the sad pleasures of Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge [videorecording (DVD)]. Romulus presents; screenplay by AnthonyVeiller and John Huston; directed by John Huston. Santa Monica, CA: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Home Entertainment, 2004. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1952. From the novel by Pierre La Mure. Director of photography, Oswald Morris; music, George Auric; editor, Ralph Kemplen. Performers: Jose Ferrer, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Suzanne Flon, Claude Nollier, Katherine Kath, Muriel Smith, Mary Claire, Colette Marchand.

Cinematic treatments of the lives of composers and writers seem predestined to fail. To be fair, there are exceptions. Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is pretty darn good, and so is, in its wacky way, Amadeus. Still, posterity has been kinder to films about painters: Rembrandt, The Moon and Sixpence, Lust for Life, Girl with the Pearl Earring, the two Frida movies [1], Edvard Munch, Modigliani, Pollock, Mr. Turner, to cite only the more obvious exemplars.
   
Maybe it’s the very visual nature of painting that translates better to the big screen. But that doesn’t explain the success of films that concentrate more on the life, and not necessarily the work, of the artist. Perhaps we have a clue in one of Toulouse-Lautrec’s acidy quips, delivered with characteristic brio by José Ferrer: “One should never meet a person whose work one admires; what they do is always so much better than what they are.” Hear, hear.

And while there’s certainly something to the notion that the great artist as failed human being makes for a more interesting story than a virtuous artist, that doesn’t necessarily explain why painterly movies turn out so well – there have been plenty of examples of life failures among composers, poets and novelists. Maybe it’s all just a happy accident. Then again it could be that the above films stick pretty close to the biographical facts, while composer and writer biographies usually play fast and loose with the truth, sometimes grotesquely so (Song to Remember, anyone?).

In any case, the film Moulin Rouge, released in 1952 and directed by the redoubtable John Huston, is the proverbial embarrassment of cinematic riches, chief among them setting and milieu. Confession: I’ve always liked movies set in Paris. There are so many good ones that I won’t even begin to list them. I’m especially fond of those that capture the special magic – or in some cases darkness and sordidness (there’s both in MR) – of that at once most magical and mysterious yet tantalizingly dangerous of cities.

Truth be told, the reality of Paris ca. 1890, especially the Montmartre and -like quarters, was probably a lot earthier and rougher than even Moulin Rouge suggests. However, given the restrictions of the Production Code of the time, the film gets away with quite a bit [2].

Thus while Moulin Rouge may not be completely accurate on all the biographical details, there’s a core of truth to it, a spiritual and emotional truth, if you like. Thus, MR occupies a special niche because it transcends a conventional biopic and emphasizes the sense of place, and era. The Parisian belle epoch of the 1890s, conveyed through the film’s glorious Technicolor palette - sometimes garish, sometimes romantic, sometimes subdued - is presented in full-on cinematic glory. I can’t think of any other movie that recreates a time, and locale, quite so well.

Another overlooked plus is George Auric’s by turns raucous and haunting score. Two examples: when Toulouse-Lautrec longingly spies on Myriamme (Suzanne Flon) from the street below as she opens her window at night, presumably to prepare for bed, the music underscores his loneliness and emotional attachment to her. And in the very next scene, in which Toulouse waxes ecstatic over the Venus de Milo, Myriamme in tow, the music is, curiously, tinged with a dark undercurrent as if to suggest something isn’t quite right, and indeed something is very much not right with the relationship, if one might call it such.

For a film so awash in vibrant colors and exuberant movement, this is one of the saddest movies I know. We sense Toulouse-Lautrec’s – rarely shown – physical and psychic pain; we sense it perhaps because it is not shown, suggested rather than revealed in Ferrer’s nicely underplayed performance. When Toulouse’s bitter angst bubbles to the surface it’s done so by way of the zingy one-liners he delivers. Then he retreats just as quickly. Listen fast: the accented, rapid-fire dialogue, frequently spoken sotto voce, is sometimes difficult to make out. 

Henri’s two significant romantic connections in the film are with the volatile streetwalker Marie (Colette Marchand) and the supremely elegant haute couture model Myriamme. Both relationships are doomed to failure and the breakups are painful to watch, in no small part because Toulouse in turn rejects both women, perhaps for different reasons, but rejects them nonetheless. In a sense Marie and Myriamme might be considered doubles: they bear a vague physical resemblance, and even their names are similar. And each in her own way appeals to the dual sides of Toulouse’s complicated psychic makeup.

Otherwise Henri instinctively feels most comfortable with, and is drawn to, society’s outcasts and marginalized characters: streetwalkers, derelict alcoholics, saloonkeepers, disreputable entertainers (both current and washed-up), to whom he shows a kindness and generosity of spirit, if selectively dispensed. At the same time he’s perfectly at home amongst more polished folks, Jane Avril (Zsa Zsa Gabor) and her crowd in particular. But in these upper crust friendships one senses an edgy unease as Toulouse keeps the folks at arm’s length via his pungent witticisms and philosophical musings.

Interestingly, the Toulouse-Lautrec as portrayed in the film doesn’t get on so well with his fellow artists. Moreover, given his testy disposition, it’s no surprise that he has little patience with the public relations and business aspects of the art world; he whimsically gives away masterworks as gifts and shows up drunk at openings, where he insults the guests.

The cast of Moulin Rouge is well nigh perfect; I can’t think of any weak links. Ferrer is wonderful of course, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, terrible lip synching to the tune “It’s April Again” and all, is compelling when she’s actually given a chance to speak her lines, i.e. to act. As the icily smoldering Myriamme, Suzanne Flon conveys a frustrated calm tinged with romantic longing. But pride of place must go to relative newcomer Colette Marchand, who plays the high-strung grifter Marie with a suitably mercurial touch. In this admittedly fictional account Marie was the love of Toulouse-Lautrec‘s life [3], and this makes their eventual disintegration as a couple all the more painful. From her initial appearance Marchand steals every scene she’s in, displaying a range of emotions from off-handed coquettishness to knife-edged nervous desperation expressed through her angry diatribes. That such a young actress could hold her own against the formidable Ferrer is quite an accomplishment.

But – and with no disrespect to other elements of the production – the real star of the film is its set decoration and opulent production design (costumes, too!), all of which miraculously recreate the joie de vivre Paris of the late 1890s. If one sequence stands out for me it’s the bravura first fifteen minutes or so at the club, with the smoky atmosphere, Offenbach music, and those shrieking can-can dancers, so authentic looking they might have been plucked out of history a half century prior.

One sliver of criticism in the otherwise praiseworthy DVD release: the lack of bonus features. A film like Moulin Rouge, with so many confluences historical, aesthetic and cinematic, indeed would seem to scream out for a bevy of bonus extras. Perhaps Criterion will someday release an all-the-trimmings package. This minor quibble notwithstanding, Moulin Rouge is for me that rare cinematic double pleasure: my favorite movie about Paris and my favorite artist biography.

[1] I refer here to the well-known Frida (2002) and the earlier, much less familiar but arguably superior Frida: Naturaleza Viva (1983), with Ofelia Medina in the title role.

[2] For an unvarnished treatment of the darker side of the City of Light, focusing on criminals, the lower classes, and various other outcasts, eccentrics, and unsavory characters, see Luc Sante’s The Other Paris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015).

[3] Research indicates that Marie Charlet was a real person, who modeled for Toulouse-Lautrec. Thus the portrayal of  ‘Marie’ in Moulin Rouge is at least partially accurate, as there’s a scene where she does some modeling for the artist, the result being the haunting portrait that Myriamme eventually purchases and finds so fascinating. On the other hand, there’s no evidence to suggest that the real Marie Charlet was the great love of Toulous’s life. That distinction may well belong to model, painter and artist’s muse Suzanne Valadon, who, curiously, doesn’t appear in Moulin Rouge.
   As for the historical equivalent of the incredibly elegant Myriamme, information is scant. Biographers glimpse a ‘Myriame Hayem,’ a marginal character who modeled for Toulouse for a time and by all accounts was closer in spirit and personality to the Marie character of the film. Otherwise the ‘Myriamme Hayam’ in Moulin Rouge seems to be a composite of society types and well-to-do patrons the kind of which Toulouse met during his peak years in Paris.

Further reading

Julia Bloch Frey, Toulouse-Lautrec: a Life, Viking, 1994.

Emile Schaub Koch, Psychanalyse d'une Peintre Moderne, L'Édition Littéraire Internationale, 1935.

Gerstle Mack, Toulouse-Lautrec, Knopf, 1938.
David Sweetman, Explosive Acts: Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Félix Fénéon and the Art & Anarchy of the Fin de Siècle, Simon & Schuster, 1999.