Moulin Rouge
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Movie Reviews of Moulin Rouge
Movie Review: There's Nothing Else Like It
Summary: 5 Stars
A drama/biography/musical from 1952? My wife just wasn't interested. But I insisted that there's no film like the original (i.e. the REAL) "Moulin Rouge." It's a biography of the renown French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec from the late 1890s who had very short legs and grew to stand only about 4'11" due to an accident and bone disease. Although he was from an aristocratic family he chose to live alone in Paris to pursue his art career. He would spend time at a local cabaret, Moulin Rouge, where he'd find inspiration for his art, as well as fuel for his increasing alcoholism.
Although Henri (José Ferrer) was brilliant artistically & intellectually, he understandably had a poor self-image due to his dwarfism, which was constantly reinforced by various mean-spirited people. Yet, he discovers love for the first time when he meets a spirited woman bred in the cobblestone jungles of Paris (Colette Marchand). Will this love enhance his life or ultimately poison him? I'll leave that for you to discover.
INTERESTING ITEMS:
- The opening dance hall sequences are highlighted by Katherine Kath (the redhead) and a young Zsa Zsa Gabor.
- José Ferrer is great as the protagonist with his commanding voice and interesting dialogues. His commentaries on life are brilliant and brutally honest, but also cynical.
- The viewer REALLY wants to see Henri find true love, happiness and victory, despite his deformity, but his cynicalism and alcoholism sadly enshroud him.
- The story is both entertaining AND thought-provoking. My wife & I had some good discussions after the film. For instance, real-life people & couples that the story brought to mind, the nature of existence as "unattractive" and unloved, missed opportunities thrown in our laps due to poor self-image and addictions, being a "has been" and a "continue to be," etc.
- There's another significant female character who shows up in the third act, but I'm not sure of her name (in the movie or real life). In any event, the viewer will notice that she's NOT embarrassed to appear with Henri in public like the erratic Marie Charlet. This is an important part; take note.
Since the film is a biography it could only end one way, but I won't spoil it for you if you're not familiar with the true story.
The film was shot in Paris and England and runs 2 hours.
FINAL WORD: Make no mistake, "Moulin Rouge" is a masterpiece. There's really nothing else like it. It's the perfect antidote to modern 'blockbuster' drek. Disregard the fact that it was released in 1952, particularly if you have a distaste for old movies, as "Moulin Rouge" is a timeless film both hugely entertaining and thought-provoking, not to mention REAL. After watching my wife expressed how much she liked the film and thanked me because she would have never chosen it on her own.
GRADE: A+
Movie Review: The Other MOULIN ROUGE
Summary: 5 Stars
Mention MOULIN ROUGE and most folks will think of Nicole Kidman and the ground-breaking 2001 musical in which she sang and danced to perfection.
However, back in 1952, there was another (non-musical) MOULIN ROUGE, and most people who remember this John Huston-directed classic consider it to be one of the greatest films of that decade.
It also produced a title song that has become a standard.
Huston's film received seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. It won for Art Direction and Costuming, but lost the top honor, as did HIGH NOON and THE QUIET MAN, to Cecil B. DeMille's THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. [Go figure!]
Visually stunning, MOULIN ROUGE stars Oscar-nominated Jose Ferrer as both famed artist Toulouse-Lautrec and his father.
A dwarf, Lautrec believes that he is too ugly to ever attract a woman, thus he devotes his life to painting and cognac. A fixture at Paris' infamous turn-off-the-century Moulin Rouge nightclub, he meets and falls in love with a streetwalker (Colette Marchand), who breaks his heart. Later, he is unable to recognize true affection from another woman (Suzanne Flon).
Zsa Zsa Gabor co-stars as a singer at the nightclub who also has romantic problems. Future Hammer horror icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee have brief roles.
MGM/UA Home Entertainment has done a commendable job in transferring this color-rich film onto DVD.
© Michael B. Druxman
Movie Review: Toulouse Lautrec avec la gouine et la goulue in English
Summary: 5 Stars
I cannot say enough nice things about this film. First of all, despite the tragic life of Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, this is a happy movie. The exuberance of the can-can dancers and the sparkle of Zsa Zsa Gabor play away from Lautrec's loneliness and alcoholic despair while making the viewer more sympathetic. The script is admirably balanced, and the character development is superb. But herein lies the movie's weakness, which is that it tells more about these people than about Lautrec's study and growth as an artist. In contrast, the Van Gogh bio-movie Lust for Life, tells more about how Vincent learned to paint, the long hours he spent, the practicing, the frustrations with instruction, than it tells about the supporting characters. But viewers should certainly forgive this lack, epecially those who are into Art and who already know just how much work it takes; nobody sits down before an easel and dabbles out a masterpiece in fifteen minutes; there is a lifetime of ability, perserverance and individualization realized in every stroke of the brush. Another plus is that this film really captures the spirit of "The Gay Nineties." Also, it gives a pretty good idea of the Art Market; showing the dealer, the collector and among the customers, a King! This is a film that should be viewed with a bottle of French Champagne,a feather boa, and a poodle with a very frou-frou bow around its neck!Movie Review: A Tragic, Triumphant Life
Summary: 5 Stars
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was an aristocrat from an ancient, inbred family who grew up to be a dwarf because of childhood leg accidents and one of France's great Impressionist painters. Moulin Rouge (1952) is John Huston's tribute to the artist (he wrote and directed this film), which brings vividly to life the Paris of the 1890s and especially the famous Moulin Rouge of the period, complete with amazingly faithful recreations of the music hall's characters that Lautrec immortalized in his paintings and that seem to have jumped right out of the artist's canvas. Poor Lautrec, whose only comfort came prostitutes, who died early of alcoholism, had a short, unhappy life, but his art was his triumph. There's an indelible scene in this movie that points up the artist's, any artist's, almost impersonal drive. In it Lautrec, after the prostitute he's rescued off the street leaves him in misery, he closes the windows in his apartment, turns on the gas, and sits down to wait for death. Idly staring at an unfinished painting, he abruptly gets up and adds a brush stoke. Then another. And then stroke after brush stroke while in his excitement and never leaving the canvas he reaches for the windows and closes them, reaches for the gas and shuts it off. It's a scene so right and so life-affirming, it raises one's neck hair.Movie Review: Vivid Portrait of An Artist
Summary: 5 Stars
Even in an age when the studios placed restrictions on what would appear on screen director John Huston was a highly individual and uncomprosing auteur. Despite the film's ostensible setting in the gaiety of Paris' Moulin Rouge the film is front-and-center a portrait of a brooding cognac besotted artist Henri de Latrouse-Lautrec(Jose Ferrer). Born of French nobility, Latrouse-Lautrec was left crippled and deformed at an early age by a freak household accident. Embittered, Latrouse-Lautrec felt incapable or unworthy of being loved by a woman. Instead, he channels his passion into his painting with the Paris streets and primarily the notorious Moulin Rouge being his main subject matters. And what a thing of beauty his visions are! Despite salving his pain in alcohol Latrouse-Lautrec was still able to channel his passion into his indelible works of art. Including "Lust for Life", "Moulin Rouge" is probably the best biography of a painter I've ever seen on screen. Jose Ferrer, a lead actor who had the misfortune of being typecast in supporting roles for most of his career, is nothing less than wondrous as Latrouse-Lautrec. He embodies all the conflicts and contradictions of the man with few histrionics. "Moulin Rouge" is a work for the ages.