Everything is connected... and Moulin Rouge
Date published: June 5, 2001
I just returned from watching the movie Moulin Rouge at the theater. What a great film! Before explaining why I think that, I have to explain what kinds of things I enjoy.
It seems that all the things that I enjoy are connected in some way or anything. For example, let's start with David Lynch. I am a huge fan of David Lynch and his quirky, dark, "not as they seems" worlds that he creates in his films. David Bowie, who is one of my favorite musical artists, was involved in 2 Lynch projects (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Lost Highway). Bowie sang a song with Queen that he later sang by Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics. It was also falsely rumored that Bowie was the singing voice for Rocky in the overtly sexual musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show written by Richard O'Brien. Richard O'Brien also starred in the movie Dark City which was about a dark, quirky, "not as it seems" world.
I'm a big fan of every movie and/or person that I just mentioned. See how it's all related? Let's keep going...
Dark City and The Matrix are not only similar in plot but both take place in "not as they seem" worlds. Starring in Dark City, Jennifer Connelly was also in the movie Labyrinth with David Bowie (which I might add has musical qualities to it). I really could go on forever connecting things. Everything I like can be related to each other. Were I to continue, I would probably next tie in Robbie Williams, Jude Law, the film Gattaca, Oscar Wilde, Stevie Nicks, Edgar Allen Poe, my fondness of puzzles, and Lewis Carroll.
Anyway back to the movie Moulin Rouge...
This movie fits nicely into my little group of related things. I think that's why I love it so much...it's just amazing. The film has versions of songs by David Bowie, Queen, Sting, Madonna, and the female glam rock trio Labelle (referring to the song Lady Marmalade here, which was later sung by Cyndi Lauper, who also covered a song by Fleetwood Mac, of which Stevie Nicks was a member...see how everything relates!). Moulin Rouge is also an overtly sexual musical, just like Rocky Horror, though not as perverse. Like Rocky Horror though. Also Bowie sings the first and last song on the soundtrack to this movie, just like in Lost Highway.
The movie itself is amazing in it's use of color and style. In parts it is almost as if the movie is a slightly darker, moving version of Pierre Auguste Renoir's "Le Moulin de la Galette," "Les Parapluies," or "Le Dejeuner des Canotiers."
The whole film is done in a style similar to that of Georges Méliès's Le Voyage dans la Lune from 1902 in it's use of layers and blending of them with live footage. The style of this film was also mimicked in the video for "Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins. It is hard to explain this visual style but the Computer Graphics in Moulin Rouge duplicated it well. It even has the talking face on the moon like in Le Voyage dans la Lune.
There is also a small camera shot that is almost identical to one in the film Citizen Kane from 1941, which like Le Voyage dans la Lune was ground breaking at the time for it's use of special effects. The movie also seems to blur the line between a cinematic movie and a theatrical one. Much of the movie takes place on a stage (theatrical) but it also goes in for many extreme close-ups and point of view shots (both cinematic). In Moulin Rouge, the beautiful special effects, amazing editing, and the energetic, flashy, joyful characters all come together to create a wonderful fantasy atmosphere of France in 1899. The imagination and fantasy that is lacking in many of the high budget films lately is abundant in this film, in a way similar to that in Terry Gilliam's version of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
Did you know that the Moulin Rouge is an actual place in France? It is true, and the short bohemian Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (only billed as Toulouse Lautrec in this film) was an actual man who frequented the Moulin Rouge in the late 1800s. Some of his most famous painting were even called "Le Moulin Rouge," "Moulin Rouge/La Goulue," and "Au Moulin Rouge La Danse" also known as "Dressage des Nouvelles par Valentin le Desosse."
I noticed that another movie named Moulin Rouge was made in 1952. This movie also has the Toulouse character (billed as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec this time) and many other similar characters. It seems that the 1952 movie focuses more on Toulouse, where as the Moulin Rouge of 2001 focused on a writer and one of the courtesans who works at the Moulin Rouge. It is however amazing how much of the movie (at least the one from 2001) is grounded in truth, in terms of the dancers at the Moulin Rouge and the building itself.