Tori Lafon
Professor Dara Greenwood and Professor Sarah Kozloff
Emotional Engagement in Film
10 December 2017
Never Knew I Could Feel Like This: Emotional Engagement in Moulin Rouge!
I first came across the highly-stylized film Moulin Rouge! when I was Fourteen-years-old. Immediately, I became obsessed. Yet, despite several months of fixation with the lavish musical, I have not watched the Baz Luhrmann directed film in almost seven years. A lot has changed in my life since my initial viewing. Yet, many things which first captivated me about the film still remain true. Therefore, a re-viewing of the film in order to track my emotional engagement with the film seems applicable. While I still consider the film to be a masterpiece; some aspects of the film increased transportation while others discouraged it. By looking at specific devices Moulin Rouge! utilizes as well as my own individual interpretations, my engagement with the film can be explored.
As a device that drives the film and helps create the most emotional impact, the music within the film is particularly of note. As Sheida Sheikhha and Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari point out, Moulin Rouge! is a jukebox musical to a significant degree. “The Elephant Love Medley” alone consists of 12 different songs, from popular artists such as The Beatles and David Bowie. One of the most impressive aspects of the film is how it adapts popular hits, cuts, and converses with them in order to create brand new, original meanings which fit the theme of the movie— songs which say far more about the period in which the film was made than the period it depicts. The songs produced from the recycled material requires the audience to make meaning of cultural artifacts in a new context, while simultaneously coming to terms with new meanings linked to this new material. As someone already familiar with many of these songs, I already had an inherent liking for them, as familiar things encourage fondness. According to a 2013 study conducted by Costabile and Terman, it was found that individuals are more likely to be transported into a film if a soundtrack is present, as long as the music is consistent with the film’s overall tone. . Likewise, Jeff Smith points out that “by creating an emotional bond among film, character, and spectator, the film score authorizes the spectator to “claim” the emotion depicted on-screen as his own.” I believe this to be true as the music heightens my emotional response in each scene.
On paper, Moulin Rouge! is more or less a typical love story: young lovers, slimy bad guys, jealousies, and a starry-eyed belief in the power of art, song, and above all, love. Yet, the elaborate visuals and haunting songs amp up the plot and the emotions it elicits. Through a series of misunderstandings, farcical complications, and musical courtships, Satine and Christian fall into a semi-forbidden love; she is promised to a man referred to as The Duke who has agreed to finance the show in exchange for her fidelity. Andrew Horton says that “Any plot is potentially comic, melodramatic, or tragic, or perhaps all three at once.” Likewise, Moulin Rouge! is not just a musical, but also a mixture of comedy and melodrama. Likewise, Moulin Rouge! is a pastiche, which is similar to satire. But unlike satire, pastiche celebrates the genre it parodies. The film does have a hearty dosage of comical eye candy. Thus, part of the appeal of Moulin Rouge! is simply how funny it is. The comedy of Moulin Rouge! lies in its playful and even outlandish mocking of the romantic genre. Yet, the movie may have some funny parts in it, but ultimately, it is a tragedy, as Satine is terminally ill.
Likewise, Moulin Rouge! fits nicely into the common subgenre of the musical, the backstage musical. These kinds of musicals typically focus on the efforts to create a show of some sort. Thus, the musical features songs sung for the show within the show. As Andrew Stucky points out, Moulin Rouge! engages “the backstage musical form to attain a certain level of musical integration” in its “respective narratives.” In the film, Christian makes up a plot that is essentially the plot of Moulin Rouge!, only set in India; a musical generated when Christian, and his friend, Toulouse-Lautrec, are commissioned to create the theatrical production, with a plot hastily crafted in a rush to hide Satine and Christian’s blossoming love. The result is a love story that parallels the emotional triangle between Christian, the Duke and Satine. Towards the end, the integration of the play and the film rely on a botched performance in order to bind the two together in a powerful parallel to the film’s love story during my favorite song of the film, “Come What May.” I found the way the two stories meshed and emphasized together to be particularly delightful. Also, I am very amused by the jaw-dropping scene where Christian shouts out “Because she does not love you!” when the Duke questions why the character of the Indian Courtesan does not end up with the Evil Maharajah.
Additionally, the film is a love song to spectacle, to all forms of spectacle, including cabaret, opera, musical comedy, dance, to theater, and, of course, film. As Stuckey points out, “the cabaret acts, especially the (in)famous can-can, but also the drama ‘Spectacular Spectacular’, provide frenetic musical numbers for Moulin Rouge! that serve to amaze the audience.” The can-can dance is a flurry of legs and petticoats thrown up in the air, edited with a fast pace to convey the excitement Christian is feeling when he enters the Moulin Rouge. These elements successfully elicit the filmmaker’s desired emotion within me. When Satine first appears in the film during her burlesque routine, the crowd is in awe, staring up at her like she is an angel coming down from heaven. When she performs in the Moulin Rouge, the crowd instantly recognizes her and cheers. Their reactions give the film’s audience an idea of how to feel about Satine and how to react when we see her come onscreen. As the audience cheers, I too found myself wanting to cheer for her. Therefore, I feel I enjoyed these scenes as the movie literally queued how I should respond. I feel these well placed queues heighten my enjoyment, especially during the ensemble numbers and the comedic scenes.
On the topic of spectacle, the film appeals to me due to the how it conforms to the musical genre. Throughout their history, musicals are most often conceived as “pure entertainment.” Furthermore, according to Richard Dyer in his acclaimed essay “Entertainment and Utopia,” many musicals emphasize a sense of utopia. Thus, the musical includes ideal locations compared to the real world. These utopian sensibilities are expressed through a number of means but, in the musical, this is usually done through the world of singing and dancing, distinct from the ‘real world’ which presents the social tensions, inadequacies and absences of the time. Likewise, the Paris the film presents is much more glamourous and cleaner than in reality. As previously mentioned, since music can elicit emotions, the musical’s numbers heighten the sentiment felt during that scene and thus intensify the feeling of utopia.5 In that sense they are ideal for creating a feeling of joyous escapism in the face of social tension. Particularly, Moulin Rouge paints the Montmartre area of Paris as a place with swirling colors and artistry. Although based on history, the utopia this musical depicts is a nostalgic version of the past, depicting it as a mythical fantasy world. The bohemians in the area, particularly Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s theater troupe, represent a common idea of the musical emphasizing community. In the film, Moulin Rouge’s energy and abundance are prominent throughout, particularly during the beginning of the musical. I feel great satisfaction in witnessing a world where art takes precedence, with swirling colors and elephant-shaped buildings. I know this is not reality, yet I find enjoyment in believing that this myth could exist. Likewise, the fact that the meat of the film takes place within Christian’s flashback indicates that perhaps this world is not real. The Christian telling the story is shown within a Montmartre that is lifeless and sepia-toned now that Satine is gone. On that note, film subverts this common idea of utopia since Satine dies at the end. Still, the elements of utopia the film includes is just as pleasurable as how the film challenges them.
Particularly of note is how fast-paced the film is. The camera is constantly swinging, panning, and twirling, so quickly that it makes you dizzy. The fast-pace can-can scene includes 81 cuts while the Diamonds routine has 178 cuts in slightly over five minutes of screen time, creating an average shot length of 0.83 and 1.73 seconds per shot respectively. It doesn't always work —at times things get too frantic and the editing becomes too uneven. While the scenes are meant to hype up the audience, some of the scenes are so fast-paced that I found them jarring. Likewise, when I first saw the film, the editing was actually so displeasing that it prevented me to be fully transported into the first part of the film. However, as Stucky points out “the truly dizzying pace of editing in the can-can scene can partly be explained by its role as pure spectacle carrying nearly zero narrative burden in the film except that of establishing the historical image of the Moulin Rouge.” Likewise, as the film progresses, I find that the fast pace helps emphasize the beauty of the slower moments. As the film shifts gears towards the inevitable tragic ending, the slower pace is more rapidly detected due to the oscillation of film speed. Therefore, the fast-pace actually serves to heighten my engagement with the film, despite an initial displeasure.
According to Jeff Smith in regards to a particularly moving scene, “My own response, on the other hand, is largely an effect of the text and rests on my sympathy with the character’s unhappy predicament.” Smith notes that he recognized feeling sadness in response to a particular cinematic scene because he noticed physiological changes. Likewise, as the characters felt emotion in Moulin Rouge!, I found myself responding on a deeply emotionally level, signified by my physiological response. Interestingly, I thought that the years that have passed since I first viewed the film would have hardened me to the plot. I knew what to expect from the film. I figured I would not be as emotionally affected and more appreciative of the film. However, this was not quite the case. In Satine’s wistful solo “The Song Must Go On,” I find my jaw clenching as she resigns to the fact that she must lie about her love for Christian in order to protect him from being killed and the pain of her impending death. In the reprise of “Come What May,” my eyes well up and my chest literally aches—only this time there is a happy connotation. I am so emotionally aroused by this scene of romantic restoration. However, the biggest punch comes at the conclusion, when Satine succumbs to her illness and dies in Christian’s arms. I found myself openly sobbing at this scene during each viewing of the film, with tears dripping down my face. I did not expect to be as emotionally affected by the film as during my first viewing, yet I still responded with the physiological responses associated with sadness and happiness. Therefore, I suspect the film elicited these actual emotions from within me.
While I love the aspects of the film which fit into the musical genre, one of my favorite parts of the film is how much it subverts my expectations. As I have discussed the film (particularly at the beginning) is a high-energy, surrealist circus. Things happen that in the real world could never possibly happen. When the men in the Moulin Rouge throw their hats into the air, an exterior shot shows them flying high above all the buildings. As Satine and Christian float in the air during “The Elephant Love Song,” the moon finishes their song for them. The gritty, dark Moulin Rouge of real life is filled with glitter, lavishness, and splendor in the film. Thus, the first time I watched the film, the absurdity of the film caused me to believe that perhaps Satine would not die. Christian’s voiceover at the beginning of the film could be lying to subvert the audience’s expectation of a Hollywood happy ending. Yet, just as the two lovers are reunited, Satine dies. Thus, the moment was all the more impactful the first time I watched the film as it honestly surprised me.
The film is all the more pleasurable to me due to this rebellion of the Hollywood ending that musicals are often associated with. Young, cynical me was particularly impressed by this. According to Horton, often times, comedy can lean “towards variations of the not comic.” Comedy can be interpreted as an event which goes against what the audience expects, thus subverting traditional film narrative. Even though Moulin Rouge’s ending is undeniably not comedic, the film does destabilize the traditional narrative by having the lead die. There is no true happy ending. As Sheida Sheikhha and Behrooz Mahmoodi, part of the film’s emotional appeal is how the face-paced editing and almost cartoon-like saturated colors help differentiate Moulin Rouge! film from musicals of the past. Likewise, as someone who was raised on movie musicals, particularly old, classic movie musicals with a more stagnant camera and uniform colors, the individuality of the film appeals to me.
Furthermore, David Desser states that “at some level, almost every musical is a star vehicle meant to highlight the particular abilities of its leading man or lady.” I was a fan of the cast before watching the film, particularly Nicole Kidman. Likewise, an aspect that appeals to me about Moulin Rouge! is the cast’s talents. I was most impressed with Ewan McGregor’s singing abiltiy, an actor I was not familiar with during my first viewing. When he first opens his mouth in a rendition of “The Sound of Music,” I was blown away by his sheer talent. Therefore, the enjoyment of his talents helped transport me into the film’s music, and therefore the film as a whole.
Oliver and Raney conducted a study in order to conceptualize and develop ways to illustrate entertainment as a way of dealing with questions of life’s purpose and human meaningfulness. Furthermore, they state audiences do not only seek out entertainment for the purpose of pleasure. Often times, people look for content to satisfy eudaimonic concerns since “contemplation of one’s own mortality causes individuals to become more reflective and to search for meaningfulness in human life—including in cultural representations—beyond their individual existences” The study found that when seeking out entertainment, people actually look to satisfy both a hedonistic (pleasure-seeking) as well as eudaimonic (truth-seeking) desire. I definitely found this to be true when engaging with Moulin Rouge!, as the film offers a number of moments which satisfy a need for pleasure as well as introspection. Likewise, pleasure can be gained from eudaimonic moments, as fulfilling a need for introspection or inspiration can be pleasurable. As mentioned, the film is quite comedic, with scenes such as the performance of “Like A Virgin” eliciting a chuckle. However, what appeals to me most during the film is how it satisfies an eudaimonic need. It’s themes of love being the most important thing in life provokes me. Throughout the film, the theme is stated quite literally multiple times as, “the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” Yes, the tragic conclusion is devastating. However, some reconciliation is gained by knowing that they at least were able to experience such a vehement love in their lifetimes. Satine may have died, but the two lovers profess their love, ignoring their obligations or anxieties. Therefore, the message holds that even though their romance ended badly, the experience of being in love was worth the tragedy. As the research suggests, this aspect of the film greatly appealed to me, particularly during the second time of viewing this film. As someone who has experienced romantic relationships since my first viewing, the film helps soothe my eudaimonic, and perhaps idealistic, belief that love, despite difficulties, is worth pursuing.
To continue, Hefner and Wilson predict that people seek out romantic plots in order to learn about what makes a successful relationship. The study highlights a set of expectations for how a model relationship should form, develop, function, and be maintained, which Hefner and Wilson call “the romantic ideal, which is comprised of the components “love can overlook flaws; love can seek out that one perfect mate; love can happen instantaneously; and love can overcome all obstacles.” The study found that repeated viewing of romantic films was related to idealization of one’s partner, which I found to be true when watching the film recently and as a teenager. Furthermore, the study found that people who watch films in order to learn about romance are more likely to endorse romantic beliefs than if they were watching for other reasons. In Moulin Rouge!, Satine is often referred to as being the most beautiful girl in the world in Christian’s eyes. Likewise, Christian declares that their love is one that with last forever. Particularly in my first viewing, I held these notions to be indicative of what a strong relationship would look like. Moulin Rouge! is a film that I undeniably based my relationships around, holding the truths within it to be self evident. Likewise, because it upholds romantic ideals employed in other films, I believe the message to be more valid.
The first time I watched Moulin Rouge!, I found myself to be completely invested in the story and the characters being told. I had undoubtedly formed a strong parasocial relationship with the characters, particularly with Christian as the female protagonist is a rather flat character. I was completely invested in his relationship and his youthful ideals of love. In my more recent viewing, however, I still felt connected to the characters, albeit the connection was not as strong. According to Greenwood & Long (2011), individuals with an anxious ambivalent attachment style, who tend to be emotionally preoccupied with their real-life relationships and to idealize relationship partners, also report increased interpersonal kinship with favorite characters. Interestingly, in taking a test measuring attachment style, I have determined that I have an anxious ambivalent attachment style. Therefore, my strong parasocial relationship with the characters could possibly have a correlation with this attachment style. Likewise, the study found that single individuals with attachment anxiety as well as the those with a high need to belong who were also not involved in a current romantic relationship showed the greatest imagined intimacy with opposite gender media figures. When I initially viewed Moulin Rouge!, I was not in a relationship and had never actually had a serious relationship. Thus, it would make sense that I was so emotionally invested in the male protagonist. However, my current viewing takes place during a time in which I have had a few pasy romantic relationships and am currently in a serious relationship. While I still undoubtedly have an anxious ambivalent attachment style, a high need to belong, and even an astute emotional connection to the characters, my glorification of Christian has definitely decreased. Therefore, I feel that this study backs up my emotional engagement with the character.
However, I do suspect I am less emotionally invested in Christian due to a more complex understanding of gender roles than during my first viewing. As I am older than I was when I first saw the film, I am better able to recognize how misogynistic the musical actually is. Particularly, the female protagonist is used to emphasize the pain and suffering of the male protagonist. Throughout the film, hardly any time is spent dissecting how the events affect Satine, only how the events hurt or helped Christian. The film upholds the patriarchal execution of the female muse, which allows the male artist to create art via her death. When Satine is almost raped by the Duke, the brief scene is hardly given a mention. Instead more weight is put on the fact of how her potentially sleeping with the Duke would have hurt Christian. Even on her deathbed, Satine apologizes to Christian. Her final words are comforting him and encouraging him to move on and become a great writer. Throughout the film, every action Satine makes is either controlled or for the benefit of a man. Thus, this element prevented me from being completely transported into the story. I felt that the story encourages a legacy of giving women no agency and using them as plot devices to further the male character. Even though I irrefutably love the film, the way my gender is treated within the film tarnished some of the plot points and prevented me from being as emotionally engaged as I was during my first viewing of the film.
Moulin Rouge! is an extravagant movie of excess. As one of its fans, I see it as a brilliant pastiche of the movie musical that highlights defining characteristics of the genre. It reveals a deep structural tension in the musical genre on the register of tone between a sentimentalizing romantic love that pushes toward melodrama. Throughout the dizzying spectacle, the frantic pace of the narrative, and the stylized performance of the actors, the love story still remains exceptionally moving. As the final title spells out, "This movie is about . . . Truth . . . Beauty . . . Freedom … But above all, LOVE!" This is a notion I can completely get behind.