Spectacular, Spectacular: a brief discussion of two engaging portrayals of the famous Parisian cabaret, the Moulin Rouge

Yuxin Xue 10051309 IDIS290 Prof. Catherine Dhavernas 11 November 2014
Although the nature of their stories share some important qualities: romance, underlying motives, and the ever-elusive sensation of love, the two films Moulin Rouge and French Cancan are very different illustrations of the famous French caberet. While Jean Renoir uses facets of performance to emphasize the magnificence of the Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann does the opposite, effectively employing the setting as an enhancer to his tragic love story. The Moulin Rouge is best known as the spiritual birthplace of the cancan, a high-spirited dance originally performed as seductive entertainment by courtesans. Renoir focuses on this in his 1954 French Cancan, and much of the film is devoted to plans for building the Moulin Rouge, the courtesans’ efforts in learning the dance, and their internal feuds and doubts spurred on by the need to be the best of performers. The film also shows clear dedication to the relationships between performer and audience, with the courtesans frequently engaging with their patrons through dance and conversation. The Moulin Rouge is in its early days, and thus portrayed freely and in a glorious spotlight, making for a lighthearted atmosphere unchanging throughout the film. When Nini locks herself in her dressing room before the big finale, it is Danglard’s inspirational speech about the trivialities of love and money and how they should mean nothing to a true performer that persuades her to take her place on stage. She eventually comes to terms with the fact that, “the show must always go on”. Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, on the other hand, is a darker yet stylistically more eccentric presentation, with the love story between Christian and Satine being the central driving force to the story. The Moulin Rouge itself serves as a backdrop, playing a peripheral role, and is not presented in nearly as lustrous a manner as in Renoir’s Cancan. Christian describes the performance as one “about love overcoming all obstacles”; here, the Moulin Rouge appears to force the lovers apart in the name of show business. It is the enemy which trivializes a talented woman’s ability and desire to be a ‘real actor’, and which prevents her from learning about her illness all because “the show must go on”. Satine intones her desire to “fly away”, and in one scene the overlaid image of a bird in a cage clearly parallels Satine’s relationship with the Moulin Rouge. Although there are more musical iterations and embellishments than in French Cancan, they are less about life at the Moulin Rouge than they are Christian and Satine’s experiences. Later, Satine is similarly presented with the choice to abandon the show. However, in contrast to Nini’s situation, she is swayed to stay at the cabaret only upon learning that she is terminally ill, and agrees to leave Christian out of love and sacrifice. For her, “the show must go on” means little now and is something she resigns herself to. Comparing the French Cancan to Moulin Rouge would therefore be on par to comparing a classy description of Paris’ artistic history to an eccentric traveler’s account of their experiences there. One is very much more personalized than the other; here, Moulin Rouge is narrated as a flashback by Christian, with the fate of Satine and their romance revealed in the first few minutes. Renoir’s French Cancan, on the other hand, is a story told through the lenses of a silent, objective raconteur. Of course, that is not to say that there are no similarities between the two, or that Luhrmann did not incorporate any historical aspects of the cancan into his film. For instance, Moulin Rouge borrows the classic musical score of the dance in its Spectacular, Specutacular, while Christian describes the Moulin Rouge as a “kingdom of night time pleasures, where the rich and powerful came to play with the young and beautiful creatures of the underworld”. He thus simultaneously glorifies and comments on the dark undertones of the Parisian caberet, the latter of which despite fantastical and colourful imagery, will be present throughout the film’s entirety. Both accounts of the Moulin Rouge’s history are steeped in the colours, jealousy, and choices that come with performance, and both are stories of love. One simply recounts the love between a man and his theatre, and the other that of a man and a woman. Whether either is more in tune with what the Moulin Rouge stood for is contentious, but generally, the consensus is that the cabaret truly was spectacular, spectacular.