Moulin Rouge! (2001) (2 Viewers)

[Ken_McAlinden]

Baz simply took a few well-worked themes and attempted to give them a fresh presentation to try and resurrect a dying cinematic genre and I think he succeeded spectacularly.

We can agree to disagree, but I thought Lars von Trier came closer to achieving this goal in 2000's "Dancer in the Dark" than Baz did with last year's "Moulin Rouge", and I am only mezzo-mezzo on "Dancer in the Dark".

I honestly like the "idea" of Moulin Rouge more than the actual film, and hope that Baz takes another more successful go at a modern musical.

Regards,

 

[Paul_D]

I turned it off after ten minutes.
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only kidding.

 

[Rob Willey]

...but I thought Lars von Trier came closer to achieving this goal in 2000's "Dancer in the Dark" than Baz did with last year's "Moulin Rouge", and I am only mezzo-mezzo on "Dancer in the Dark".

Interesting you should mention that, Ken. I was thinking about the parallels between the two films as I was typing my post.

Dancer in the Dark didn't really work for me, but I admire von Trier's attempt to do something new. Technically, there was some really intetresting stuff like the simultaneous use of dozens of cameras, but stylistic choices like the handheld shooting technique just annoyed me more than it contributed to the storytelling (IMO of course). I recognize this is the same reaction many had to Baz' use of frequent, rapid cuts. Different strokes....

Rob

 

[Vickie_M]

Quote:

I did. His cynical take on the film and Luhrmann's intentions, and especially the last line of the "review" are pretty disgusting. I felt like taking a shower after reading it. You're both ascribing Lars von Trier-like motives (manipulating the audience into feeling emotions that he thinks you're a fool to feel) to Luhrmann, and I think both of you are way off base. I don't know the inside of Luhrmann's head any more than you or Kauffman, but I've been a fan of Luhrmann since Strictly Ballroom and have read and watched dozens of interviews with him. I've listened to his audio commentarys and read/heard what his actors and collaborators have to say about him and their roles in his films. If there's one thing he's not, it's cynical and hateful and disrespectful towards his characters and audience.
(Aside, I love Lars von Trier and Dancer In The Dark. I'm still upset that Bjork wasn't nominated for Best Actress, though I realize why she wasn't)

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I'll go with Vickie on this one regarding Kauffman's review. Not content with putting words in someone's mouth, he puts thoughts and intents into the head of a man he does not know, and betrays his intent to push his own message. Nice. One of the most biased (and wrong) reviews I have ever read. I love Moulin Rouge, not because I am a cynic, but because I believe in romance, and I believe in song, and Luhrmann nails it, against the odds (to me).
I understand some people passionately DISLIKE Moulin Rouge, and I respect that. I passionately dislike The English Patient, but I respect it's very admirable qualities, and do not begrudge other people's joy in it.
As Vickie said, no one is right here. It's art, it's subjective
Take care,
Chuck

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

You're both ascribing Lars von Trier-like motives (manipulating the audience into feeling emotions that he thinks you're a fool to feel)

...and now your compounding the problem by suggesting that Von Trier really thinks we are fools for feeling the emotions he is trying to evoke.
Regards,

 

[Rich Malloy]

Aside, I love Lars von Trier and Dancer In The Dark. I'm still upset that Bjork wasn't nominated for Best Actress, though I realize why she wasn't...

I agree.
(Nothing else to say, just wanted to be more agreeable this morning!)

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

To sum up: On the one hand, 50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong. On the other hand, Milli Vanilli did win a Grammy and sometimes the emperor does indeed have no clothes.
Conclusion: Different strokes for different folks.
Regards,

 

[Rich Malloy]

Ok, one more thing...
IMO, there are many similarities between "MR" and "DitD", in terms of both being reflexively post-modern, both utilizing and deconstructing forms and genres, and both in some way trying to "reinvent" a classical narrative. "MR" can't claim the gravity and emotional weight of "DitD", but it was clearly going for a more frivolous (daresay superficial) spectacle. But I think the greatest similarity may be this question of what did the director intend?
Perhaps I wouldn't go as far as Kauffman in trying to devine the motives of Luhrman, but I don't think one can honestly deny that he's not always being sincere. Perhaps it's more akin to a knowing wink to the audience rather than hateful cynicism, but it has the effect of putting me at one-remove from the "reality" of the emotions portrayed. I don't really buy into them, and I don't think he expects me to.
"DitD", on the other hand, doesn't pull its punches. While it's meaning is multi-tiered, allowing for a self-reflexive subtext on the nature of cinema itself (it certainly can be no accident that a disease of vision compels the protagonist), it nonetheless packs an immediate whallop, a raw and visceral impact upon the viewer. It's a provocation in every sense, and one that subjects the viewer to every painful and violent betrayal experienced by Selma on her inexorable journey to the gallows. And that deliberate provocation makes some audiences uncomfortable to the point of anger and even disgust.
And I've been struggling to understand how it achieves its unique effect on the sympathetic viewer, how it feels simultaneously like a parable and a documentary, achieving a perfectly momentous tragic moment, utterly pure and apart from the strictures of 'reality', generalized and abstracted like Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, while still evoking the feel of a real event.
And I'm convinced it has everything to do with the way Lars works with his actors and other collaborators. It's his intent to provoke randomness, to create an atmosphere conducive to the mistake, the happy accident, the inelegant, clumsy perfection of the actual movements of life. In many ways, I think this is precisely what "MR" lacks... any sense of verisimilitude. And I don't mean "realism" in the traditional narrative sense, but rather emotional or psychological realism.
In "DitD", even the successive jump-cuts - the prevailing cinematic grammar in every scene but the musical sequences, and arguably analogous to the quick-cutting Luhrman employs - even these do not disrupt the impression that one is experiencing the actualness of time, the moment in which an event becomes reality in the way that every real moment is born. It lends an immediacy that turns us into eavesdroppers, with the unsettling awareness that we are voyeurs gawking at some impending tragedy that seems always just beneath the surface, constantly threatening to push its way through. And we are ashamed for just sitting there, gobsmacked and impotent, cringing at the inevitable, yet unable to lift a finger to stop it.
I never felt this level of suspense or foreboding or tragedy (or truth) in "MR". Or, indeed, any degree of these at all. But I'm led to understand that admirers of "MR" feel the same depth of tragedy for Satine's demise as I feel for Selma's. It is possible, certainly, that I'm simply not attuned to the Luhrman wavelength.
And I confess that, whatever I may make of Dancer in the Dark, I am yet unsure as to precisely what von Trier intended. Is it, in fact, a tragic melodrama with a subtext of cinematic and technical innovation that mirrors the action? Or is it a sly parody where nothing is to be taken too seriously as the frivolity of the Hollywood musical is incongruously grafted onto a tale of extraordinary violence and woe? Even as my eyes bleed tears, I can't help but wonder if maybe ol' Lars is having me on.
And perhaps this is a point that became so muddled and muddied in the process of creating the film as to be, at this stage, rather beside the point. (And perhaps this is true also of "MR".) As film is an inherently collaborative art, the process of creating adds elements never intended by the screenwriter or director. There is no doubt that this occurred to a remarkable degree in Dancer in the Dark, most notably in the character of Selma.
It's an interesting comparison, these two films, and I don't know exactly why I love the one and remain wholly unmoved by the other, though I've tried to lay out some possibilities. I remember defending "DitD" in the same way many of you defend "MR", and I can sympathize with you on this point. I felt that many were nit-picking wholly irrelevant details in their criticisms of "DitD", and I hope I'm not doing the same for "MR". It's a movie I wanted to love, that I anticipated and longed to see way before its release. I just knew it would appeal to me, and was quite disappointed when it didn't (though I held my criticisms until my second and third viewing on DVD).
Last year was a great one for musicals. But as much as I love "HEDWIG" and (to a lessor degree) "LAGAAN", I just can't seem to connect with MOULIN ROUGE. And since it certainly can be no defect of mine, I simply have to blame the movie!

 

[John Spencer]

I'm just gonna agree with Michael Perez' last post, and leave it at that.

 

[Joseph Young]

most of the film is edited normally

Statements like this can't be proven true any more than my own subjective opinion of the movie as a whole. If we want to establish a criteria for what constitutes 'normal editing' we might as well develop similar criteria for 'normal pacing,' 'normal script,' etc. You see where I'm going? Normal for that type of film? Normal for the types of films that you enjoy? Even if by normal editing you mean conventional editing, I must respectfully disagree.
I admire Moulin Rouge. So much about the picture appealed to me: the songs, the plot, and the imagery. Ewan McGregor was amazing.
I felt that aside from the 'heightened editing' during the Moulin Rouge introductory sequence (and select others) that the editing throughout the picture, by my count, was still frenetic in just about every scene.
This comes down to what each of us need personally in order to emotionally invest in a picture. It's a simple issue of subjective taste. I get frustrated when a director won't let me linger on a character or on an image for too long, it makes me feel like the subject matter is not being taken seriously and instead being put through a spin cycle. The slow, romantic lyrical scenes still felt like a series of panning reaction shots to me. It was frustrating for me to want to like a film so much, but to cringe every time a beautiful set-up shot was suddenly cut off and replaced with another similarly incomplete shot. This is what I saw throughout most of the picture, and perhaps I was watching a different film, but it's what I saw.
Listen, I consider this all friendly debate. I have no strong negative feelings about MR, but ever since the debacle that was Armageddon, I developed a neurosis and hyper awareness for quick cut editing.
Also, I love certain films that many people consider truly, truly bad, from the best and worst in Italian Horror to the film Magnolia (which many could argue used too many panning shots and was an over pretentious waste of celluloid). My point it, we all have opionions and views, they're all valuable, and bottom line: I wanted so much to like Moulin Rouge and am just disappointed that it didn't satisfy me.
Cheers and peace,
Joseph

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I found the editing in the opening through the "Can-Can" sequence to be entirely approporiate. The post Can-Can scenes in Satine's quarters leading up to the "Your Song" musical number featured what I considered to be the most offensively bad editing.

Regards,

 

[Kyle]

I usually don't chime in unless I really like something.
I wasn't planning on watching it until I read this thread. Musicals aren't my cup of tea. My wife and I watched it last night. I wasn't so sure about it when I heard The Sound of Music at the beginning.
(again not my cup of tea) It grew on me quickly. I was visually stunned by the vibrant colors. Even with my little 27" Sharp TV it had me zoned in until the end. It was predictable but entertaining for me at least. My wife fell asleep. She got bored with it right away. Me: Her:

 

[Roland G]

I am not a big fan of Baz..but i liked Romeo and Juliet for its style, but found Moulin Rouge to be very dull.

Now having watch disc 2 of my not so precious Moulin Rouge DVD. I kept asking myself if MOULIN ROUGE was ruined in the editing room.

When i watched the dance sequences and the original opening as a whole, i found it very surprising that they had a much more classical tone to them that remembered me of R+J.

The film feels much more "MTV" like. This film would have been way better if they didn`t chop up those great dance scenes.

This is a film i care about and a movie i wanted to be better.

It is a shame that is was ruined in the editing room (at least i suppose that is was ruined there.)

 

[Micheal]

It is a shame that is was ruined in the editing room (at least i suppose that is was ruined there.)

Of course that's your opinion. I loved it! I like it a little more each time I see it. IMHO

 

[Roland G]

I just get more angry everytime i see it
but of course that is only my opinion.

 

[Micheal]

Maybe you could stop watching it?
I know that I don't watch movies over and over again that I don't like...

 

[MartinTeller]

I love the movie, but the insanely manic editing really does detract from the experience.

 

[Gabe D]

I really like the insanely manic editing.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Time will eventually be the judge of this film's worthiness, but for now I just love it. Baz has breathed new life into a tired format. You guys might want to check out the brief interview with him in the current issue of Sound & Vision.