How Moulin Rouge! Redefined the Movie Musical
Just over a year ago, Governor Andrew Cuomo banned all gatherings of over 500 people in New York as the result of the pandemic, forcing Broadway theaters to go dark for what was expected to be a month. But then one month turned to two. And three. And four. Now 12 months later and an estimated loss of over 2 billion dollars with Broadway still shut down and investors and producers alike pessimistic about a reopening sooner than September, it could be argued that the theater is more dead than ever.
There have always been conversations around the relevancy of musical theatre. Perhaps these can best be seen by the general lack of movie musicals since their peak in popularity in the 1950s and 60s; the musical is considered to be one of the oddest and most susceptible genres to disaster as a result of major box office failures of the time period. Because of this, we rarely see movie musicals being produced at the frequency they once were. “As far as Hollywood is concerned, the musical is a faded glory more suited to murals than multiplexes, and it's very nearly a corpse,” The New York Times’ Jesse Green writes in his 2001 article, “How Do You Make A Movie Sing?”
The question he poses is a good one; how do you make a movie sing in a time when audiences are more reluctant than ever to suspend their reality and engage with a musical film? When seminal director Baz Luhrmann set out to create his now-iconic movie musical Moulin Rouge! - emphasis on the exclamation mark - the answer was excess in every sense of the word.
In just a few months, the 2001 film Moulin Rouge! will turn 20 years old, marking the passage of two decades since audiences were transported to the bohemian underworld of the nightclub in 20th century Montmartre, Paris through the perspective of Christian, a writer who falls in love with the club’s most popular courtesan, Satine. The film is marked by the classically recognizable Luhrmann touch, with an entrancing palette of sparkling diamonds, deep reds, and brilliant blues, an Oscar-winning costume and set design, and consistently sharp (and sometimes nauseating) editing. Every element of the film demands the attention of the audience, crafting a mise-en-scene defined by such spectacle and extravagance Luhrmann has made his staple.
All of these elements allowed Moulin Rouge! to redefine the traditional Hollywood musical that had largely fallen out of public favor since the mid-1960s when less than perfect Broadway to film adaptations were being produced at a rapid pace to capitalize on audiences; think Hello Dolly and Dr. Do Little. Luhrmann gave the genre a much-needed facelift with a fellow swoop; what had once been synonymous with outdatedness once again became glamorous, captivating, and glittering. "The studio doesn't want us to call it a musical,” said Luhrmann to Green. “It's thought to be bad for business… Whatever you call it - musical, opera, MTV - all I know is that I love music cinema, and I wanted to see it work again.”
From the second the film opens, it differentiates itself from anything the audience has seen before. The film opens with a shot of a red stage curtain, quite literally placing moviegoers into a Broadway theater. From the melodramatic dialogue to the dream-like stylism Luhrmann employs throughout, Moulin Rouge! is every part the theatrical experience, and purposefully so. When wrestling with how to resurrect the musical genre, Luhrmann landed on an approach that blended reality with fantasy, thus breaking the wall between the audience and the unabashedly emotional world of the musical. Therefore, breaking out into song within the world of the Moulin Rouge comes across as a spectacle rather than an unbelievable, unrealistic moment - we can lean into the spectacle rather than lean into the cynic within. In reference to the fundamental discomfort of the musical genre, Green writes that Luhrmann doesn’t “resolve the incompatibility: they acknowledge and even emphasize it, thus unshackling the performers to use all their theatrical tools.” These theatrical tools are a trademark for the director, whose films are infamously marked by “lush theatrically.”
In a more general sense, the setting of the Moulin Rouge night club proves to be the perfect opportunity for a movie musical, as it allows the film’s songs to take place diegetically through the format of the backstage musical, in which a film’s plot is set in a theatrical context. The songs that are performed are being sung directly by the character, therefore occurring directly in their world - one of the most famous examples of this type of musical includes the 1952 film Singin’ In The Rain. The Backstage Musical is typically better received by audiences, as it combats the unnatural break-out-into-song structure that is typical of the genre and less enthusiastic viewers mockingly point out as ridiculously theatrical. As is written in Sound and Cinema, “the backstage musical at least had its characteristic settings: the dressing rooms and wings of a theater, the flats and backdrops of the stage, the nightclub with orchestra and dancefloor.” Therefore, Luhrmann’s choice to set the film in a setting that allows for such a plot is one of genius; you’ve won half the battle if you the viewer can understand why the characters are singing in the first place.
While the setting of the Moulin Rouge sets forth the ability for the musical to exist diegetically and the emphasis on the pure theatricality of the world is established through the set design, costuming, and cinematography, what arguably plays the most instrumental role in the success and adoration of the musical is Luhrmann's bold choice to use popular music in contrast to composing an entirely new score, a choice that The Hollywood Reporter called “cute at best and cloying in its smugness” upon reviewing the film. What The Hollywood Reporter overlooks is the ability for this music to unite viewers around a common language; they already know and (mostly) love these songs, so when you place them within the fantastical world of Bohemian Paris, they carry with them the existing cultural and emotional connotations. Christian’s swelling rendition of Elton John’s “Your Song” to Satine after meeting draws on a familiar romantic nostalgia, the use of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in a can-can number invigorates the audience with a new spirit, the composition of The Police’s “Roxanne” into a dramatic ballad performed alongside an Argentinian tango reflects a sense of urgency, and the Elephant Love Medley that consists of hits from David Bowie, The Beatles, and KISS swells the hearts of audiences with romantic familiarity. The film’s version of Lady Marmalade, originally released in 1974 by the girl group Labelle, stayed at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 5 weeks - a testament to how well received the film’s version of pre-existing songs were.
Despite the initial criticism launched at Luhrmann for his choice, he explained to The Hollywood Reporter that, “the idea of using familiar music came from old musicals. Music in old musicals was popular music. It wasn’t nostalgic. It was the music of that time.” Perhaps the ultimate downfall of the musical genre could previously have been pegged to the remakes of shows from the 60s that largely ignored their current times- Luhrmann’s choice makes this an impossible fate for Moulin Rouge!. The concept of a jukebox musical, in which the majority of music consists of popular music in contrast to original music, is not new; think Mamma Mia, which features exclusively ABBA music. But what is especially unique to the music used in Moulin Rouge! is the pre-existing cultural significance they hold. One example, perhaps the most pertinent, is the use of “Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend,” performed on Broadway in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and later performed by Marylin Monroe in the now-iconic film adaptation. The use of such a constantly culturally relevant Broadway performance, mixed with Madonna’s “Material Girl”, equally acts as a moment of characterization for Satine during her first performance and a not-so-subtle nod to the pop culture that exists within the audience’s world, serving to emphasize the ways in which Luhrmann’s self-defined musical software blends the reality of the audience with the film’s.
If Luhrmann’s goal was to relegitimize the musical, he definitely succeeded in doing so. He reinvigorated the genre, paving the way for films like 2016’s La La Land and even more recently The Greatest Showman. But he didn’t just bring a new audience to the genre; Luhrmann succeeded in creating a film so adored by fans that it was adapted into a Broadway musical in 2019, 18 years since the film’s release. The spectacle cost 28 million dollars to put on, and at the height of its success in which the show was regularly selling out all 1,302 seats of the Al Hirschfeld theater pre-shutdown, the most devoted fans were shelling out nearly 800 dollars to sit in the first-row Can-Can section of the theater. Moulin Rouge!, and its Broadway adaptation, is a performance of theatricality in the most literal sense; if during the film you are transported to the theater, when watching the adaptation in the theater you are transported to an entirely different world. Ben Brantley writes in his rave review of the show in The New York Times, “What this emporium of impure temptations is really selling is pure escapism,” and I couldn’t agree more.
As more and more people get vaccinated with each passing day and the weather begins to brighten up in the city, I’m feeling optimistic that we are nearing the final stages of the pandemic. And as this happens, we will seek out more media that is entrancing, exciting, and energizing - media that is simply fun, in contrast to the dark months we have all experienced. We want to escape our current reality, and instead step into one that exists without a deadly pandemic, reigniting our spirits and awakening a sense of fantasy. However melodramatic the dialogue is, we can look to Christian’s unwavering quest for truth, beauty, freedom, and above all else, love. Perhaps this time is the stage that will allow another Moulin Rouge!-esq musical spectacle to grace our screens, providing exactly that. Because, as Brantley writes, within the Moulin Rouge, “life is beautiful, in a way reality never is.”
