Film Title:
Moulin Rouge!
Concept: Brief description of the story
The story is about a man who loss the love of his life. She dies and he tells this story about how he came to Paris and soon he falls for this beautiful courtesan and everything is turned around for him.
First seen shows a man depressed and surrounded by bottles of alcohol. He starts typing about his life a year ago in Paris. He arrived in 1899 to become a writer of poetry.
Theme: A description of the movies overarching theme
Romance Loss of Love
Musical Complicated
Dramatic Heart ach
Loss of life Broken hearts
What do you see? (Describe the lighting, colours, effects, characters, setting and camera angles)
Lighting: The lighting of the movie in the first seen isn’t all bright and happy. Dull and depressing shows the lighting of the scene. There isn’t much lighting going on except for the moon light streaming in through the window. When the character starts typing images are shown in bright & warm lighting.
Colours: The way that the atmosphere is held in the first shot shows a dark, grey colour. Showing the images of the peoples faces on the streets of Paris makes it look dark and spooky. When the camera zooms into the room it makes it all dark. From the blue streaks of moonlight shining through the window, it makes the place feel tired and depressing. When the character starts typing his story images are flashed forward showing bright vibrant colours. These are showed from the red customs they wear and gold jewellery. In 1900 there aren’t any colours when they show Paris’s streets because it looked like that the city was dead because of the depression that the man was feeling. But when they went back one year ago, Paris became brighter and alive because he didn’t know anything about loss of loved once or anything about the Moulin Rouge, so the feeling of knowing that your there for a reason doesn’t meant that something will happen along the way, like his life changed from this one person.
Effects: There weren’t many effects in these few shots because it was very manual by using the cameras.
Characters: The first person we see is a funny clown looking sad and singing a sad love song about a boy who had just lost his love. A glimpse of an image is shown of a young man and the Moulin Rouge, while fading out of that scene it shows a view of Paris in a neutral view. When the camera glides towards the city of Paris, the characters of the streets of Montmartre are dark and depressing, which makes the scene all gloomy and dark. The clothing they wore represented the poor beggars and raged prostitutes. A man sitting on the floor looking depressed and sad shows from the way his body language is held. Face down, legs curled up tight and his face looking sad and hurt, with the hairy beard. His behaviour has changed when he starts writing the story. When he starts typing he seems to be more involved in writing. The scene chances when it went back a year ago, 1899. He’s look is younger then in the future, the people of the Montmartre look clean and happy.
Settings: The first settings of the opening movie show the theatre of red curtains and a small looking conductor, conducting a visible orchestra. It slowly opens it show you a clown singing with images of a boy and of the Moulin Rouge. It fades into Paris where you see the streets and then it zooms into a room where a man is setting. The room is filled with bottles and it’s dark all around the room, except for the candle lights and the moon shining in. It shows two main buildings: the Moulin Rouge (Red Windmill) and the building that the man is in typing about his story.
Camera angles: Fading, extreme long shots, flying, zooming, going fast and then slowing down, high angles, close-ups, medium shots and oblique/canted angle.
What do you hear? (Describe the colours movement and sounds you hear)
Colour: The colour tone of the scene is dark, depressing and slow. In 1900 the colours that I see are mainly brown and black making the lighting and the scenery look dead, but when they travel back to 1899 the colours are looking brighter and alive with happiness and music. There is a really difference between them both because the atmosphere in 1900 makes Paris seem depressed like the character because he’s lost someone that he loved. 1899 is alive and happy because he had just come to Paris to become a writer and he didn’t know anything any the Moulin Rouge, Satin or Harold Zidler, so everything was fine for him because he was going to write about the heart and love so for him coming to Paris would be a piece of pie.
Sounds: In the opening of the movie a man dressed up as a clown is singing a song about a boy who had lost his way in love and seems to be suffering from depression from the loss of this woman. The tempo of the song is slow and light, and it’s easy to understand because there aren’t really heavy instruments that make it dramatic. There seems to be an orchestra (e.g. strings) playing the song because you can hear the violins, cellos and double basses in the background (more so of the violins), with the man’s voice singing the lyrics. When the man sings and the man types, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return”, when the man types ….in return the music becomes more loud and the instruments in the background isn’t sort as it was in the beginning, in musical terms in crescendo to back a dramatic effect on this part. From that part and onwards the music stays the same, at the same speed and the same sound level (loud and strong). There is a short part where all the bass players stop and the strings play a solo while a man’s voice is speaking about the Moulin Rouge and the ‘sparkling diamond’. When he types you can hear the sounded of the typing clear because the camera gets a close-up shot of the typewriter and the typing of the words. The music starts playing again, but this time the music becomes more happy and brighter because everything is different for him a year ago. When he goes into the streets of Paris, the sound becomes livelier and full of music playing and singing.
What do you feel?
Depressed Sad
Confused Wondering what it was like to loss someone that you loved
Dark Excited
What do you think about this part?
I think that this man is very depressed in life. He can’t be bothered doing anything any more (such as turning on the lights) and he seems like there’s no point in living anymore. When I found out that he was in love and she dead I wondered how she died and why isn’t he moving on with his life. When 1899 came I thought he’s a man coming to Paris to do what really and why is he there? From the image of his father, it seemed that his father didn’t support him through his life and wanted him to be more, like a businesses man and working in London (maybe making in charge of the family businesses and marrying someone from London or just staying in London and don’t spending his time in Paris).
What does it make you wonder?
Why is he depressed in the beginning? What is the story about?
How did the love of his love die? What had happened?
Why is he in Paris (back in 1899)? What does he do?
What is his family like (do they support him)? What is the Moulin Rouge?
Why is 1899 the ‘Summer of Love’?
What is ‘The Children of the Revolution’ (why that name)? What does it mean?
Typewriter, may mean that he’s a writer? What does he write about?
