Tuesday, 15 May 2001

BLOODY, PINK & RED:  It took three screenings for me to fall in love with Moulin Rouge.  But it happened. 

When I first saw the film, it was in a packed, small screening room, full of junketeers.  I walked in about a minute late, but somehow, through the entire film, I never quite felt like I caught up.  But that’s a part of what is so interesting about this movie.  It’s not like Eyes Wide Shut, where it took me three screenings before I really started to decode the thing enough to feel like it made sense.  It was more like watching Richard Pryor for the first time.  Like many, I was not really able to get past all the language and to hear what Pryor was actually saying.  In time, my ear adjusted and the genius shone through. 

The density with which Baz Luhrmann starts Moulin Rouge is pretty overwhelming.  The musical numbers are packed with sound and image with the camera zooming around like a hyperactive puppy.  And the comedic scenes early in the film are far more reminiscent of Richard Lester, combined with Looney Tunes than anything else.  Watching the film, I kept on waiting for it to slow down and breath.  And when it did, it improved a lot.  But it didn’t slow often enough for me.  If I had reviewed Moulin Rouge that night, I would have said, mixed review, leaning towards negative.

The second time I saw Moulin Rouge – the next night – the whole experience started to feel like it was happening at a speed where I could appreciate the journey.  Where the first viewing felt like a non-stop operetta, styles and tones flying all over the place, his viewing suddenly felt like it was a three act movie with musical numbers that stood on their own.  With some sense of the structure, I could enjoy the anticipation of certain moments, much as I do with my favorite musicals.  Also, little things that I found irritating the first time, like the thick-tongued performance by John Leguizamo as Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, started to become comfortable. 

The third time I saw Moulin Rouge was, finally, in a real theater.  Musicals, like comedy, play a lot different with a large, live, breathing audience… even a Hollywood audience.  From the opening orchestration to the final crescendo, this audience was with this movie, much to my amazement.  They laughed when they were supposed to, didn’t deride the emotionality of much of the film and even broke out in applause two or three times.  But my favorite thing, as someone who knew what was coming, was to hear that initial nervous titter as the audience recognized the lyric to the many familiar songs that are used… and then to watch them taken someplace they absolutely never expected to go.  Saturday Night Live has already made fun of the film for using songs from the 70s and 80s, but the reason it ends up working so well is that Luhrmann really USES the songs.  This is not a movie with a hip soundtrack.  This is a soundtrack that manages to make songs like “Up Where We Belong” and “Silly Love Songs” and “The Sound of Music” hip in a way they never really were.

After the first screening, I wrote off any Oscar plans for this film.  And it still has commercial hurdles to overcome before the idea of supporting an Oscar run for Moulin Rouge becomes legit.  However, Jim Broadbent emerges with two major musical numbers and a powerful, growling, earthy performance as the film’s one real even-if-it-tanked Oscar contender.  And after seeing the film the third time, with an audience, I started to believe that Moulin Rouge could well become a phenomenon.  You have never seen this movie before.  You have seen the movies it echoes.  But you’ve never seen this.

Now, notes for the squeamish.  This is an emotional movie.  This is a silly movie.  This is a visual feast so dense that you may have a hard time finding the sweet creamy center.  If you need a Moulin Rouge training period, rent Vincente Minnelli’s The Pirate, Julian Temple’s Absolute Beginners and Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night.  Watch all three at the same time.  If you don’t pass out, you’re ready.

Yes, I loved Moulin Rouge.  And as it came near the end of screening number three, I thought to myself, “I wonder if Fox has anymore screenings this week?”  Because I would go again… this week… after seeing it three nights in a row… and I’d go happily. 

MORE CHRISTY:  I didn’t know about it when I wrote Monday’s column, citing Bernie Weinraub’s coverage of the George Christy bloodbath at The Hollywood Reporter, but the L.A. Times’ David Shaw, who wrote the five-parter on Hollywood and the media a few months ago, also had a piece on this subject on Monday.  He was not quite as forgiving of Christy’s old-school ways.  But you can read it for yourself, but clicking here.

JUST WONDERING:  If you loved Croupier and are digging Memento, have you gone out of your way to see John Boorman’s great 1998 release, The General?  You should. 

LILLYING THE GUILD:  I’ve felt a little lonely blasting the deal that the WGA took as marching in place.  So, I was pleased to see that Bruce Feirstein used his semi-regular spot in the New York Observer to blast away from his insider’s position.  Read the story here.

PAGE TWO:  Sharing, Caring, Herring