Acting and Cynicism: Layers Over Layers
Jun. 2nd, 2001 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadelleLike so many other fannish types, I went to see Moulin Rouge on its opening night. The comedy in the movie is wonderful. It's extremely funny and full of sexual innuendo, just my kind of thing. The drama is not so wonderful.
Christian and Satine are a cliche, and a boring one at that. We know the story by now, and Baz Luhrman hasn't done anything new to the dramatic elements, other than throw song lyrics into every conversation.
In fact, crediting the movie entirely to Baz Luhrman is misleading. The plot is painfully unoriginal. He uses song lyrics as dialogue. He steals from everywhere. Satine says of Christian, "The boy is infatuated with me," a line straight out of To Die For. Her costume in one scene of their rehearsal is a copy of Queen Amidala's formalwear from The Phantom Menace.
As the movie opens, Baz spins the camera around his lush sets and well-trained dancers, then overlays it with music in such a way that you're never quite sure what you're seeing or hearing. It's as if he heard a bunch of songs on the radio and wanted to put images with them.
The strongest moments in Moulin Rouge are, as I said, the comic ones. The opening scene has an unconscious Argentinian crashing through Christian's cieling, closely followed by a midget with a lisp in a nun's costume. Some of the best scenes are those in which Zidler and the Duke seduce each other with words and song in Satine's name, even going so far as to sing "Like a Virgin" at one point.
I still don't understand the appeal Ewan McGregor holds for so many people. As Christian, he is excruciatingly ordinary. Christians are a dime a dozen in any piece about the period. He is the male dull spot in the bright array of characters who are far too colorful to be real.
Nicole Kidman's Satine is the female dull spot. Satine is too much Nicole and not enough Satine. I've seen her do nearly everything she does as Satine as herself in various interviews in the last month. The way she says, "A real actress," from inside a circle of cancan dancers is pure Suzanne Stone Maretto, her character in To Die For. Nicole is at her best when she's strong, as she is when she informs Christian that love is not enough in the real world. Unfortunately, Satine spends much of the movie coughing up blood and being a giggly schoolgirl.
For all the fuss about the chemistry between Nicole and Ewan, I had a very hard time believing that Satine and Christian were so deeply in love. Only when they appear onstage as the Hindu courtesan and the penniless sitar player can I believe it.
The same effect is even more pronounced in Satine. She is always acting, except when she's onstage. She proclaims her wish to be "a real actress" onstage. She first faints onstage. She tells Christian she loves him onstage. She dies onstage. It's made me very cynical towards Nicole herself. Nicole is an actress, and she's been in the public spotlight for a long time. Do you really think she didn't know what Oprah was going to ask her? Do you really think she hadn't thought about how she was going to answer? According to Entertainment Weekly, she's winning in the court of public opinion regarding her divorce from Tom. Do you really think that's accidental?
Christian and Satine are a cliche, and a boring one at that. We know the story by now, and Baz Luhrman hasn't done anything new to the dramatic elements, other than throw song lyrics into every conversation.
In fact, crediting the movie entirely to Baz Luhrman is misleading. The plot is painfully unoriginal. He uses song lyrics as dialogue. He steals from everywhere. Satine says of Christian, "The boy is infatuated with me," a line straight out of To Die For. Her costume in one scene of their rehearsal is a copy of Queen Amidala's formalwear from The Phantom Menace.
As the movie opens, Baz spins the camera around his lush sets and well-trained dancers, then overlays it with music in such a way that you're never quite sure what you're seeing or hearing. It's as if he heard a bunch of songs on the radio and wanted to put images with them.
The strongest moments in Moulin Rouge are, as I said, the comic ones. The opening scene has an unconscious Argentinian crashing through Christian's cieling, closely followed by a midget with a lisp in a nun's costume. Some of the best scenes are those in which Zidler and the Duke seduce each other with words and song in Satine's name, even going so far as to sing "Like a Virgin" at one point.
I still don't understand the appeal Ewan McGregor holds for so many people. As Christian, he is excruciatingly ordinary. Christians are a dime a dozen in any piece about the period. He is the male dull spot in the bright array of characters who are far too colorful to be real.
Nicole Kidman's Satine is the female dull spot. Satine is too much Nicole and not enough Satine. I've seen her do nearly everything she does as Satine as herself in various interviews in the last month. The way she says, "A real actress," from inside a circle of cancan dancers is pure Suzanne Stone Maretto, her character in To Die For. Nicole is at her best when she's strong, as she is when she informs Christian that love is not enough in the real world. Unfortunately, Satine spends much of the movie coughing up blood and being a giggly schoolgirl.
For all the fuss about the chemistry between Nicole and Ewan, I had a very hard time believing that Satine and Christian were so deeply in love. Only when they appear onstage as the Hindu courtesan and the penniless sitar player can I believe it.
The same effect is even more pronounced in Satine. She is always acting, except when she's onstage. She proclaims her wish to be "a real actress" onstage. She first faints onstage. She tells Christian she loves him onstage. She dies onstage. It's made me very cynical towards Nicole herself. Nicole is an actress, and she's been in the public spotlight for a long time. Do you really think she didn't know what Oprah was going to ask her? Do you really think she hadn't thought about how she was going to answer? According to Entertainment Weekly, she's winning in the court of public opinion regarding her divorce from Tom. Do you really think that's accidental?
Baz wants to be Gus Van Sant, Nicole's an Ice Queen, and Ewan wants to disappear.
Date: 2001-06-02 11:52 am (UTC)R+J is the ultimate in steal-and-remake. It's Shakespeare, for God's sake, and way overdone modern-version Shakespeare at that. (As opposed to Ethan Hawke's Hamlet, which is a slightly surreal modern remake, but not overdone like R+J.) I think part of Baz's gift/curse is that everything in his movies is so opulently flashy. And Moulin Rouge is beyond flashy.
I agree with you about some of the Nicole/Satine stuff. And about the chemistry between Satine and Christian. I was expecting so much more. They were all giggly in that one part, and I couldn't help but compare it in my mind to Nic and Ewan being all giggly with each other at Cannes. It's like (movie, not N&E), "Okay, we can be all flirty with each other, and lust after each other, but are we really in love?" Back when I first heard who was in this movie, I thought to myself, "Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor? I can't think of a more unlikely screen pair than them." And I built it up for myself, I know I did, but when it comes down to it my first thought rings true.
And I agree with you about the cliches - but it's not as bad as Pearl Harbor. I winced at the "I'm cold" at the end, because that has to be the most over-used 'I'm dying, how do I feel?' movie cliche in the world. It's almost like Baz wants you to forget about the script weaknesses by using those stunning visual images.
Re: Baz wants to be Gus Van Sant, Nicole's an Ice Queen, and Ewan wants to disappear.
Date: 2001-06-02 05:03 pm (UTC)I really liked Romeo + Juliet, which is probably part of why Moulin Rouge disappointed me.
I also have trouble suspending my disbelief enough to believe that they would fall in love at that first meeting. You have to know someone before you can love them.
Re: Baz wants to be Gus Van Sant, Nicole's an Ice Queen, and Ewan wants to disappear.
Date: 2001-06-02 06:50 pm (UTC)I liked R+J the first few times I saw it, but one can only take so much Leonardo DiCaprio spouting Shakespeare. *grin* I haven't watched it in a long time - perhaps I'll have to go steal it back from my sister and do a more thorough comparison.