Moulin Rouge! (2001 film)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 musical film, directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman. The story is told through flashbacks from the point of view of Christian James (McGregor), a young Englishman writing the story of his doomed affair with the star of the eponymous Parisian nightclub.

Flashback to 1899 where Christian, an earnest young poet, has left his Victorian London home and his overbearing father in order to live an intellectual life amongst the Bohemian revolutionaries of Paris's bawdy, colorful Montmartre district. Soon after his arrival, an unconscious Argentinean falls through his roof, quickly followed by a dwarf dressed as a nun...or, as he introduces himself, Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec Montfa, painter, actor, and Bohemian revolutionary extraordinaire. He, along with the Argentinean (narcoleptic, as it turns out) and the rest of their theatre troupe are in the flat above, rehearsing their musical spectacle which will, of course, revolutionize the artistic world as they know it—provided, of course, that they receive the patronage of Harold Zidler, owner of the Moulin Rouge, the hottest nightclub-slash-brothel in Paris. The Moulin is soon to be converted into a theater in order to launch a new career for Zidler's "Sparkling Diamond", Satine (Kidman), the club's highest-paid courtesan and star attraction. Zidler, in turn, is relying on the patronage of the odious Duke++ (Richard Roxburgh) whose only condition in signing away the fortune it will take to convert the Moulin into a theater is that Satine become his mistress. The Duke gets his courtesan, Zidler gets his theater, and Satine gets the acting career she's always dreamed of; it's a perfect set-up, which is why it will go horribly, inevitably wrong.

Christian wins over the Bohemians and—after their original librettist storms out in a jealous rage—is put in charge of writing the show, titled, deceptively simply, Spectacular Spectacular!. To celebrate, they take him out to the Moulin Rouge, on, as it happens, the same night of the Duke's introduction (and first scheduled rendezvous) with Satine. There is an interesting misunderstanding, but Christian's fundamental innocence and the power of his (well, Elton John's) words win her over, leaving her as starry-eyed with him as he is with her—until, of course, it is revealed that he isn't actually the Duke. As the months pass—as the Moulin becomes a theater and the show comes together—it becomes increasingly evident that their mutual attraction is too strong to ignore. However, the Duke is far less buffoonish than he appears, and if he is crossed, in love or otherwise, there's no telling what lengths he'll go to to keep the new lovers apart...

The film is a wild mishmash of genres, kinetic editing and atmosphere, often compared to a Music Video for its use of Jittercam. It is also composed almost exclusively of Cover Versions of songs, though most of them have been rewritten into new styles. Madonna's Like A Virgin becomes a Busby Berkeley Number, for instance, and the film contains only one song which the audience has never heard before (which, in fact, was originally intended for Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo+Juliet). It is also one of the most sustained examples of Mood Whiplash in recent history: the bleak Framing Device of Christian at his typewriter switches quickly into a vibrant, almost cartoonish comedy before the inevitable spiral towards the Bittersweet Ending/Downer Ending. Finally, it was the first musical to gain any sort of widespread popularity for a couple decades, and has helped launch the recent revival of the genre.

Not to be confused with the 1952 biopic about Toulouse-Lautrec.

Tropes used in Moulin Rouge! (2001 film) include:

Nini Legs-In-The-Air: "This ending's silly. Why would the courtesan go for the penniless writer? Whoops! I mean sitar player."

    • Nini's was of course intentional, but a few seconds later:

The Duke: Why shouldn't the courtesan go for the maharajah?
Christian: Because she doesn't love you! Him... him... she doesn't love...she doesn't love him...

[crushing his hat in his hands] "It's not that I'm a jealous man. I JUST DON'T LIKE OTHER PEOPLE TOUCHING MY THINGS!!!!"

While they are dancing -- Toulouse has promised Christian a "private" meeting with Satine, in order to show her the script, while Satine believes that he is the Duke
Christian: Toulouse said we could -- do it in private!
Satine: Did he?
Christian: (flustered) Yes, you know...a private...poetry reading.
Satine: Ohhhh, poetry. (coquettishly) Ooh, I love a little poetry after supper.
It is an innuendo that continues (one-sidedly) into the rendezvous itself.

I had come to write about [...] love. There was only one problem: I had never been in love! Luckily, right at that moment an unconscious Argentinean fell through my roof. He was quickly joined by a dwarf dressed as a nun.

  • Karma Houdini: Nini, who gives away Satine and Christian's affair.
    • Depending on how symbolic the climax to El Tango de Roxanne is, anyway.
  • Large Ham: The movie is (also) an endless ham parade, but Jim Broadbent and Richard Roxburgh take the whole cake. They even fight over it during the "Like A Virgin" number.
  • Leitmotif: Many. Satine's is "One Day I'll Fly Away", Christian's is "Nature Boy" (and "Your Song"). Love's theme is, naturally, "Come What May". And so on.
    • "Come What May" is also the theme of forgiveness and faith in love, not just love itself. It's mentioned by the characters themselves and that's why she sings it at the climax of the film, in order to beg for his forgiveness.
    • It could be argued that Satine and Christian have two leitmotifs or possibly even more than that. "Sparkling Diamonds" is the song that represents Satine's life as a courtesan and "Your Song" represents Christian's one-sided love. When it is sung in a duet in "Elephant Love Medley", it symbolizes Satine returning his love.
    • "El Tango de Roxanne" is this for practically every major dramatic scene in the movie, whether you realize it or not. Next time you watch it, see if you can notice a faint tango rhythm underscoring some of the darker scenes.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: The Duke and Christian, and Satine are not told that Satine is dying of consumption.
  • The Lost Lenore: "The woman I love is... dead."
  • Magic Music: "Your song" made Satine fall in love with Christian.
  • The Man in the Moon: Appears during the 'Your Song' sequence and sings with the voice of Placido Domingo.
  • Mating Dance: Done beautifully with El Tango de Roxanne.
  • Meaningful Name: My bodyguard name is Warner. You've been warned!
  • Melodrama: Done spectacularly right.
  • Mood Lighting + Deliberately Monochrome: The beginning of the movie is in black and white. When the comedy starts, the colors are brilliant and the lighting is bright. When the drama begins, the main colors are black and white (to spoken and daylight scenes) and red and blue (for the musical and nighttime bits). After the "Hindi Sad Diamonds" it comes again brightly colored until the end of "Come What May (finale)" when goes again all black, white, red and blue. Finally, it ends, with normal daylight colors.
  • Mood Whiplash: The movie starts out Crapsack World, goes straight into Lightheartedly Cartoonish once the flashbacks start, and thereafter is a slow decline into its Downer Ending finale.
    • The songs rearranging are always whimsical or loving... right up to El Tango de Roxanne, which begins with laughs before developing overtones of real violence (Nini appears to be in pain when the Argentinian grabs her), and ends with the Argentinian miming slitting her throat.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Ewan McGregor is in this, after all.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Nicole Kidman looks damn good in this one.
  • Mundane Made Awesome
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: How the Duke blackmails Zidler and Satine.
  • Mushroom Samba: The entire Absinthe sequence.
  • No Name Given: The Duke is only known only as...well, the Duke. We can see for a couple of frames (when Zidler is signing the deed to the Moulin Rouge) that he is officially Duke of Monroth and should be addressed as Your Grace or Monseigneur.
    • No names are ever given for the characters in the troupe's play; they are simply the Courtesan, the Penniless Sitar Player, and the Maharajah.
    • Word of God says his name on set was unofficially Count Von Groovy.
    • This also applies to many of the side characters—the Narcoleptic Argentinean and the Doctor (no, not that one) being prominent examples.
  • Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Except for Toulouse, none of the character's have a French accent. They all seem to speak the Queen's French.
  • Not So Harmless: The Duke.
  • Of Corsets Sexy: Satine's entire wardrobe operates on this trope.
  • One-Scene Wonder: One iconic element of this film was Kylie Minogue as the Green Fairy. Her scene lasted less than a minute.
    • El Tango De Roxanne is performed by 2, until then, background characters.
  • Parental Substitute: Zidler to Satine.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Most of Satine's "show" costumes, such as the 'Pink Diamonds' dress with the skirt made out of feathers. The same applies to the other can-can dancers.
  • Rape as Drama: The Duke attempts to force himself on Satine when she refuses to go through with the seduction at the Gothic Tower.
  • Rearrange the Song: The most impressive being El Tango De Roxanne, based on The Police's "Roxanne".
    • And Madonna's "Like a Virgin" done as a Gilbert and Sullivan number, complete with Busby Berkeley Number choreography.
      • And don't forget Queen's "The Show Must Go On", the opera version!
      • Hell, the movie rearranges ITS OWN SONG, "Come What May," from the soft, romantic love song to the more operatic, melodramatic clip of it the characters in Spectacular Spectacular sing.
  • Recycled in Space: Moulin Rouge is the Disney Acid Sequence remix of La Traviata.
    • Which itself is La Dame aux Camellias AS AN OPERA!
    • Moulin Rouge also has elements of La Boheme (Scènes de la vie de bohème AS AN OPERA!) and the Orpheus myth.
    • Not to exclude at all the fact that Spectacular Spectacular, and therefore the plot of the film itself, is obviously taken from an ancient Sanskrit play called The Little Clay Cart.
  • Refuge in Audacity: LOTS, particularly in the first act. It mellows out a bit after the big duet.
  • Refuge in Cool: Rule of Funny and Fun and Drama and Cool AND Romantic AND Sexy - I told you that this was heavy on Mood Whiplash.
  • Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Christian vs. The Duke.
  • Scenery Porn: It didn't win the Academy Awards for Art Direction for nothing! Luhrmann even said that when the Elephant Room set had to be dismantled after filming wrapped, it was really heartbreaking.
  • Showgirl Skirt: The "Pink Diamonds" dress.
  • The Show Must Go On: Despite love triangles, narcolepsy, assassins and consumption. Not to mention a cover of the Queen song.
  • Show Within a Show: "Spectacular Spectacular!"
    • If you follow the opening of the movie, it's really a movie depicting a stage performance of a movie about a man singing about a man writing the story of his involvement in a musical about a man whose involvement in a musical mirrors the writer's.
  • Sissy Villain: The Duke. Played straight until El Tango de Roxanne. Then we get the green-eyed version.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Starts off very idealistically, then slowly slides toward cynicism. It reaches Crapsack World levels when you realize their reconciliation DESTROYS the lives of EVERYONE we meet in the film (we know from the opening/ending that the Duke closes the Moulin Rouge).
    • Although, as someone pointed out, if you think about it, then you realize that while the characters' lives are ruined, the ideals that they constantly fought to promote throughout the movie and through the play (freedom, love, etc.) all live on and survive solely thanks to said reconciliation.
  • Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: The film could be considered the perfect representation of this scale because it begins Serious, goes Silly for a long time and then, the second act smashes onto Seriousness.
  • Slut Shaming: The rather infamous "I have paid for my whore!" scene from the end of the film.
  • Snow Means Death: It's snowing when Satine dies.
  • Standard Snippet: The Can-Can (or technically, "Galop Infernal" from "Orpheus in the Underworld") is parodied.
  • Starving Artist: All the Bohemians.
  • Suddenly Shouting: The Argentinian is prone to this, but Christian also does it once.
  • Tenor Boy: Christian.
    • This needs to be reinforced a little bit. Christian's highest note in the movie is a B♭4 (Elephant Love Medley, "We could be heroes..."). If Ewan McGregor produced it without electronic assistance, that puts him on a level with people like Luciano Pavarotti and Freddie Mercury.
  • Thematic Series: This movie forms The Red Curtain Trilogy along with Strictly Ballroom and William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. All films were directed by Lurhmann.
  • Triang Relations: Number 4. "A" is The Duke, "B" is Satine and "C" is Christian.
  • Upper Class Twit: The Duke—at least until he lets his mask slip. Shown off in hilarious fashion during Christian and Satine's duet love song "Come What May", when at the picnic he's flitting around in the background chasing a frog.
  • Victorian Novel Disease: Satine's tuberculosis.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: Christian.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: As monstrous as the Duke is, the betrayal he feels is very real.

You made me believe that you loved me.

  • Writers Suck: Christian comes across as a naive, hopeless romantic stumbling through a situation way over his head.
  • Yandere: The Duke.

Duke: Satine will be mine. It's not that I'm a jealous man! I JUST DON'T--LIKE--OTHER PEOPLE TOUCHING MY THINGS!!
(Beat)
Zidler: (Totally freaked out) I... understand... completely... Duke.

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