In preparation for the release of The Great Gatsby this weekend, and also at the suggestion of my friend Kelsey, I decided to watch Moulin Rouge! and get a feel for how director Baz Luhrmann does his stuff. It took me awhile to watch this film even though I am a theatre person, mostly because of who is in it. What I had known about the movie is that Nicole Kidman was in it, and I’m just not the biggest fan of hers, and I could not understand how she could have received an Oscar nomination for her role here. That was my thinking before I watched the movie. I am still a little confused about it, but I can see that if you are a fan of Baz and his style, you would fall in love with this movie. If you’re not, well, I can see the opposite. Somewhat unfortunately, I watched another review of Moulin Rouge! and so I can’t get some of the points of it out of my head, but then that also lets me realize that I agree and disagree with some of the points.
Moulin Rouge! is what you would call a “jukebox musical”, using a combination of popular songs and taking the words and themes of those songs, mixing it with the writing, and creating a story. Christian (Ewan McGregor, Big Fish) is a bohemian writer, full of the emotion that this whole movie revolves around: love. He is one of those “true artiste” types, and it shows by the way the movie is shot and designed as well (the cinematography is Oscar-nominated, the art direction and costume design won). The movie is basically shown in extremes. Christian is dark and brooding, and so are the shots, or everything is ultra-colorful and all over the place, so it takes some getting used to this style. In any case, I thought I was going to be turned off by this movie within the first ten minutes. The movie goes from slow to Roadrunner in the stroke of a typewriter key, as Christian narrates what exactly happens and then it literally just, well, happens. The camera hops from shot to shot, never hanging on one focal point for more than three seconds. This happens for long stretches of the movie as well, unless someone is singing. Whenever there is dancing or something wild and crazy, you can expect to get whiplash just following the action. But it is part of Luhrmann’s style, as I have been led to believe, so I wonder if the same will happen with Gatsby.
So like I said, Christian is all about love, and while he is writing a play, he happens about a lovely lady at a bordello named Satine (Nicole Kidman). She mistakes the penniless writer for a Duke, seducing him so that he will fund the Moulin Rouge and keep it open. So there is sort of a love-at-first-sight thing going on, coupled with one of those “I’m-talking-about-one-thing-but-you-think-I-am-talking-about-sex” scenes. In any case, it is stirring up feelings between the two, but the real Duke (Richard Roxburgh) doesn’t like other people touching his “things” so that creates an obstacle for Christian. But as is the case with these movies, love will overcome. It was like every song was about love, which is a fine theme for the movie, but then at other times there were other popular songs shoehorned in, such as “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. The songs were hit and miss for me, especially a miss if I’m talking about a rendition of “Roxanne” that is so overly dark, I felt like I was supposed to be intimidated by it, but I really wasn’t. But there were other songs that were good, so it wasn’t like I had to sit through a musical and roll my eyes every time they started singing. There are some other obstacles in the way too, but of course I won’t tell you them here.
You have come to known me as a spoiler-free blog, so let me draw a parallel between me and the movie. You probably wouldn’t like it if I spoiled a big plot thread even though I have little to nothing to do with the movie… Well, one of my issues with Moulin Rouge! was that, when it came to major plot points, sometimes a minor character (and I am talking minor character, as in we have seen this person ONCE before) is the one to spill the beans. Well that wasn’t very cool. It just confused me, since there seemed to be no motivation for this particular person to do anything about whatever it is that I am talking about. But all in all, this movie was… interesting. I don’t know if I would watch it again, but I’m glad I did. It was bizarre and manic, visually interesting… but the lead performances were (to me) just so-so. Maybe I just didn’t like the way that it seemed like everything was just… too easy. There were obstacles, but how do you combat true love? It makes the stakes pretty low in my opinion, but then again the movie is for the most part pretty optimistic. And at least the ending for a movie like this was appropriate, so I couldn’t be mad about that. It was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture (l. to A Beautiful Mind) and while I can say that I was not blown away as the Academy seemed to be, I can see if you are a fan of the medium, the director, the style, or musicals of this nature, it could really be a treat. A fine movie, and better than I expected, although it did take some getting used to.
P.S. The review I spoke of was by The Nostalgia Critic, and he does a good job explaining it. So after reading this, and if you want to watch a comical review (with special guest Brent “Brentalfloss” Black) go to http://www.thatguywiththeglasses.com and search for “Moulin Rouge”. And it is a “musical” review as well.
Michael Night's Miscellany 