Moulin Rouge (2001 movie)

Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 musical film which tells the story of a young English poet and composer who falls in love with the star of the Moulin Rouge cabaret. It uses the colourful musical set of Montmartre, a district in Paris, France. The story is loosely based on that of the opera La Bohème, (specifically the poor artist and his dying lover) including references to the "Bohemian" subculture.

It has a storyline and structure that is said to be inspired and influenced by Bollywood movies: exuberant music, colourful visuals, elaborate sets and costumes, simple story line with a simple conflict, heroine with melodramatic disease, two-dimensional characters, and the songs themselves, adopted from modern rock singers. In fact, it includes a popular Hindi movie song near the end.

The film takes established rock music songs and modifies them to fit into a tale of a turn-of-the-20th-century Paris cabaret, blending swirling camera motion, loud music, and dancing to create a powerful visual effect.

The Moulin Rouge on Boulevard de Clichy (Paris, France) Larger version

The theme of the movie (unsurprisingly for a Hollywood musical) is love. The main character (Ewan McGregor) is a writer who comes to Paris at the height of the Bohemian movement - a city of artists, parties, and absinthe. He falls in love with the main singer of the Moulin Rouge cabaret (Nicole Kidman), and the rest of the movie follows their relationship (with plenty of songs in between), ending with her death.

Six other movies with the title "Moulin Rouge" have been made.

Cast and Academy Awards

It stars Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent and Richard Roxburgh. The movie was written by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce, directed by Lurhmann, and distributed by 20th Century Fox.

It won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Costume Design, and was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Nicole Kidman), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Makeup, Best Picture and Best Sound.

Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor do their own singing.

The necklace worn by Nicole Kidman was made of 1308 real diamonds and platinum. It was worth an estimated $1 million.

Commentary

This movie is also interesting because of the so-called intellectual property angle. Some of the singing dialogues in this movie use a technique similar to one sometimes found in Bollywood movies: each line of the song dialogue is an identifiable verse from some popular song. To a lay person, this appears to be an great example of the fair use concept of copyright. However, some people would consider it difficult for a small producer (not associated with the Big Five record labels) to attempt such use of popular music in the current litigious climate, especially with the controversy over internet music downloading.

Quotations

• "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."
  (an example of the singing dialogue, this line comes from the song "Nature Boy", made famous by Nat King Cole)

• "You expect me to believe that scantily clad, in the arms of another man, in the middle of the night, inside an elephant you were rehearsing for a play?"