Sam Talks Movies

Auteur theory is the belief that a director has such an impression and grasp on their vision of their films that they become the “author” of their features, creating a creative palate of themes, techniques, and troupes that are reoccurring in their filmography. There are three components of the auteur theory: technical competence, distinguishable personality, and interior meaning. It has been said that Wes Anderson is a modern day auteur with how stylized his movies and tailored to his filmography’s personality. It is very easy to distinguish a Wes Anderson film after certain traits, themes, and techniques are picked up on.

When looking at Wes Anderson’s technical competence and distinguishable personality, he is a huge fan of incorporating tableau shots into his films. According to Indian film theorist and historian, Ravi Vasudevan, a tableau shot is presented frontally at a 180″ plane to the camera, on the verge of complete stillness and inactivity, and loaded with meaning.

In simpler terms, it’s a form of a wide/long shot. A distinguishable personality of Wes Anderson’s cinematic characters is their lack of overt emotion and deadpan delivery. These personality traits paired with the tableau shot allows for this awkward air to the shot, creating comedic tension amongst the actors and the audience. However, the tableau shot allows for great moments of melodramatic peacefulness. For example, while not much is said between Richie and Margot in the picture above in The Royal Tenenbaums, a lot can in inferred about the relationship’s dynamic based on the soft looks exchanged.

When looking at the mise en scene of an Anderson flick, Anderson bridges between a theatrical and traditional setting, creating a reminiscing sense of the art nouveau style, popularized in the United States from 1890 to 1910. For instance, in this scene in The Royal Tenenbaums, Richie attempts to take his own life, and while the setting of the scene is traditional (a bathroom), the cinematography heightens the experience with the light matching the characters emotions. These emotional color palettes and schemes create a rhythmic whimsy to his films. While associative colors are not recognized as a key trademark of Anderson films, heightened color palettes are and the use of color is often metaphorical in Wes Anderson movies.

The heightened color palette of Wes Anderson movies allow for metaphorical color schemes to be incorporated into the narrative storytelling of the film. In Moonrise Kingdom, yellow is associated with the feeling of optimism. Despite the unfortunate circumstance he finds himself in, protagonist Sam always has an innocent and cheerful attitude and outlook on life, and it’s not a coincidence that he is often wearing the color yellow.

Anderson’s auteur theory lays the ground work in his shot composition. There is not a singular Anderson film where symmetrical compositions are not used. Again, these symmetrical compositions often find themselves paired with a long or wide shot with the camera more focused on the bigger picture rather than following the actor, but they can also be paired with medium or close up shots.

Wes Anderson also tends to use still camera or foregrounded camera movement throughout his pictures. Like previously mentioned, the camera stays rested on the setting and more concerned with the symmetry of the frame rather than the actors. The actors often come and go from the frame while the camera continually stays stationary and center.

A highlight of auteur theory is the director’s distinguishable personality, and this often involves whether the director has a set group of certain actors that are prominently featured in their films. Wes Anderson one hundred has some favorites he chooses to working with time after time. Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Tilda Swinton often finding themselves working over and over again with Wes Anderson. Owen Wilson has been with Wes Anderson since the very beginning, being his college roommate at University of Texas, and they frequently collaborate on writing screenplays.

Throughout Wes Anderson’s films, there is common theme that creates his interior meaning throughout the film’s narrative structure. Interior meaning is the commentary the director makes on the human condition. Wes Anderson’s film. Anderson’s films are often identified comedies seen through a melodramatic lens. His films often incorporate themes of brokenness but being resolved with the warmth of (found) families.

Anderson films often have the common reoccurring themes of childhood, innocence, protagonists with traumas of their past, damaged families, and love stories. In Moonrise Kingdom, Sam and Suzy, two adventurous, young, misunderstood outcasts, fall in love and run away from a world that could not understand them. Both kids come from troubled pasts with Sam being an orphan in a cruel foster system and Suzy’s parents think she is troubled, reinforcing the themes of childhood, innocence, protagonists with trauma in their past, love, and damaged families. The Royal Tenenbaums fully embraces these themes as the story centers around three gifted sibling prodigies after they’ve grown up and their fame has simmered and their strained relationship with their absent father.

Without a doubt, love always seems to find its way as being a main message in Wes Anderson films. Both The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom put its characters through melodramatic events that Wes Anderson morphs into comedic, deadpan moments, but they always end with the characters finding someone they can love or rely on, fixing the damage and baggage that start the film with.

The Act of Killing uses the documentary genre to exploit and horrors of the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, centering the narrative around the killers responsible for the deaths of 1.2 million accused (not convicted) communists. Filmmaker, Joshua Oppenheimer, gives the resources to the celebrated killers to realize and actualize their crimes through their perspectives.

The Act of Killing falls under two out of the six modes of documentary filmmaking, reflexive and performative. Through these modes of documentary filmmaking, Joshua Oppenheimer is trying to convey the message that propaganda and the “winners” in history can shape perspectives, creating a false ideology of events.

Reflexive mode in documentary filmmaking often blurs the lines between reality and fiction, deceiving viewers and making them question the documentary from their own perspectives of reality and the situation. With the reflexive mode in The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer uses the opportunity to give crime lords the ability to express their makings of these horrific situations. As the crime lords are telling their history from the “winners” perspective, the audience is often left questioning how much of what they say is true due to the often fanciful and flamboyant light it is depicted in.

As history is more often than not told by the winners, the reflexive mode illustrates the only side that is alive to tell their story, and the way that these war criminals depict their crimes and murders are comical in a way as they perceive their acts to almost be romanticized in the genre of film they feel best enhances their story; however, for the viewer, this is all the more horrific because these malicious figures view these heinous acts as something to be taken lightly, as almost it was scripted for them to perform and act on for show.

The performative mode allows the subjects being documented to reject traditional forms of documentary storytelling and allows the subject to be expressive in retelling their personal experiences from their perspectives or how the experiences have shaped their perspective. Again, no better way is this depicted than in The Act of Killing. In Western culture, a romanticization around violence and graphic nature has assembled in film and television, and in turn, this romanticization has given other countries and parts of the world this terrible (yet honest) first impression of America.

Movies like The Godfather, Scarface, Natural Born Killers and superhero movies like Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (the best Batman films), when seen through a social learning theory lens, glorify the acts of murder, mayhem, chaos, and gratuitous violence. These movies morph the vision that society views those malicious acts as something that is played off for dramatic or theatrical effect. Mix this ideology with the anti-communist propaganda being pumped through Indonesia during the 1960s (and to this day), that’s the perfect recipe for murderers believing themselves to be the heroes of this story. The performative mode allows these men to use their visions and recollections of what happened during the killings to fit the narrative that they have and Indonesia military propaganda have convinced them to believe to have happened. They were the heroes; they did their part to save the country; and they should be rewarded and praised for their actions.

Funny how a film that is rooted in late 80s culture and societal issues still has relevance to this day. It’s almost as if Spike Lee was trying to say something about the racial tensions and inequality in America…

Do the Right Thing follows the stories of the residents of a Brooklyn neighborhood on the hottest day of the year. The weather plays a significant role in the film, paralleling the rising tensions between racial groups in America, demonstrated through the neighborhood’s clash with pizzeria owner, Sal, and his sons. As the temperatures begin to rise so does the conflict throughout the movie.

The film starts somewhat harmonious with no characters really shaking up the narrative just yet. It’s only when Mookie’s friend, Buggin Out, tells Sal to hang up some pictures of black people in his restaurant because the majority of Sal’s clientele is black. Sal refuses, thus creating a domino effect of conflict continually rising as the cultural hegemony continues to break throughout the plot. The hegemony of the film, reflecting society’s hegemony, is broken when Sal’s pizzeria in burnt to the ground by the neighborhood after the death of Radio Raheem; however, the hegemony is restored the next day when Mister Señor Love Daddy says that temperatures will continue to rise and the heat wave will not stop. In this case, director Spike Lee uses weather and heat to reflect the growing issue of racism in America and that doing one action will not stop it.

Radio Raheem’s boombox is used both as an instrumental, cultural, and metaphorical prop throughout the film. Radio Raheem plays “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy on his boombox whenever he is featured on screen to the point where this diegetic sound becomes associated with his character. This would also be seen as an instrumental prop, providing sound; however, it could be seen as a metaphorical prop due to the fact that every time Sal interacts with Radio Raheem, he tells him to turn off the music. This could be interpreted as white people in power using their advantages and status to silence black voices from speaking out and fighting the powers that be. The radio is also seen as a cultural prop due to the fact the technology dates the film to its 80s decade.

Spike Lee optimizes medium shots and close up shots to portray conversational scenes between singular characters and the audience, breaking the forth wall as the audience becomes friendly with the cast. This allows the audience to view this characters as real people rather than fictional, an element that is often overlooked in black films made by white filmmakers. That’s why in the race slur montage the words hurt a little bit more due to the fact that audience is transported into the shoes of the verbally abused during that scene, showing the hatred that minorities in society face.

Do the Right Thing passes The Race Bechdel Test created by Jon
Greenburg, and therefore, the film discusses the issues that black and minority groups face on a daily basis, such as class, racial inequality,
gentrification, separatism, and police brutality (like Radio Raheem faces, leading to his death). However, one could argue that the film does not pass The Race Bechdel Test because topics, like class, racial inequality, gentrification, separatism, and police brutality, were created by a white patriarchal system. So this begs this question, did Mookie do the right thing? While to some people he might not have done the right, he did the powerful thing and started a chain of the events that overpowered the white dominance and cultural hegemony in his neighborhood. Some could say during this time, Mookie appeals to the trope of the angry, violent Black character, but change was never made sitting still.

With films like Carrie to pave the way for the troupe of girlhood being portrayed as monstrous in cinema, Jennifer’s Body is no different, but the film offers a playful twist on the troupe as well as some much needed commentary on teenage girls and rape culture.

When the audience realizes what has happened to Jennifer and where her appetite for high school boys comes from, this could implicitly be an allegory for rape. This being a horror film, and unfortunately, a fear that is somewhat universally for young women (and women of all ages) is putting faith in men assumed to be trusted, when in reality they have sinister ulterior motives. It should also be noted that in horror films the virgin is often saved from being slaughtered due to her righteous behavior, making her often the final girl; however, in this situation, Jennifer, who appears to be a virgin, breaks this troupe. It’s not that simple to break a troupe because Jennifer’s behavior before and after her transformation could be interpreted as playing the role of the whore or even the femme fatale/monster with her youthful lust. The whore and the femme fatale/monster are two of the roles that women are limited to in cinema, and while Jennifer is empowered by taking control of her narrative by the men who robbed her off her voice, it should be noted that after Jennifer’s possession she preys on individuals that had near to nothing to do with her unfortunate circumstance, proving the femme fatale/monster role to succeed here.

When studying feminist film theory, it is important to note Alison
Bechdel & Liz Wallace’s “The Bechdel-Wallace Test.” The Bechdel-Wallace Test was created as a satrical joke in a queer comic/magazine. A movie can be proved to feminist is there are (a) two named female characters, (b) they speak to each other, (c) and they speak to each other about something other than men. While the film does pass the test, the test gives the bare minimum requirements for movies to include women. Yes, Jennifer and Needy’s relationship does pass the Bechdel test with some of their conversations pertaining to something other than boys, but Jennifer and Needy have a terribly toxic relationship. Just because your movie features women does not automatically make it a feminist classic. Needy and Jennifer often verbally bullying each other, and Jennifer often calls Needy homophobic slurs. This is mostly likely due a queer denial/repression that Jennifer has. Their relationship is toxic and is not a positive example for teen girls, the demographic this film was intended for.

Speaking of demographics, while Jennifer’s Body was intended to marketed towards young girls in high school, the marketing team took a left turn and decided to market the film towards young men who are fans of the horror genre. The film itself was written and directed by a woman, adverting itself from the male gaze in a object way with two female creatives; however, marketing felt that Megan Fox’s beauty should be glorified for the marketing campaign. The objectification of Megan Fox’s figure was the highlight and focal point of many posters with Fox leaning in suggestive poses over desks and chairs with minimal or revealing school girl clothing. This is partially as to why the film initially flopped because the film wasn’t intended for boys. The male gaze can only be avoided so much, and with the homoerotic nature of Jennifer and Needy’s relationship, men tend to get creative.

It’s no secret that heterosexual men often find desire or lust in bisexual women or lesbian relationships. It is often fantasized by male creatives in film. Take Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004) for example. At the end, Peter gets both his bisexual love interest, Kate, and her girlfriend after winning the dodgeball tournament as the rest of his team congratulates him for both victories. Unfortunately, queer female relationships portrayed on screen make a pathway for men to insert their narcissistic identification into cinema. It also allows for the young, heterosexual men who the movie was marketed for to participate in voyeurism and use this moment of sexual exploration for the girls as a moment of that narcissistic identification as they objectify the girls, sexualizing and fetishizing them for their sexual preferences.

The art of postmodernism emerged from the idea of breaking the standard of creation in film (and any other form of consumable media). Postmodern film is soaked in dissatisfaction in the current mainstream or status quo in society as well as upsetting the bourgeois hegemony that is infused in American and western civilization. Taxi Driver is a film, like many of its postmodern brothers and sisters, that critiques social climate and politics of 1970s New York City and the dissociation the government has from the American streets, specifically inner cities, and the people that make up its nation.

When looking at genre theory, Taxi Driver could be classified as a postmodern western with elements of the noir genre intertwined in the narrative. In the typical western, the male protagonist goes an external journey and internal journey of self-discovery, usually developing and progressing the plot. With Taxi Driver’s protagonist, Travis, his internal journey of self-discovery best coincides with the deterioration of the socio-economic climate of his NYC surroundings, displaying a regression in character and mental stability. As the city decays due to politic neglect, so does he. A central character with unlikable qualities is also a key factor in postmodern films.

When looking at Taxi Driver through a classic film narrative structure, the role that character development plays in the film works backwards as Travis tends to regress more than he progresses as a character. Travis’s dramatic circumstance is that he is an insomniac veteran who takes a job as a taxi driver due to him not being able to fall asleep. He also needs something to preoccupy his mind from the decaying state of NYC’s underbelly.

However, when debating the decaying state of NYC in the 70s, it’s best to recognize what lens the viewer is seeing the city through. Travis is racist throughout the entire film as noted through the ominous framing of black pimps, depicting Travis’s uneasiness around black people, and most of his crimes committed being racially motivated. Like previously mentioned, Taxi Driver is a western with Travis’s cab being his horse. Travis uses guns like a cowboy, and when Travis hits the lowest part in the movie, he shaves his head and dawns a mohawk, a signature in stereotypes for Native and Indigenous peoples, the typically and politically incorrect villains often portrayed in western films. Sport, a character seen as an antagonist by Travis, also wears stereotypical Native clothing, such as leathers, animal hides, and chaps. With Travis’s transition from cowboy to “indigenous,” it shows through his lens a transitional from hero to anti-hero, becoming apart of the decaying his vigilante efforts sought to destroy.

There is a complex that director Martin Scorsese used when creating Travis called the Madonna-whore complex. This term was first coined by the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and depicts the heterosexual male seeing achievable partners as whores and unattainable sexual partners as Madonna, put on a pedestal to be worshipped and admired from a distance. This complex is evident with the two central female characters in Taxi Driver, Iris and Betsy. The catalyst centers around Travis’s love for Betsy, seeing her as an angel (even appearing in white when first introduce) and something that is unattainable. It is not until their date when Betsy is seemingly unimpressed with Travis, rejecting his advances, does Travis reject her, labeling her as the whore that he believes her to be.

When Iris is introduced as the midpoint, Travis has a new Madonna to shelter, worship, and revere, as she is similar to a maiden trapped in a tower, guarded by dragons, giving into the classical or traditional film narrative troupes while also showing how postmodernism film can take tradition and flip it on it’s head because Iris is a minor and Travis is fully grown adult. The rest of the film ignores the connection that Betsy and Travis once had as the narrative is being voiced from a patriarchal male perspective’s and Betsy no longer has value to Travis. Instead, Travis spends the rest of the movie trying to save Iris from her circumstance and be the hero that he believes himself to be, leading up to a crisis and showdown where he saves Iris, nearly sacrificing himself in the process. However, Travis doesn’t save Iris out of pure intentions. He more or so is looking for an excuse to unleash his depravity onto the streets that have isolated him and turned him into the debauched vigilante he is proclaims himself to be, arguing further that Travis is in a continual state of regressive development.

While race and gender has been discussed in a postmodernist film Taxi Driver, little has been mentioned of the politics of the film and how the working class is often forgotten and neglected by the upper class, a.k.a Charles Palantine in this case. Palantine, in the eyes of Travis (and society), represents just another man in power that is able to lead change but the promises of reform that coincide with his campaign are empty and soulless, sayings to help get him elected and persuade the middle and lower class into voting for him.

While being a film of the 21st century, Pieces of April follows a very standard three act structure with seven plot points and has a very standard, simple classical film narrative. The film follows eccentric, black sheep of the family, April, as her uptight, suburbanite family comes to visit for Thanksgiving.

As mentioned before, Pieces of April follows the three act narrative structure of a film. Act I: The Setup begins with the dramatic circumstance, or backstory, as the audience learns that April has a very strained relationship with her family, specifically her mother and her sister.

The oppositional character, in this case it’s April’s mother, Joy, can also have a dramatic circumstance. Joy has breast cancer, and this is expected to be her last Thanksgiving. This also leads way to the catalyst of April’s family coming over for Thanksgiving; however, the big event is April’s oven not working and she needs to find a way to finish cooking her meal before her family comes over, ending Act I: The Setup. This is what’s known as a “racing against time” theme and is very common in film.

Act II: Confrontation begins with April trying to find oven and stove space in her neighbor’s apartments. This break between the big event and the midpoint is what is known as “fun and games,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like. However, Pieces of April uses this section as a character growth/development for April. Even though April believes her family does not deserve a good Thanksgiving, she still makes an effort as to make it as best as she make it, showing she does care about her family despite her verbal disputes. April’s interactions with her neighbor also furthers the film’s and Thanksgiving themes of family, giving, kindness, and brotherhood as she begins to develop relationships with her neighbors after they extend their generosity to April.

Act II’s midpoint follows Bobby when he gets beat up by April’s ex-boyfriend, Tyrone, ruining Bobby’s suit and blooding his face for dinner. This closely runs into the crisis of the film when April’s family turns around after seeing April’s slummy apartment and neighborhood and being greeted by a bruised Bobby, further showing the superficiality and vanity that April’s family possesses.

Act III: The Resolution opens with a emotional showdown between April and her mother, Joy. After Joy sees a mother and daughter quarrel in a diner bathroom, she decides to reunite with Joy, seeing the errors of her way. Everyone has Thanksgiving dinner together as a family, concluding with a self-realization centering around the race against time theme. The self-realization follows the idea to not waste the time with people close to you because you never know how long they have left.

Synopsis: 

When a starry-eyed writer, Christian (Ewan McGregor), is swept into the sex and songs of the Moulin Rouge, he falls in love with the show’s starlet, Satine (Nicole Kidman), but when her hand is promised to The Duke of Monroth (Richard Roxburgh) in order to keep the Moulin Rouge funded, Christian and Satine must keep their love a secret or jeopardize the fate of their Bohemian musical, Spectacular, Spectacular. 

Genre: 

Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge is a musical, specifically a jukebox musical. A jukebox musical is a movie where plot is conveyed through the discography of famous pop artists.

The songs aren’t original to the film (with a somewhat exception to “Come What May,” despite it being originally written for a Baz Luhrmann’s film, Romeo + Juliet).

Moulin Rouge’s score is mostly composed of medleys, which are compilations of songs that fit together lyrically or musically. While there are a lot of romantic comedy undertones, Moulin Rouge best fits in the musical genre. 

Mise En Scene: 

During “One Day I’ll Fly Away”, Satine sings about the life she wishes she could have without the Moulin Rouge, hoping one day she can leave the club behind her. The graphic blocking depicts her in the center of her heart-shaped cutout, a metaphor for her being the object of desire to the men in her life and the heart of the film. The shape of the heart also mimics the look of angel wings, foreshadowing Satine’s death at the end of the film. 

During “El Tango de Roxanne,” The Unconscious Argentinean tells Christian the story of a man and his sex worker lover, paralleling the dynamic between the main couple. It’s a relationship built without trust that ends in loneliness. Here, Mimi and the Argentinean mimic Christian and Satine’s shared love in their dance. The spotlight isolates them, making them the only ones in the world, but other men pull the Argentinean away, like The Duke is doing to Christian.

By the end of the number, a Christian walks through the Moulin Rouge alone, while everyone else has their own partner. Ewan McGregor’s performance is incredible, encapsulating the feelings of loneliness and betrayal. 

During “Come What May (Reprise)”, Satine confesses her love for Christian, causing him to come back to her. This scene and Christian and Satine’s relationship closely parallels the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. At the end of the Greek tale, Orpheus attempts to lead Eurydice out of the Underworld and back home, but he has to lead her out without turning around to see if she is following him. Orpheus does turn around, and Eurydice is right behind him. Eurydice is now banned to the Underworld, never to be reunited with Orpheus until his death. The lovers do share a brief moment of love before Eurydice’s banishment, just like Christian and Satine before Satine’s death. Christian turns around and stays with Satine during this theatrical tradition produced number, which dominos into a horrific moment for the two as Christian loses the one person he ever loved in his arms to death. If Christian didn’t turn around, like Orpheus, he wouldn’t have to experience the tragedy of losing his love. 

Color:

When the audience is first introduced to Satine at the Moulin Rouge, she is dressed in blacks, whites, and silvers, distancing herself from the other performers at the club. This creates a discordant color imbalance amongst the shades of warm tones the Moulin Rouge is built upon. Satine’s introductory color palette also allows her to blend into the bourgeois clientele of the Moulin Rouge, as she aspires to have status and wealth as an actress. 

The color associated with the Moulin Rouge is red, often accompanied by shades of gold. Red is used as an associative color in the film as red evokes the feelings of love, lust, passion, and fury, all elements associated with the plot of Moulin Rouge. From the club itself to Satine’s hair, red pops up everywhere. With its red decor, the Moulin Rouge traps its guests in its lustful lounge. Gold is often associated with regality, which the club lacks. While the Moulin Rouge has status as being a popular hangout for the wealthy, it lacks funding to stay open, causing the Moulin Rouge owner, Harold, to use Satine to attract men with deep pockets, like The Duke. Red is also associated with death, due to the fact Satine has tuberculosis. While red is alluring, it is also alarming in Moulin Rouge and should always be taken as a warning.

“Hindi Sad Diamonds” has a beautifully balanced and analogous color palette. All colors used during this scene come from the cooler side of the color wheel, using blue, purple, and pinks to display the sadness Satine is feeling in this scene. It can also be interpreted as the cold exterior she’s had to construct to protect Christian. 

Cinematography:

Nicole Kidman’s character Satine is referred to as the “Sparkling Diamond.” She is the center of desire during the film. When she’s first introduced, Satine is shot in very stylized and theatrical lighting, giving the illusion her character is translucent or shining. Director Baz Luhrmann said the intention of this effect was to give her a diamond or jewel-like appearance to her skin and costumes, making Nicole the desired, glittering, sparkling diamond that Satine is. 

“Come What May” is the pivotal love song in Moulin Rouge. Christian writes it for Satine and him to sing, so whenever one of them sings the song, they will know their love will never die. During this scene, the stylized lighting and theatrical tradition of the Moulin Rouge disappears and a naturalistic lighting of the time period emerges, showing that Christian and Satine are each other’s return to reality. One might consider this chiaroscuro light due to the fact that only things illuminated in these scenes are Satine and Christian. The glitz and glam superficiality is absent, stripping back the over the top personality of the club. This illustrates that despite everything surrounding them, at the end of the day, the only thing Christian and Satine need is each other. They are the light in each other’s lives. 

In “Your Song,” Christian tries to sell Satine on his and the Bohemian’s musical masterpiece; however, Satine, under the assumption that Christian is The Duke, is mesmerized by his words. Satine is enchanted by Christian, and to achieve this, cinematographer, Donald McAlpine, used a medium shot slow zoom-in to a close up on Satine’s face as she is seemingly hypnotized by Christian’s song. 

Editing: 

After Christian and Satine were caught by the Duke, the two masked their rendezvous as a late night rehearsal for their new musical, Spectacular Spectacular, in hopes that the Duke will invest in their show. The scene’s high-paced and fast moving, creating this stylized disjunctive editing. The use of quick cutaways succeeds in portraying the idea that none of the characters have a grasp on what this musical is supposed to be. The Bohemians are trying everything out and seeing what sticks throughout the inharmonious shots, meshed together to glamor and bullshit the Duke into investing in their fabricated show.  

At the end of “Rhythm of the Night,” Satine makes her ascension during her finale, but it is interrupted by Satine’s fainting and losing consciousness. It’s revealed later that Satine has consumption, or tuberculosis as it’s more commonly known today, but the audience is unaware of this fact. The suspense of what is going to happen to Satine is heightened through the use of a metric montage in the editing. The cuts between shots are decided on Satine’s staggered breathing pattern, hearing her hoarse breathing while seeing everyone’s confused and concerned looks. 

Rhythmic and tonal montage fuse together during “El Tango de Roxanne,” a song filled with betrayal and deceit. Christian becomes suspicious and paranoid about where he stands in Satine’s life, as she is the center of his world yet she must give herself over to The Duke. The violin’s in “El Tango de Roxanne” help the audience understand Christian’s emotional derailment as he doesn’t know what to believe as they become more staccato-like, stringy, and thin. The orchestra builds at the end, full of emotions, anger, and treason, when The Duke turns on Satine and lashes out against her. 

Sound:

The Green Fairy is the embodiment of absinthe in Moulin Rouge, the Bohemians’ drink of choice of. She has a very soft, soothing voice, similar to Satine, but when things take a drunken turn of confidence, Ozzy Osbourne dubs over with some ADR to create a contrapuntal sound. The image of a gorgeous, petite lady does not match the speech and tone of Black Sabbath’s rock god, Ozzy Osbourne. It’s played for comedic effect (and more so a quick cameo), but it is just one of the many ways that Baz Luhrmann uses sound to invoke feelings of either hilarity or drama.

Moulin Rouge uses their sound effects very cleverly. From the whoosh sounds in “Spectacular, Spectacular” to dazzle The Duke to Christian’s typewriter’s click being used a parallel sound to show the progression of his novel. The best example of a parallel sound (effect) in Moulin Rouge is when Satine first descends in “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” and there is the sound of a chandelier swaying to accompany her. It evokes this feeling of delicacy and status as the untouchable starlet presents herself to the club. Even the parallel sound gives Satine the “Sparkling Diamond” effect. 

Moulin Rouge is a musical. That being said, do the Moulin Rouge characters know they’re in a musical? Sort of. The music of Moulin Rouge would be considered diegetic sound because the characters are singing pop music to express feelings or advance the plot and can actually hear the songs, but Moulin Rouge isn’t exactly the story unfolding for the first time. Christian and his friend Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec are telling the story to the audience as Christian is writing a manuscript about his time at the club, so technically, they are allowed to tell their narrative however they see fit. It just so happens that musical storytelling was the way to go. 

Narrative Structural Analysis: 

Moulin Rouge would be classified as a postmodern film. While it does follow a somewhat traditional three act, seven plot point, and progressive structure, it uses songs to propel the story forward, has unequally distributed acts, more than one central character, and has a tragic ending. Act I of the film is 55 minutes long when a standard Act I ranges from 15 to 30 minutes. All of the seven major plot points are portrayed through song, even the character’s dramatic circumstances are presented in a song with Christian’s being found in “Nature Boy” and Satine’s in “One Day I’ll Fly Away.” 

The rest of the plot points can be found in musical numbers. “Rhythm of the Night” is the catalyst because Satine mistakes Christian as The Duke, and the big event is at “Your Song” and “Elephant Love Medley” where Christian and Satine fall in love and in turn have to hide it from the club, ending Act I. Act II opens with a late midpoint at “Come What May” when The Duke finds out about Satine and Christian. The crisis happens at “El Tango de Roxanne” and “The Show Must Go On” when The Duke plans to kill Christian, so Satine lies to Christian and tells him she doesn’t love him. 

Act Three opens with the showdown at “Come What May (Reprise)” and Satine and Christian get back together, The Duke is defeated; and Satine dies from consumption. Christian’s self-realization is as stated at the end of the film, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved in return,” as he returns to a shell of the man he was before the film begins after he loses his world, Satine. 

Conclusion: 

Moulin Rouge is the perfect pop song infused postmodern movie musical. It breaks the boundaries of film, while paying homage to the traditional narratives.

Moulin Rouge takes a love story seen a million times before and gives it new life, allowing audiences to fall in love with the darling Bohemian couple as soon as Ewan McGregor opens his mouth in “Your Song.”