Not a single Elton John song? What is this?!
John Huston, the large, brash, active artist decided to make a film about a kindred spirit who could not follow in his footsteps in terms of the kind of life he led: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The physically stunted artist wanted the life that Huston led, and Huston seems to have had a real affinity for the painter's inability to follow that life. Based on a novel by Pierre La Mure, Moulin Rouge takes a deeply sympathetic look at Lautrec, his inability to find love, and the mysterious artistic drive within him. It's another solidly good work from Huston.
Lautrec (Jose Ferrer) doodles on a tablecloth in the Moulin Rouge as the bright colors of the dancers and singers, mostly Jane Avril (Zsa Zsa Gabor). He is having little luck selling his art to the serious collector, getting signs of purchases but few actual francs. The first twenty minutes are really a celebration of the titular nightclub, showing the sights and sounds that inspired Lautrec while he could only ever watch.
That night, he walks home alone, reminiscing about his childhood under his father, the Comte Toulouse-Lautrec (also Ferrer, in a double role) and the accident that led to his stunted legs, when he comes across a prostitute Marie (Colette Marchand) who asks for his protection from the police. Resistant to any kind of emotional connection, he helps anyway and doesn't put up too much of a fight when she insists on tagging along home, their relationship already forming with a hot and cold dynamic built on Lautrec's wealth, her physical needs, and his desire to open up to a woman who might love him. If there's one major thing that drags this film down, it's this section, not because it's bad but because it's so long. It ends up dragging a bit too much, playing out the same dynamic a couple of times in escalating fashion where Lautrec wants to control Marie, to elevate her, but she can't change who she is, ultimately leading to the break of their relationship.
The most interesting thing that the film does is explore the undefinable place in an artist's head where creativity comes from. The surface focus of the film is about Lautrec's inability to find love, but there's enough throughout about his inability to paint while Marie is around, when he's happy or thinks he has connected with a woman intimately, including the scene where his mother (Claude Nollier) visits him and notes that his latest painting, the first advertisement for the Moulin Rouge that's only partially done, has no wet paint on it. It's only when he's completely let go of Marie that he can go again, starting his whirlwind movement up the art world through the use of his images as commercial art that excite the Parisian world.
The finale third of the film centers around a second potential romance between Lautrec and Myriamme (Suzanne Flon), a rich widow who is attracted to Lautrec's art and Lautrec himself, but Lautrec's degradation of his health through extended and heavy drinking over the course of years has cemented his cynicism around love. He's blind to her affections, up to an including the information that when she was penniless before her marriage, she spent two days wages at a flea market for a portrait he had made before his fame, the portrait he made of Marie. The film is most interesting in this moment where, at the height of Lautrec's professional life, he simply refuses to acknowledge that he could be anything more than a performing monkey for this beautiful, rich woman.
It's really quite sad.
In terms of the production itself, the film shines in the Moulin Rouge when the Lautrec influences are most obvious and in the audience's face. Outside of those moments, Huston's camera seems to be in the process of becoming less complex than he had started, relying more heavily on close ups and cross-cutting than he had shown earlier in his career. Performances are largely professional with most of the heavy lifting falling on Ferrer's shoulders, of course. He's a bit stolid, but that may be appropriate to the character (the contrast to John Leguizamo's take in Baz Luhrmann's film is striking). He still provides a depth of restrained emotion that does ultimately pay off in the end.
It's an interesting experiment from Huston that does work. Embracing Technicolor at a level that even The African Queen didn't and telling the story of a man his polar opposite in physicality, Huston found another solid, respectable success. It may not be his best film, but it's another testament to his abilities as a filmmaker.
John Huston, the large, brash, active artist decided to make a film about a kindred spirit who could not follow in his footsteps in terms of the kind of life he led: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The physically stunted artist wanted the life that Huston led, and Huston seems to have had a real affinity for the painter's inability to follow that life. Based on a novel by Pierre La Mure, Moulin Rouge takes a deeply sympathetic look at Lautrec, his inability to find love, and the mysterious artistic drive within him. It's another solidly good work from Huston.
Lautrec (Jose Ferrer) doodles on a tablecloth in the Moulin Rouge as the bright colors of the dancers and singers, mostly Jane Avril (Zsa Zsa Gabor). He is having little luck selling his art to the serious collector, getting signs of purchases but few actual francs. The first twenty minutes are really a celebration of the titular nightclub, showing the sights and sounds that inspired Lautrec while he could only ever watch.
That night, he walks home alone, reminiscing about his childhood under his father, the Comte Toulouse-Lautrec (also Ferrer, in a double role) and the accident that led to his stunted legs, when he comes across a prostitute Marie (Colette Marchand) who asks for his protection from the police. Resistant to any kind of emotional connection, he helps anyway and doesn't put up too much of a fight when she insists on tagging along home, their relationship already forming with a hot and cold dynamic built on Lautrec's wealth, her physical needs, and his desire to open up to a woman who might love him. If there's one major thing that drags this film down, it's this section, not because it's bad but because it's so long. It ends up dragging a bit too much, playing out the same dynamic a couple of times in escalating fashion where Lautrec wants to control Marie, to elevate her, but she can't change who she is, ultimately leading to the break of their relationship.
The most interesting thing that the film does is explore the undefinable place in an artist's head where creativity comes from. The surface focus of the film is about Lautrec's inability to find love, but there's enough throughout about his inability to paint while Marie is around, when he's happy or thinks he has connected with a woman intimately, including the scene where his mother (Claude Nollier) visits him and notes that his latest painting, the first advertisement for the Moulin Rouge that's only partially done, has no wet paint on it. It's only when he's completely let go of Marie that he can go again, starting his whirlwind movement up the art world through the use of his images as commercial art that excite the Parisian world.
The finale third of the film centers around a second potential romance between Lautrec and Myriamme (Suzanne Flon), a rich widow who is attracted to Lautrec's art and Lautrec himself, but Lautrec's degradation of his health through extended and heavy drinking over the course of years has cemented his cynicism around love. He's blind to her affections, up to an including the information that when she was penniless before her marriage, she spent two days wages at a flea market for a portrait he had made before his fame, the portrait he made of Marie. The film is most interesting in this moment where, at the height of Lautrec's professional life, he simply refuses to acknowledge that he could be anything more than a performing monkey for this beautiful, rich woman.
It's really quite sad.
In terms of the production itself, the film shines in the Moulin Rouge when the Lautrec influences are most obvious and in the audience's face. Outside of those moments, Huston's camera seems to be in the process of becoming less complex than he had started, relying more heavily on close ups and cross-cutting than he had shown earlier in his career. Performances are largely professional with most of the heavy lifting falling on Ferrer's shoulders, of course. He's a bit stolid, but that may be appropriate to the character (the contrast to John Leguizamo's take in Baz Luhrmann's film is striking). He still provides a depth of restrained emotion that does ultimately pay off in the end.
It's an interesting experiment from Huston that does work. Embracing Technicolor at a level that even The African Queen didn't and telling the story of a man his polar opposite in physicality, Huston found another solid, respectable success. It may not be his best film, but it's another testament to his abilities as a filmmaker.