I absolutely cannot fathom how it is that Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! turns 10 years old today. The feeling of seeing it opening night is still so fresh in my mind (among other things, it was the first time that I ever had a conversation, walking out of a theater, of what I wanted to see on the DVD special features), and the film itself is still so keenly alive, as vital on the day it premiered… anyway.
Nathaniel at The Film Experience picked this film for the newest entry of Hit Me With Your Best Shot, as well he should, and thus presented me with a quandary. Not only is this one of my all-time absolute favorites ever (Top 10 material, without a doubt, and infinitely rewatchable), part of the reason why it’s one of my favorites is that it’s overflowing with glorious, overwhelming images. It is, to quote Harold Zidler, “a magnificent, opulent, tremendous, stupendous, gargantuan, bedazzlement, a sensual ravishment,” though to get the whole effect, you really need to hear Jim Broadbent deliver the last part of the line like the very act of saying the word “ravishment” makes him cum.
So what to pick, out of this vast field of possibilities?
Maybe one of the energetic, candy-colored shots of the inordinately seductive world of the Moulin Rouge itself?
Or perhaps that series of quick close-ups of Nicole Kidman where she got to play a number of girly archetypes all in a row and proved, once and for all, to anyone who wasn’t an asshole, that she’s a fantastic comic performer?
The opening shot of a curtain rising, promising us a grandly theatrical, patently fabricated journey into the richest melodrama of modern times!
Then again, I could go with a shot where Baz and DP Donald McAlpine were just kind of dicking around with color.
There’s always this spectacularly beautiful backlit shot, coming at one of the saddest and most dramatic moments in the film, style that serves a narrative purpose but also just looks incredibly beautiful for the sake of it. And it plays so sublimely with the crescendo in the music that comes with it!
Or something just straight-up glittery.
Or, maybe, one of the beautiful wide-shots of the whole cast, where Baz gets to marry theatrical staging and the film frame in one fluid mixture?
Or maybe just the jello boobs.
Yeah. When in doubt, go for whatever is most puerile. Jello boobs it is.
Okay, it’s undoubtedly the backlit shot, which is high on my personal list of most beautiful shots in any movie ever. But I cannot imagine anyone begrudging me the right to just this once go a little overboard.