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| Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent,
John Leguizamo, Richard Roxburgh |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Christian
(Ewan McGregor): Above all things I believe in love. Love is like
oxygen. Love is a many-splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong.
All you need is love!
Set
in Paris in the year 1900, a young, romantic writer falls for a glamorous
courtesan who works at the Moulin Rouge nightclub.
 As
a longtime admirer of the classic Hollywood musical, I am always willing
to give any contemporary filmmaker bold enough to try and breathe new
life into the genre the benefit of the doubt. Having developed from
the charming, highly accessible classic style of his first feature Strictly
Ballroom towards the much more assaultive stylizations of William
Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, this audacious new feature sees the
next step in Luhrmann's increasingly idiosyncratic visual style. The
director and his hugely talented production crew have labored for four
years to develop this surreal, overblown vision of turn-of-the-previous-century
Paris. Its deliberately artificial world is chock full of willful anachronisms
and eccentric performances, and contains sequences in which the masterful
editing, ironic writing and overblown drama fit together perfectly to
create absolutely ingenious scenes.
But Luhrmann seems unwilling or unable to trust his own instincts, and
ends up battering the viewer to exhaustion with a neverending succession
of rapidly cut, dizzying sequences that give the picture a great start
but prove self-defeating, especially in the absence of a strong story
or involving characters. The very best directors of movie musicals (Stanley
Donen, Vincente Minelli, Bob Fosse) knew how to dazzle the viewer with
songs and dances that enhance the story without interrupting it. But
in Moulin Rouge!, there is little story to interrupt. Once the
basic premise has been established, the movie does little but yo-yo
the glamorous but vapid Kidman back and forth between the sincere hero
(McGregor) and cartoonish villain (Roxburgh). The much-discussed use
of contemporary pop songs as musical numbers has a certain novelty value,
but is only occasionally effective, and only very few of the elaborate
dance sequences are allowed the space to come to life (Broadbent's rendition
of Madonna's Like A Virgin is a welcome but rare exception):
the cutting and camera moves are simply too fast to show off the choreography
and performances to their full extent, while several dialogue scenes
are interminably long and drawn out, with an unwelcome tendency to lapse
into wild-eyed farce. The end result is an incredibly top-heavy juggernaut
of a film, in turns amazing, outrageous and annoying. Certainly a unique
experience but also wasteful of the enormous amount of talent and effort
that went into it. |
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Available
for Region 1 and Region 2 (from April 3, 2002) in near-identical two-disc
Special Editions.
The
anamorphic widescreen image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx.
2.35:1. Overall image quality is impressive: an immaculate source print
was used for the transfer, and bright colors leap off the screen, while
the massive production design has a consistent, breathtaking look. Unfortunately,
low-lit scenes without much contrast suffer from slight image degradation
and poor shadow detail.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mix has tremendous dynamic range, presenting
a full, aggressive surround mix that sometimes verges on the assaultive
but is well-balanced and carefully designed. A DTS 5.1 mix is also on
board, as usual a little louder than the DD5.1 track and with more precision
in the very high and very low-frequency areas, but both tracks are hugely
impressive.
This
richly loaded two-platter set carries more than enough informative entertaining
extras to keep any of the movie's many fans occupied for hours or even
days, and perhaps even to open up the experience to an audience previously
indifferent or hesitant to approach this uniquely stylized movie experience.
The first disc carries two audio commentary tracks: one featuring
director/co-writer/co-producer Baz Luhrmann with his production designer,
effects designer and director of cinematography, and some other assorted
crew members putting in an appearance, and another featuring Luhrmann
together with his longtime collaborator and screenplay co-writer Craig
Pearce. The first track focuses almost exclusively on production matters,
talking about the film's visual design, costumes, effects and how the
concept for the final film was developed. There are occasional pauses
in the commentary, but overall this is a most informative track with
lots of input from all speakers that sheds a great deal of light on
most aspects of the film's look and concept. The second track is a more
jovial, informal experience, with the two longtime friends acting out
several of the scenes among themselves, and nearly bubbling over with
enthusiasm for the production and cast members. The disc also offers
an audio track for the visually impaired, with voice descriptions of
what is happening onscreen.
Finally, the first disc also offers a Behind the Red Curtain
feature, that prompts interruptions in the form of mini-featurettes
throughout the course of the film. On the Region 1 release, these featurettes
can be triggered by selecting the Green Fairy icon when it appears onscreen;
the Region 2 release plays all featurettes automatically once this feature
has been activated from the menu screen. These items provide brief bits
of insight into elaborate effects, set design, deleted scenes, and other
fun features.
Disc 2 is a veritable treasure trove of assorted movie-related goodies.
Most are fairly brief, but there are so many extras here that even the
most hardcore fan of the movie should have no complaints, and be kept
happy for hours with what's on offer. The obligatory 24-minute The
Making of Moulin Rouge rarely steps beyond the boundaries
of the overly familiar promotional featurette, providing the usual collection
of interview segments, scenes from the film and lots fast cutting. More
unusual are the five cast featurettes, short items introducing
the five main cast members in the film, and incorporating more interview
footage as well as some costume test footage and the like.
The section The Story is About... focuses on initial screenplay
development, and includes an interview with co-screenwriters Baz Luhrmann
and Craig Pearce, as well as an explanation by Pearce of the first treatment
for the story they came up with (which actually sounds more interesting
than the meager plot that ended up in the final film). The Cutting
Room is a great section that deals with the editing process, and
first presents an interview with Luhrmann and his regular editor Jill
Bilcock, as they each discuss problems and issues in ordering and editing
the story together. Five deleted sequences (presented in non-anamorphic
widescreen with time code in view) are also included here, and are actually
longer, more elaborate versions of existing scenes from the film. The
'dominatrix' scene glimpsed in the Behind the Red Curtain feature on
Disc 1 is surprisingly absent here. Finally, this section also includes
an informative but rather silly glimpse of a solution the screenwriters
found for cost-effective reshoots: a video edit was made of the relevant
scene, and the image frozen on the character with extra lines, with
new dialogue spoken by Luhrmann and co-screenwriter Pearce.
 Baz
Luhrmann started out as a choreographer, and it comes as no surprise
that a separate section on this DVD is devoted to The Dance.
Luhrmann offers some brief input on the development of the dance sequences
in the film in a short interview. The film's four major dance sequences
are presented here in longer edits with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, and
three of them make use of the multi-angle DVD option, with four available
camera setups registering the sequence [see screenshot]. An interview
with the dance choreographer adds further insight into these sequences,
and there is also footage available of early dance rehearsals.
Another major section on this disc deals with The Music featured
in the film. The team of producers and musicians responsible for the
film's score and use of existing songs provides some excellent insight
in a selection of interview segments, and Fat Boy Slim, who made a large
contribution to some of the tracks featured on the soundtrack, is also
interviewed separately in his studio, where he demonstrates his working
methods and discusses his involvement in the project. The music video
for the spin-off MTV his Lady Marmalade is on board as well,
as is a live rendition of this track performed for the MTV Movie Awards
broadcast, and the music video for the track Come What May, sung
by Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman.
The section The Design is includes interview footage with the
production designer and the costume designer, with hugely elaborate
still galleries to accompany both interviews, and also holds an animated
gallery of background art designs made for use in the film. The two
most elaborate special effects sequences ('Paris Introduction' and 'The
Blue Fairy') are treated to mini-featurettes that clearly illustrate
how they were developed and executed.
The final section on disc 2 deals with The Marketing, and features
the expected assortment of trailers, image and poster galleries, soundtrack
CD promo and promotional edit of the stars attending various premieres
and movie-related events. A trailer for the upcoming Special Edition
DVD of Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet has also
been included here.
Overall, this is an enthralling collection of extra material that at
the very least manages to bring forward the colossal amount of work
that went into this production. The voluminous extras on offer here
provide as complete an account of the various aspects of this movie's
production as one could reasonably ask for, and then some, while never
skirting on the entertainment value. The
menu screens are introduced by a nicely animated black-and-white version
of Kylie Minogue's Green Fairy. The main menu screen on both discs is
designed in the style of a turn-of-the-century movie theater, all the
following screens are static, with voices and sounds popping up occasionally
to further enhance the carefully designed visuals.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: February
2002
Click
here for IMDB info on Moulin
Rouge!.
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