Oh, sorry.
Anyhow, I fall into the Liked Chicago/Loved loved loved Moulin Rouge camp. Beautiful cinematography, Nicole Kidman was stunning, Ewan McGregor was gorgeous and charming. I just love everyone in this movie so much. I actually had to watch it a couple of times to completely see what was going on- the first time is just overwhelming. Some of my thoughts on different moments in the film:
I definitely think that the “Your Song” sequence is the defining moment for the audience. If you can’t lose yourself there and enjoy the rest of the ride, you probably won’t enjoy the movie that much.
“El Tango de Roxanne” Haunting and brilliantly done.
I’m suprised I haven’t seen much mention of “The Show Must Go On”, which is one of my(admittedly many) favorite sequences in the movie, when Satine prepares for her most challenging role- convincing Christian than she doesn’t love him. “I’ll top the bill/I’ll overkill/I have to find the will to carry on…” Heartbreaking.
A moment I just love, towards the end: When Christian and Satine have reunited onstage, and the Duke, mad with jealousy, charges towards them with a gun, and is intercepted at the last minute by Zidler, who punches him out. It gives me that ole “HELL yeah” feeling.
VH1 played Moulin Rouge awhile back, and they cut the friggin’ ending! Satine dies in Christian’s arms, cut to commercial, end credits. The hell? Completely cut out Christian’s reaction to her death(wonderful acting by McGregor there), and a great shot going up the rafters, where we see the audience, still applauding, with no idea of what just transpired backstage. I understand editing for time and all, but come on.
And remember folks “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
