Are You With Us?: Moulin Rouge!
By Ryan Mazie
May 13, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
A better fit for 3-D and musical numbers compared to Gatsby, Rouge! is an interesting jukebox musical that has high-kicking show girls from 1900s Paris dancing to ‘80/90s pop numbers. Almost Bollywood-esque, Moulin Rouge! is an extravagant romance that is viscerally driven, yet has enough story structure to keep things entertaining throughout the two hour runtime.
Co-written by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce (a script collaborator with the director on Gatsby and Romeo + Juliet), the Paris-set musical stars Nicole Kidman as club starlet, Satine. Drawing the attention of all the patrons, Satine falls for a visiting English writer (played by Ewan McGregor), while a Duke (a delightfully villainous Richard Roxburgh) is determined to have the bombshell for himself, starting a love triangle that questions whether romance can trump riches.
Love it or hate it, Moulin Rouge! is a film that is made entirely out of bold, loud decisions. There is even an exclamation mark in the title! And it is certainly earned. I fell into the “love it” camp. A historically inaccurate fantasy that blends the old with the new in uneven amounts, Moulin has that enigmatic magic to it that makes everything click.
After watching Gatsby, I wished that Baz Luhrmann was an art director rather than a filmmaker; however, with the right material, his films can fly off the screen (even without the aid of clunky polarized glasses). With the camera moving around the 19th century club quicker than one of the cars in Fast & Furious 6, there is still a semblance of space, balance, and action. Kinetic and exciting, the dance numbers are brilliantly filmed while the style is taken down a notch for the more intimate scenes. Still, the splashy colors and sparkling diamonds are a constant. In fact, up to the film’s release, Nicole Kidman’s diamond necklace was the most expensive piece of jewelry commissioned for a film, valued at a million dollars.
Kidman does not let the diamonds overpower her shine, slaying her song-and-dance numbers just as well as her dramatic scenes. The role gave her the first Academy Award nomination of her career. The two have an instant chemistry that takes the film to another level. The two nail their performance just right - a bit extreme to match the film’s loud tone, yet dialed down enough to not become Broadway-esque.
The film landed itself eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but only won for Art Direction and Costume Design. However, the film’s lack of nominations for Luhrmann’s directing and writing was considered a major snub that year (it’s not like the film wrote and directed itself).
Moulin did not receive any accolades for one of its best aspects – the music. By and large all covers of hit songs (Nirvana, Madonna, Fatboy Slim, The Police, Queen), the film did not have any eligibility outside of one or two original numbers that were not as powerful as the pop hit re-dos. However, the soundtrack sold like gangbusters and produced the Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit “Lady Marmalade.” Sung by Christina Aguilera, P!nk, Mya, Lil’ Kim, and Missy Elliot, the Patti LaBelle cover spent five weeks on the top of the chart, helping build buzz for the flick, being released almost two months prior to the movie.
Brimming with originality and zest, the reviews for the film were either fantastic or dreadful. More critics fell in the former category, giving the film a 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (although the score drops 10% among top critics). The reviews focused largely on the unique visual style that would fit right in with filmmaking today. Some described it as “giddy” while others saw it as “soulless”.
Released by Fox, it seems as if they didn’t know if they had a prestige film or a blockbuster on their hands. The answer is both. Released on May 18th, the film premiered in only two theaters (one on both coasts). While this strategy is fine during the wintery months for award season, it is an odd move for a $50 million, highly promoted summer film. With a blazing hot per-theater average of nearly $100,000, the film did not expand until June 1st to over 2,000 theaters. Unfortunately, the film did not pop in as big of a way as the glitzy dance numbers. With an opening weekend of $13.7 million, Moulin Rouge! cancan-ed its way to an OK $57.4 million ($80.7 million today) or about as much as The Great Gatsby made in just its opening weekend. More than double of that amount was made from overseas revenues, with McGregor’s and Kidman’s home countries of England and Australia contributing the most.
With the cancan put to an almost rave-like pace, Moulin Rouge! is audacious in the best sense of the word. The film’s rapid velocity took a toll on star Nicole Kidman who left the production with fractured ribs, resulting in her dropping out of the thriller Panic Room (Jodie Foster took her place).
I admired the film’s controlled chaos. Luhrmann’s style is perfectly suited for material like this and I will be surprised if he can make another film just as good as this one. An exciting example of filmmaking that still feels fresh today, Moulin Rouge! extracts what made musicals classic for older generations and then coats those elements with an MTV-glaze.
Moulin Rouge! shines bright - not only because of its diamond encrusted outside, but also from its big heart that never catches a breath.
Verdict: With Us
9 out of 10