Moulin Rouge | |
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Directed by | John Huston |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | Moulin Rouge 1950 novel by Pierre La Mure |
Produced by | John and James Woolf |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Oswald Morris |
Edited by | Ralph Kemplen |
Music by | |
Production company | |
Distributed by | British Lion Films |
Release dates |
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Running time | 119 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $1.1 million [1] |
Box office | $9 million [2] |
Moulin Rouge is a 1952 British historical romantic drama film directed by John Huston from a screenplay he co-wrote with Anthony Veiller, based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Pierre La Mure, and produced by John and James Woolf. The film follows artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as he navigates the bohemian subculture of 19th-century Paris, centered around the Moulin Rouge, a burlesque venue. It was screened at the 14th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Lion.
The film stars José Ferrer, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Suzanne Flon, Eric Pohlmann, Colette Marchand, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Katherine Kath, Theodore Bikel, and Muriel Smith.
In 1890 Paris, crowds gather at the Moulin Rouge as artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec finishes a bottle of cognac while sketching the dancers. Regular patrons arrive: singer Jane Avril teases Henri, dancers La Goulue and Aicha argue, and owner Maurice Joyant offers Henri free drinks for a promotional poster. After closing, Henri reveals his 4-foot-6-inch (137 cm) stature. A flashback shows that, as a child, he injured his legs in a fall, which never healed due to a genetic disorder from his parents being first cousins.
On his way home to Montmartre, Henri helps streetwalker Marie Charlet escape the police. Impressed by her lack of judgment about his disability, Henri allows her to stay with him. He soon realizes poverty has made her both harsh and free from societal hypocrisy. After a night out, she insults a portrait he painted of her, and he throws her out, sinking into alcoholism. His landlady contacts his mother, who urges him to find Marie to lift his spirits. Henri finds her drunk in a café, where she admits she stayed with him only to save money for her boyfriend, who has now left her. Depressed, Henri returns home and contemplates suicide but finds sudden inspiration to complete the Moulin Rouge poster. Surviving his crisis, he arranges for Marie to receive money for a new life.
Henri delivers the poster to Maurice, who accepts it despite its unconventional style. His success grows, but one of his risqué portraits leads his father to denounce his work. Henri continues depicting Parisian nightlife, gaining fame but few friends. One day, he meets a young woman, Myriamme, on the Pont Alexandre III, seemingly about to jump into the Seine. She assures him she is not suicidal and throws a key into the river. Later, while shopping with Jane Avril, Henri recognizes Myriamme modeling gowns. A friend of Jane's, she lives independently. Henri is surprised when Myriamme reveals she bought his portrait of Marie at a flea market. The key Myriamme discarded belonged to a suitor, Marcel de la Voisier, who wanted her as a lover but refused to marry her. Though cynical about love, Henri begins to fall in love with her.
One evening, Henri and Myriamme encounter La Goulue, now a washed-up, drunken figure, and Henri realizes the Moulin Rouge has become respectable. Myriamme informs Henri that Marcel has proposed. Henri bitterly congratulates her. When she asks if he loves her, Henri lies and says he does not, believing she is toying with his feelings. The next day, Henri receives a letter from Myriamme, confessing her love and that his bitterness has ruined their chance at happiness. He rushes to her apartment, but she has already left.
A year later, Henri, now an alcoholic, is found drunk in a dive bar, still obsessed with Myriamme's letter. Taken home, he suffers from delirium tremens and hallucinates cockroaches. While trying to fend them off, he falls down the stairs. Taken to his family's chateau, his condition worsens. On his deathbed, Henri's father informs him he will be the first living artist to be exhibited in the Louvre and begs for forgiveness. In his final moments, Henri envisions figures from his Moulin Rouge paintings dancing around his room.
In the film, José Ferrer portrays both Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his father, the Comte Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec. To transform Ferrer into Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, various techniques were employed, including the use of platforms, concealed pits, special camera angles, makeup, and costumes. Short body doubles were also utilized. Ferrer designed and used a set of knee pads that allowed him to walk on his knees, simulating Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's distinctly shorter stature. Ferrer received significant praise not only for his performance but also for his willingness to have his legs strapped in this manner for the role.
It was reported that John Huston asked cinematographer Oswald Morris to render the color scheme of the film to look "as if Toulouse-Lautrec had directed it". [3] Moulin Rouge was shot in three-strip Technicolor. The Technicolor projection print is created by dye transfer from three primary-color gelatin matrices. This permits great flexibility in controlling the density, contrast, and saturation of the print. Huston asked Technicolor for a subdued palette, rather than the sometimes-gaudy colors "glorious Technicolor" was famous for. Technicolor was reportedly reluctant to do this.
The film was shot at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, and on location in London and Paris.
The budget was £434,264 plus $160,000 to cover the fees of John Huston, José Ferrer and Zsa Zsa Gabor. [4]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This long and pretentious film is, like Pierre La Mure's book, not an accurate biography of Lautrec, but an attempt to evoke the kind of man he was and to paint a vivid fresco of his period and background. ...The dialogue, with its attempts at smart and worldly wise aphorisms, the deadly even pace and unrelenting detachment add up only to two hours of innate boredom, relieved from time to time by some striking effects of colour. The sets, costumes and photography are, indeed, on a much higher level than the rest; there are moments when the surface achieves a fine visual approximation of Lautrec's Paris, and as a result of which the vulgarity of the treatment appears all the more discordant. The acting is chiefly remarkable for a constant babel of foreign accents, among which the most extraordinary are Zsa Zsa Gabor's high-pitched Viennese exclamations." [5]
During its first year of release it earned £205,453 in UK cinemas [6] and grossed $9 million at the North American box office. [2]
According to the National Film Finance Corporation, the film made a comfortable profit. [7]
Ferrer received 40 per cent of the proceeds from the film as well as other rights. This remuneration gave rise to a prominent U.S. Second Circuit tax case, Commissioner v. Ferrer (1962), in which Ferrer argued that he was taxed too much. [8]
Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
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Academy Awards [9] | Best Motion Picture | Nominated | |
Best Director | John Huston | Nominated | |
Best Actor | José Ferrer | Nominated | |
Best Supporting Actress | Colette Marchand | Nominated | |
Best Art Direction – Color | Art Direction: Paul Sheriff; Set Decoration: Marcel Vertès | Won | |
Best Costume Design – Color | Marcel Vertès | Won | |
Best Film Editing | Ralph Kemplen | Nominated | |
British Academy Film Awards | Best Film from any Source | Nominated | |
Best British Film | Nominated | ||
Most Promising Newcomer to Film | Colette Marchand | Nominated | |
British Society of Cinematographers Awards | Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature Film | Oswald Morris | Won |
Golden Globe Awards | Most Promising Newcomer – Female | Colette Marchand | Won |
National Board of Review Awards | Top Foreign Films | 2nd Place | |
Venice Film Festival | Golden Lion | John Huston | Nominated |
Silver Lion | Won | ||
Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Written American Drama | Anthony Veiller and John Huston | Nominated |
The film was not nominated for its color cinematography, which many critics[ who? ] found remarkable. Leonard Maltin, in his annual Movie and Video Guide declared: "If you can't catch this in color, skip it."[ citation needed ]
In an interview shortly after his successful film version of Cabaret opened, Bob Fosse acknowledged John Huston's filming of the can-can in Moulin Rouge as being very influential on his own film style.[ citation needed ]
The Moulin Rouge theme song became well known and made it onto the record industry charts.[ citation needed ]
The film was nominated for inclusion on the American Film Institute list of 100 Greatest Film Scores, but was not included on the final list. [10]
The film was digitally restored by FotoKem for Blu-ray debut. Frame-by-frame digital restoration was done by Prasad Corporation removing dirt, tears, scratches and other defects. [11] [12] In April 2019, a restored version of the film from The Film Foundation, Park Circus, Romulus Films, and MGM was selected to be shown in the Cannes Classics section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. [13]
Moulin Rouge is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche.
Montmartre is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is 130 m (430 ft) high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for its artistic history, for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur on its summit, and as a nightclub district.
Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, known as Toulouse-Lautrec, was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the sometimes decadent affairs of those times.
Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 jukebox musical romantic drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. It follows an English poet, Christian, who falls in love with the star of the Moulin Rouge, cabaret actress and courtesan, Satine. The film uses the musical setting of the Montmartre Quarter of Paris and is the final part of Luhrmann's Red Curtain Trilogy, following Strictly Ballroom (1992) and Romeo + Juliet (1996). A co-production of Australia and the United States, it features an ensemble cast starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, with Jim Broadbent, Richard Roxburgh, John Leguizamo, Jacek Koman, and Caroline O'Connor in supporting roles.
Zsa Zsa Gabor was a Hungarian-American socialite and actress. Her sisters were socialites and actresses Eva Gabor and Magda Gabor.
The can-can is a high-energy, physically demanding dance that became a popular music-hall dance in the 1840s, continuing in popularity in French cabaret to this day. Originally danced by couples, it is now traditionally associated with a chorus line of female dancers. The main features of the dance are the vigorous manipulation of skirts and petticoats, along with high kicks, splits, and cartwheels.
La Goulue, was the stage name of Louise Weber, a French can-can dancer who was a star of the Moulin Rouge, a popular cabaret in the Pigalle district of Paris, near Montmartre. Weber became known as La Goulue because as an adolescent, she was known for guzzling cabaret patrons' drinks while dancing. She also was referred to as the Queen of Montmartre.
Jane Avril was a French can-can dancer made famous by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec through his paintings. Extremely thin, "given to jerky movements and sudden contortions", she was nicknamed La Mélinite, after an explosive.
Pierre La Mure was a French author.
At the Moulin Rouge is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It was painted between 1892 and 1895. Included in the background is a self-portrait of the artist in profile. It is one of a number of works by Toulouse-Lautrec depicting the Moulin Rouge cabaret built in Paris in 1889.
Moulin Rouge, the French term for "Red Mill", is a famous Paris cabaret.
Valentin le Désossé was the stage name of Jacques Renaudin, a French can-can dancer who was a star of the Moulin Rouge in the 1890s as the partner of Louise Weber, known as La Goulue.
William Tom Warrener was an English painter of portraits, landscapes and figurative subjects. He is best known for being the subject of his friend Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's painting L'Anglais au Moulin Rouge (1892). He also appears in the background of Jane Avril dansant (1892).
The Musée Toulouse-Lautrec is an art museum in Albi, southern France, dedicated mainly to the work of the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec who was born in Albi. The 13th-century building was originally the Bishop's Palace of Albi Cathedral, next to it. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes the cathedral.
Moulin Rouge: La Goulue is a poster by French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It is a colour lithograph from 1891, probably printed in about 3,000 copies, advertising the famous dancers La Goulue and "No-Bones" Valentin, and the new Paris dance hall Moulin Rouge. Although most examples were pasted as advertising posters and lost, surviving examples are in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and many other institutions.
Le Trianon is a theatre and concert hall in Paris. It is located at 80, boulevard de Rochechouart, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, at the foot of the hill of Montmartre.
Cha-U-Kao was a French entertainer who performed at the Moulin Rouge and the Nouveau Cirque in the 1890s. Her stage name was also the name of a boisterous popular dance, similar to the can-can, which came from the French words "chahut", meaning "noise" and "chaos". She was depicted in a series of paintings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Cha-U-Kao soon became one of his favorite models. The artist was fascinated by this woman who dared to choose the classic male profession of clowning and was not afraid to openly declare that she was a lesbian.
Lautrec is a 1998 French biographical film about the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The film focuses on his love affair with painter Suzanne Valadon.
Madame Manet in the Conservatory is an 1879 oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet of his wife Suzanne. It is held in the National Gallery, in Oslo.
The Hangover (Suzanne Valadon) (French: Gueule de Bois / La Buveuse), also known as The Drinker, is an oil on canvas painting by French post-Impressionist artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, created from 1887 to 1889, just before he became successful as an artist. The painting depicts a drunken woman drinking alone in a club, reflecting the counterculture of Montmartre and the specter of alcoholism among French women during the Belle Époque. The model in The Hangover is artist Suzanne Valadon, Lautrec's lover. In the early 1880s, after falling from a circus trapeze at the age of 15 and suffering a back injury, Valadon was forced to switch careers and began working as an art model in Montmartre. Although she had been drawing all her life, by 1883, she had become an artist herself, and she would go on to become the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.