The use of pop music in Moulin Rouge
[2007]
In the book Blue Skies and Silver Linings, Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans state that the musical seems to “revel most exuberantly in the exposition of its own artificiality” (5). A lavish visual and aural spectacle, Moulin Rouge differs from most traditional musicals by containing very few original songs, instead opting to use well-known pop songs. The musical genre has a long tradition in film history, and in The American Film Musical Rick Altman intricately traces the genre chronologically as well as establishing subgenres—the fairytale, show, and folk musicals. Altman states, “All genres eventually become reflexive, self-critical, and often even self-destructive” (117), and that in the post-studio era the musical has become mainly the territory of children’s films (e.g., Disney cartoons), or is considered an auteur genre (Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York) (121). Altman claims that over-produced popular music is one factor leading to the decline of the musical because it robs people of a participatory experience of music. Presumably, Moulin Rouge, an extravagant, postmodern musical, would support Altman’s claim that self-reflexivity and self-consciousness eventually terminate a genre. However, Moulin Rouge does the opposite: it recovers pop songs for the audience, keeping them accessible for identification and expression, allowing the audience to participate in the film because they know its language beforehand. Moulin Rouge flaunts its indulgent use of popular music and encourages the viewer to join in the celebration.
Moulin Rouge is what Altman would define as a show musical—one that features the production of a show. Success on the stage depends on the success of the couple: the work of art is a product of love. Altman declares, “In the musical, the couple is the plot” (35, emphasis in original). The film also fits Altman’s structure by having the tension between man and woman be stereotypically about wealth and exchange: men want women; women want money (25). Satine is a courtesan who initially deflects Christian’s advances because he is a poor writer. However, Moulin Rouge also works as a postmodern text, and is not afraid to let “satire and homage exist in sustained tension” (Kehler par. 22). The narrative is a medley of plots—a mixture of the Orpheus myth, a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold story, and a star-crossed lovers tragedy, and also mixes fact and fiction about the turn-of-the-century nightclub in Paris. Julia Klein states that the film’s “theatricality is signaled by its setting in a deliberately fraudulent representation of the Moulin Rouge” (par. 2). Eventually, Christian’s poetry wins Satine’s love, and they create a show together, Spectacular, Spectacular, writing their own story in the process. Grace Kehler describes the show-within-a-show element of Moulin Rouge as “meta-performance” (par. 20), and Klein calls it “self-consciously, audaciously cinematic” (par. 13). This self-reflexivity is evident in the Spectacular, Spectacular pitch scene where the characters outline the plot of the movie, in song no less, and then the Duke asks, “And in the end should someone die?”, hinting at the tragedy that follows the ultimate performance. By the end, “real life” and the play have merged, both resolved at once with love and triumph, relational and theatrical success. The happy-ending is then shattered by the tragedy of Satine’s death, and off-stage a devastated Christian must learn to tell his story, rewriting the story yet again in text form which reveals itself to be Christian's voiceover narration of the film present from the beginning, adding another meta act of art and expression. Besides these multiple layers of storytelling, Moulin Rouge is partially self-destructive not because it breaks its genre as a musical, but because it breaks the union of love.
Commenting on the decline of the traditional musical, Steve Neale states, “The numerically dominant form over the last 30 years has been the rock musical” (110). In The Hollywood Musical, Jane Feuer, developing Altman’s theories further, allows for teen genres, including recent films of the 1980s, and discusses popular music’s role in contemporary film. She claims that films like Dirty Dancing are musicals because of their use of song to drive the plot and character development, saying, “The main reason teen musicals have not been considered musicals is the absence of diegetic singing in them,” but that in these films the story is told thematically through music, particularly rock and pop music, which appeals to a contemporary audience (131). Moulin Rouge marries Altman’s traditional definition of a musical with Feuer’s updated one: it is generically a musical in plot and form, using diegetic singing, but with anachronistic rock and pop songs. Moulin Rouge is a film that Neale would describe as “generically marked,” that is, it encourages the audience identification with the film as a specific genre, and many times this marking is self-conscious (28). These markers, as part of genre theory, create anticipation in the audience, and “systems of expectation and hypothesis” (Neale 32). Using the same methods as traditional musicals, the songs in the film are tropes, framing the plot and expressing emotional and thematic content. However, Moulin Rouge also subverts these expectations by recycling plots and pop songs and self-conscious storytelling.
However, Altman derides contemporary, pre-recorded popular music because it widens the gap between amateur and professional—it becomes impossible for the average listener to participate in the making of music (355-56). Altman claims the musical is a “participatory affair” (347): “The simplicity of the musical’s music is produced by design and at great pains in order to serve a specific purpose,” and that it is “engineered not to be passive,” but to get stuck in your head, to take it with you, to participate—listening is a beginning, not an ending (349, emphasis in original). Even though it uses contemporary music, Moulin Rouge provides the recovery that Altman describes. The musical takes advantage of the ubiquity of pop music to give its audience familiarity with the score, encouraging identification and participation. Far from detracting or lessening the power of the film, the pop songs are its strongest assets. In an article on postmodern aesthetics, Umberto Eco, commenting on television series, makes remarks that could also be applied to Moulin Rouge: “These familiar features allow us to ‘enter into’ the event” (par. 8). The audience identification that comes from using well-known songs helps to mask what Feuer calls the artificiality of musicals, stating, “We didn’t create those moments, and in a sense we aren’t participating in them either,” but we feel like we are (15). Jonathan Dawson derogatorily states, “In Moulin Rouge, the song lyrics, (‘Silly Love Songs,’ for example) are treated too literally for their weight. In the end the soundtrack medleys all too concretely recall those old ‘bouncing-ball’ sing-along movies” (par. 21). However, Feuer claims that sing-alongs and nostalgia enhance a sense of community (16). The strength of Moulin Rouge lies in these sing-along and nostalgic aspects; participation invests the audience in the film, allowing them to realize that the songs are not merely tunes repeatedly heard on the radio, but can be used as tools in new modes of expression, creating new stories from the old ones, composing a soundtrack to their lives.
According to Altman, one option for a self-reflexive film is to admit its flaws as a genre, and then throughout the film build itself back up: conventions are “ridiculed, then recuperated” (251). Moulin Rouge admits its folly with the self-conscious blurting of “The Sound of Music” and an outrageous can-can, but by the time the love duet arrives, the audience has adjusted and is prepared to accept the premise. The first duet occurs when Christian spontaneously “composes” the Elton John classic “Your Song” for Satine. Kehler states, “In his first meeting with Satine, Christian links song with gift through his touching performance of Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s ‘Your Song’” (par. 19). The song is unrecognizable at first, since it starts not as a song, but as spoken word, as a flustered Christian struggles for poetic words to impress and calm the wild Satine, who is aiming to please a customer. This comical, but eventually romantic scene affirms Altman’s claim that the tension of courtly love and unrequited passion is the inspiration for poetry (212-213). As the scene progresses, Christian is unsure, as is the audience, and Satine ignores his words. But when he finally bursts forth and sings, “…my gift is my song, and this one’s for you…”, the stars light up, the camera pans to the view from the window, and Satine and the audience are captivated by Christian’s words and music. The mise-en-scene is romantic and idealistic—a moonlight night, a rooftop, a miniature Eifel Tower—and with this song, Christian establishes a theme of the film—the gift of love and music. Underscoring the song’s significance to the story, “Your Song” lyrics are repeated throughout the film in key scenes, such as when Toulouse fantasizes about love, or in the finale of Spectacular, Spectacular. Kehler notices in particular the lines “My gift is my song and this one’s for you” and “How wonderful life is now you’re in the world” appearing again (par. 19).
Kehler claims that the film “does sustain a critical stance in its juxtaposition of the commercial and the emotional in ways that reaffirm their interconnectedness while refiguring the meaning of their relationship” (par. 22). As a courtesan, Satine desires and receives tangible, valuable gifts; her relationship with Christian is different because his gifts are intangible, yet still valuable. Although his music does have commercial value—they are producing a show—it also expresses genuine emotion between them. Additionally, his composition of “Come What May” provides a code for him and Satine to secretly express their forbidden love, and the song serves the same function for the lovers in Spectacular, Spectacular, so it has commercial and emotional value. Kehler affirms that Christian’s composition of “Come What May” is a gift, replacing the usual money and jewels as an expression of love, and when Satine ultimately refuses Christian’s jealousy-induced attempts to pay her, she is reiterating that the act of giving is central to love (par. 20). The gift of “Your Song” earns Satine’s love in return, and it is the power of song that emphasizes love as a transformative experience. In addition, Christian cannot win over Satine until he sings; they fall in love in the duet, when they sing in harmony, which affirms Altman’s progression of love in a musical (Kehler par. 18; Altman 82). Starting in this scene, and throughout the film with “Come What May,” Kehler states, “The duet remains the movie’s most significant symbol of intimacy…for it is through song that the lovers carry on a relationship that functions as the movie’s most challenging reconfiguration of the commercial” (par. 19).
However, the film uses song not only as affirmation of love and selflessness. In the film, Christian repeats a mantra, pieced together from several songs: “Love is like oxygen…Love is a many-splendored thing…Love lifts us up where we belong…All you need is love.” This compilation is his philosophy, but the film demonstrates that love is not flawless or painless. Christian and Satine’s love encounters its most difficult obstacle when the Duke demands that Satine save the show by proving her love to him by consummating their relationship, and Christian is left filled with doubt. As he broods, the Argentinean tells him “Never fall in love with a woman who sells herself; it always ends bad!”, and follows this declaration with a performance of The Police’s “Roxanne” that Kehler describes as “savage” (par. 15). The Argentinean sings as he and others dance dramatically and seductively. While Christian listens and watches, heartbroken and terrified, the dance is juxtaposed with scenes of Satine with the Duke. Originally, the pop song was about dark subject matter that fits the scene—a man who wants his prostitute lover to stop working—but had The Police’s signature upbeat, reggae-influence melody. In this retelling, the viewer is confronted with the emotional and physical threats of jealousy, not only through song, but also visually as the dancers grab and molest each other. Even Dawson, who is disparaging of the film, acknowledges, “By far the most powerful musical number, acting as a metaphor for impending tragedy is the chilling tango ‘Roxanne’….For this sequence at least we are gripped by a powerful fusion of music and narrative with a genuinely mythic resonance” (par. 22). By the end of the scene, Satine rejects the Duke in favor of Christian, and the Duke becomes so angry that he beats her, intimating rape moments before she is rescued by a stagehand. The song ends with the female dancer lying on the floor, seemingly dead, in the center of a circle of men. With effective irony, the scene transforms a catchy pop song about love saving a woman from prostitution to the Argentinean’s cautionary tale, reminding the audience of the complexities and tragedies inevitable when jealousy creeps into a relationship.
Moulin Rouge received a great deal of criticism for the use of popular and anachronistic songs, such as accusations of unoriginality or fragmentation, but Kehler states, “Alert to the problems of cliché’s of love and its representation in popular lyrics, the movie also positions the familiar and overused as central to contemporary experiences of affection and sexual desire” (par. 9). As with music, and other art forms, the film allows the viewer the excess of emotion that we are normally too reserved to embrace in everyday life. Despite its flaws, the film recreates the feeling of being in love—indulgent, but also enjoyable. Kehler claims, “The artificial and recycled simultaneously express the passions we believe to be neither empty nor exclusively physical” (par. 22). The film genuinely attempts to express the cliché “I love you,” which is nearly impossible to say originally, but through the “magic” of music and dance, “time stands still, causality holds no sway, and true emotions can be freely expressed” (Altman 77). Altman states, “The American film musical constitutes an apology for its own existence” (51). By advocating music, song, dance, and love as the keys to a fulfilling life, the musical provides what it prescribes. Moulin Rouge might be extravagant and sentimental, but it also asserts that to be invested in life these extreme emotions are occasionally necessary. A heartbroken Christian tells Satine, “Thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love.” However, his obsession proves not to be so ridiculous, or rather, we are encouraged to embrace it, just as when in love, to surrender our common sense and reason to a cathartic emotional experience, and if only for a moment, to indulge ourselves, sing at the top of our lungs, and accept the gift.
Works Cited
Altman, Rick. The American Film Musical. London: BFI Publishing, 1989.
Babington, Bruce and Peter William Evans. Blue Skies and Silver Linings: Aspects of the Hollywood Musical. Manchester: Manchester University Press: 1985.
Dawson, Jonathan. “The Fourth Wall Returns: Moulin Rouge and the Imminent Death of Cinema.” Senses of Cinema. May, 2001. n. pag. 01 Dec. 2006 http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/04/14/moulin_rouge.html.
Eco, Umberto. “Innovation & repetition: between modern & postmodern aesthetics.” Daedalus. 134.4 (2005): 191-207. LION. 27 Nov. 2006.
Feuer, Jane. The Hollywood Musical. 2nd ed. London: MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1993.
Kehler, Grace. “Still for Sale: Love Songs and Prostitutes from La Traviata to Moulin Rouge.” Mosaic: a Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature. 38.2 (2005): 145-162. LION. 01 Dec. 2006.
Klein, Julia M. “Live, Laugh, Love.” The American Prospect. 12.13 (2001). n. pag. 01 Dec. 2006 http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/13/klein-j.html.
Moulin Rouge. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. 20th Century Fox, 2001.
Neale, Steve. Genre and Hollywood. London and New York: Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group, 2000.
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