The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 192 Days to go: 197
Movie #185: Moulin Rouge!
If you’re looking for a movie that’s wildly theatrical, over the top and amazing, director Baz Luhrmann is the gold standard. It’s his signature style and I don’t know anyone who does it better. His films are glorious spectacles — feasts for the eyes. Though not my favorite of his films, Moulin Rouge! is the best, most shining example of this .
Set in 1899 Paris and the “Bohemian revolution,” a young writer named Christian (Ewan McGregor) happens into an opportunity to pen the show “Spectacular, Spectacular” for production at the Moulin Rouge club. Championed by Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo), he goes there one evening to win over the star, a courtesan named Satine (Nicole Kidman), with his poetry so she will approve of him taking over the show’s script. Meanwhile, Satine is being encouraged by her manager Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent, being amazing and virtually unrecognizable) to quote-unquote entertain a Duke in attendance that evening (Richard Roxburgh) to get him to invest in the show. Naturally, Satine mistakes Christian for the Duke and attempts to seduce him, but his earnest adoration (and impeccable singing of modern tunes) captivates her and she falls for him. Unlike a lot of those mistaken identity stories, this misunderstanding is rectified almost immediately and the real tension of the film comes from Satine trying to hide her growing love for Christian from the Duke while also stringing the Duke along so as not to jeopardize the show or the club. Also, she’s dying. (Any woman who coughs roughly in the first act of an old-timey story, must die of consumption in the third. It’s Chekov’s tuberculosis.)
The real draw, though, and the thing that sets Moulin Rouge! truly apart, are the musical performances to popular songs from the twentieth century. Satine does a mash-up of “Material Girl” and its reel world inspiration “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” while Madonna gets another nod as Zidler knocks out a great cover of “Like a Virgin.” Elton John’s “Your Song” gets to play very large in the plot, meanwhile, and The Police’s “Roxanne” is featured nicely. The rest of the songs are incredible medleys, from “Zidler’s Rap” featuring “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and a modernized “Lady Marmalade,” to a show-stopper on top of Satine’s elephant that brings together nearly every iconic love song it can think of (by everyone from The Beatles to U2 to Dolly Parton) as part of a unique call and response.
The original music is great, too, though, and the marquee song, “Come What May” lives up to every expectation. It’s a powerful, anthemic, soaring love song that builds passion and hope in equal measure. The ridiculous rules technicality that kept it from Oscar eligibility is just another reason the Best Original Song category needs a serious revamp (not that I begrudge Randy Newman winning his first Oscar, but come on). As far as I’m concerned that was the best original song in a movie that year.
I know a lot of people who shirk Moulin Rouge! because of its crazy, flamboyant, musical nature, and if that’s not typically your thing, fine. I get it. But I think Moulin Rouge! is the type of film that’s surprisingly, unexpectedly enjoyable for those who go in not really into it, and incredibly fabulous for everyone already predisposed to like it. So it’s a win-win. What more can you ask for? Kylie Minogue as an absinthe fairy hallucination? Done!
Viable Option 