Anarchy of Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge is a film that is noted for its non-traditional use of cinematography its, shot durations, and its special effects, in order to convey certain themes or tones throughout its run. One of these themes is disorientation, which sees usage in multiple key scenes of the film.
In an early scene, Christian helps Toulouse-Lautrec’s group rehearse Spectacular Spectacular, a play the group is developing. The artistic differences between the group’s members are rendered with very short takes. Each of the characters’ suggestions is given one take, interspersed with even shorter takes of Christian and Audrey’s reactions. As the characters start talking over one another, close ups of them are rendered with even quicker shots than before. This usage of short takes helps accentuate the groups’ disparity. This lack of direction disorientates both the audience and Christian, who serves as the film’s narrator. As such, third person shots of Christian are used to showcase him trying to gain the groups’ attention. When he finally sings out his lyrics for the play, shot durations become noticeably longer, showing that the situation is slowly coming to order thanks to his suggestion.
In the next scene, we get our first glimpse of the Moulin Rouge. The audience is quickly treated to a wide variety of spectacular characters, shown mostly in medium long and close up shots. Short takes of are used to depict most of the scene, as the characters practically flash past the viewer’s eyes, the pace slows down a tad during the middle, but picks up to an even faster pace than before for a grand climax. The scene is the fastest cut sequence of the film, made up of a large number of short takes constructed together with only a slight sense of continuity between them, with new visuals introduced in almost every cut. The swiftness of the takes, -emphasized by the variety of characters shown, and the kinetic choreography- all serve to introduce the viewer to the dizzying chaos of the Moulin Rouge. The absinthe that Christian drinks earlier may have had a role in the scene’s to. The special effects of the scene also bring dynamism to the tone, this is mainly seen with Harold Zidler, who –in one cut- goes from singing to floating above the Moulin Rouge, before swooping down and backflipping his way back into the nightclub.
In these two scenes, very short takes are used, meaning they had to be edited in a very quick way. Moulin Rouge shows it can use short takes and break neck editing in order to convey the feelings of disorientation and disorder, emphasized by unconventional use of special effects which serve to add an otherworldly feel. Both scenes manage to reflect this feeling from Christian to the audience, creating sequences so dense and so fast paced, that it would be a difficult task to catch everything that happens during a first watch.