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Baz Luhrmann Double Feature: Romeo & Juliet & Moulin & Rouge
32 Plays5 months ago
Get ready for the emotional gauntlet that is back to back tragedies. But who better to lead you through it than Baz Luhrmann, the man who invented feelings. Melinda and Ariel marvel at the sumptuous worlds of these movies and the masterful designers who brought them to life. The greatest thing we ever learned, is just to love, and be loved in return.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117509/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_6_nm_2_in_0_q_romeo
https://www.vogue.com/article/romeo-juliet-costumes-25th-anniversary
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203009/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_in_0_q_moulin
https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/moulin-rouge-20-year-anniversary-catherine-martin-costumes
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
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Transcript
Introduction to the Hot Set Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
Season Two Theme: Movies Shaping Millennials
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome back. We are continuing on season two. Our theme is the movies that made millennials, specifically these two millennials that you have here today talking about this. A number I can count to
Double Feature Focus: Baz Luhrmann's Films
00:00:38
Speaker
confidently. Today, we're actually doing something that we haven't done before, which is we're doing a double feature where we are talking about two, move that's what double double means, two. We're talking about two movies. Yes, strong start.
00:00:58
Speaker
oh my god yeah okay the um The connecting thread between these movies is that they are made by the exact same filmmaker and a very similar design team. So we are
Red Curtain Trilogy and Personal Connections
00:01:14
Speaker
going to be talking about Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge.
00:01:21
Speaker
I think there's like a lot of thematic similarities or maybe just visual. similarities to me because he's such a particular filmmaker. like He has such a strong visual style. so i think it kind of like It makes sense to talk about two of his movies together because there's yeah there's a lot of ah things that you can be like, oh, Baz Luhrmann cares about these things. What's your relationship to these movies? Oh, sorry.
00:01:54
Speaker
Well, no, never apologize. Here I come, like a bull in a china shop. um These two movies are a part of the Red Curtain trilogy. And so that is begun by a movie that was an Australian movie with Guy Pearce. And I do not remember the lead actress's name, um called Strictly Ballroom. And that one has a slight difference in tone.
00:02:20
Speaker
It's still a wonderful movie, but it feels a little bit different. Like, you can see
Emotional Storytelling in Baz Luhrmann's Style
00:02:25
Speaker
where all of these things are beginning, stylistically, for the production and for um the storytelling. But yeah, these are the two tragedies in the trilogy. And oh my God, these... Okay, so I'm in a glass case of emotions because I watched them both today.
00:02:47
Speaker
yeah we I don't know how you survived watching these movies on the same day. Oh, I had a little break where I took one of my cats to the vet, so that was chill. Okay, okay. But Baz Luhrmann turns out to be one of my original bullies. like George RR Martin, where you really wanted me to know, to learn the lesson, that people make stupid decisions and then they die. Like, then your heartstrings are going to get pulled out of you, while you have like a good time for part of it, because your eyes are going to be entranced. And you're like, yeah, let's live in this world. And you're like, this world is trash. And you're just like, And just like my like my blood pressure is at like the top of like the amount of like overwhelming emotions in both of these movies. We started at 10, we go up to like a 15, and then we end at like 35. I mean, it's just it's so mean.
00:03:51
Speaker
I was nine years old when Romeo and Juliet came out, so I was probably 10 when I saw it, so that was very formative. yeah And then when Moulin Rouge came out, I mean, I say I. We were 14.
First Impressions of Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet
00:04:03
Speaker
Correct. and I remember seeing it by myself, and like I'm pretty sure that this is the movie where I went to the mall with two of my friends, they elected to go see ah The Exorcist when it was re-released in theaters. I'm sure I could check dates, but I believe that this is the same time. And I was like, hell no, you it passed. And so I went to go see this movie, this little movie called Moulin Rouge by myself. Wow. What have I done? I feel like Baz Luhrmann, you have a lot to answer for. I would like to shake your hand and thank you for everything that you are accountable for. There's a lot of emotional damage.
00:04:44
Speaker
But yeah, Romeo and Juliet, I was, we've talked about it before in passing, I was an obnoxious child. um And I read a lot and my my reading comprehension was at a different place than a lot of my ah school aged compatriots. um We were a very heavy reading household. Sorry if you can hear the chiseling that's happening in the background. My neighbor is very kindly working on our fence, like right outside my window. I told you this story that in high school I got real,
00:05:15
Speaker
but with all the other students who read Shakespeare as if it was like, you know, static where they would stop at the end of every line instead of looking for punctuation. And I was so obnoxious.
Teenage Attachment to Romeo and Juliet
00:05:26
Speaker
I'm sure I lectured my classmates about it because my English teacher cast me as Juliet and then I never ended up getting to play it because I couldn't continue that year. I was just like,
00:05:36
Speaker
unstoppable. And this movie was like, I didn't have the language for it yet because I was a teenager um for Y. And also like, I was really into this by the time that I was like 13, 14, like freshman year, eighth grade crossover. It felt, I also was like Juliet's age. I mean, your yes. far of yeah like it's It's I can see why it has stayed with me because it's so strong visually. It's incredible. It's just like this constant source of like light and color and movement. And I just I love this movie. And when we first talked about doing it, you had a different but memory and a different
00:06:23
Speaker
feeling.
First Viewing Experience at the Metreon
00:06:24
Speaker
So ah Melinda, ah how far the how are you doing? I will first ah say that I believe that I saw Moulin Rouge before seeing Romeo and Juliet for the first time. so And I specifically remember seeing Moulin Rouge at the Metreon in San Francisco.
00:06:49
Speaker
In like the biggest movie theater and the biggest movie screen that I had ever seen in my young life at that point, I don't know how you could not be so transported in that environment. like I believe they literally had a the red curtain in that theater that opened before the movie. It was everything.
00:07:13
Speaker
For those not in the know, just quick interjection. The Metrion is a mall in San Francisco. Yes. But it was like the new kind of mall. It was like the Millennium Mall. When they opened it, they're like, in a world. Yeah. It is the Millennium, and you're a teenager. Yes. And they had this crazy, crazy amazing theater, which is where I saw 300 before it opened. Me too. Oh my god. I mean, it was open. It was like a special screening. But that is where I saw it.
00:07:43
Speaker
yeah know i waited a line for a So I know this exact theater and it had like kind of a curve to it. So everybody had a pretty decent view and it was just this massive screen that was big for the time. It is still that the IMAX screen at the Metreon is still the second biggest IMAX screen in America, second only the one in New York City. Okay, is
Cultural Impact of Baz Luhrmann's Movies
00:08:12
Speaker
insane. So you were falling into the world of Baz Luhrmann physically being swallowed by it.
00:08:19
Speaker
So I saw Moulin Rouge first and just was immediately obsessed, like core memory imprinted. The first time I saw Romeo and Juliet, I went, I don't like this. And I never watched it again.
00:08:37
Speaker
I think it's one of those things where I was like we are the same age and it's so amazing seeing how so many of our sensibilities like in this job that we do is very close. Yeah. And but some of our tastes are very close and some of them are very far apart. They're so far apart. like This is a core memory for me." and You're like, I know. This isn't even the the fight that we teased in the first episode. This isn't even it. There's going to be even more contentious stuff coming up. Obviously, I rewatched Romeo and Juliet for this episode and I had a much more positive experience with the movie this time.
00:09:23
Speaker
um it's one of us yeah of us It's probably like a little too late to have that emotional imprint that it would have had if I had seen it when I was like 12. I mean,
Revisiting Romeo and Juliet
00:09:36
Speaker
that's just that's what it is. The only thing I can really attribute it to is um being like an asshole 14 year old that was too cool for a lot of stuff. Number one, I never had that experience. and possibly also like not really being in love with Shakespeare at the time. So kind of like having a hard time connecting to the whole Shakespeare of it all. And I think
Production Design and Costume Work
00:10:02
Speaker
also just sometimes like you see a movie in the wrong frame of mind and the wrong headspace and it just like it the movie doesn't even have a chance to like work on you and you have to sometimes like see it again. So I think it was like a combination of all three. um So I'm really glad that I had to watch it again, because I had not seen it for over 20 years. So yeah thank you for making me watch it again.
00:10:31
Speaker
It's just from a production standpoint entirely, it is what you want. It's one of those things where I feel like anybody who worked on it would be able to point at that and go, I was a part of that. And that is like musically, the cinematography, the costumes, the sets, oh my God, like everything about it is so tight in its design and it works.
00:10:56
Speaker
like a theater production because it feels like everyone was contributing to something instead of just like feeling more disparate or whatever, but if it feels very cohesive. I warned you of this. I looked at a few articles. There are some great articles, everyone. There's a Vogue article. There's a Nylon article.
00:11:15
Speaker
and just Google Romeo plus Juliet Baz Luhrmann costumes. um We'll put some links. I really want to shout out yeah and i want to um shout out the costume designer who we talked about previously for the Matrix trilogy.
00:11:30
Speaker
ah This is Kim Barrett's work yeah with other people for sure. But Kim Barrett, this was her first professional gig as a head designer, which is absolutely crazy. And if you read these articles, she talks a lot about the experience. And in this freaking movie, there's Dolce & Gabbana, there's Prada, Yves Saint Laurent. And what's crazy is that There's a story about her. but So she says, and I'm not quoting directly, but she says basically that we didn't have any money. Nobody knew us. And so we went to the fashion world and we asked for help and people helped us, which I'm just like, that's incredible, first of all. But they went to Prada and they were like, hey, can we have stuff? This is me paraphrasing. And Prada was like, yeah, you can have a bunch of our old shit. you just took out boxes and boxes of stuff. And this is what they fit extras in, was like all this extra stuff that they then distressed, cut things off of and altered a bit here and there. And they like, this episode's gonna be all over the place, but you should be used to this by now. um they They hand painted, the costume crew hand painted every single Hawaiian shirt. I was like, my jaw was on the floor when I read that because stunning I mean, like, obviously I watched the movie. I saw how incredible looking everything was. But to know that level of care and artistry and freedom and.
00:13:09
Speaker
Deliberation yeah was they were able to do that with with basically this was this was early in Basilman's career This is when he was coming from Australia to the US and so he when they did like a this is again paraphrasing but they
Theatrical Influences and Stylistic Choices
00:13:22
Speaker
was basically like a spec script that they were like working on they they filmed stuff themselves they sent some stuff to Leonardo DiCaprio and to Fox and then they were given a small budget and like a camera so that they could kind of work on things and and and start basically from the bottom. And this is a hell of a way to say we know how to make a film. It's just incredible. like these These people are super talented, and this is early in their careers. Kim Barrett in her in the the Vogue article, I think, which is
00:13:55
Speaker
25 years later, Romeo and Juliet's costumes are as magical as ever by Liam Hess. ah She talks about having worked with a background in theater and that most of like a lot of these people had a background in theater and so they were very used to working um without firm rigid job delineations and both you and I know what that's like. yeah And she talks about how like you tend to do a bit of everything And um she and Catherine Martin, who designed Moulin Rouge, so we'll talk about her work in a moment. And was the production designer for Romeo and Juliet. And was the production designer, so like amazing sensibilities there. um But they would just kind of bring their their skills to everything that they needed to put it to.
00:14:40
Speaker
And I love the hand painting of the all the Hawaiian shirts. there's um Her quote is, ah we had an amazing team of fabric painters in our department and we designed the shirts to have all these different religious symbols embedded in them. Leo's shirt at the end that he wears in the cathedral was definitely the inspiration and jumping off point. I found it in a thrift store in Miami and it already had this very dreamy,
00:15:05
Speaker
romantic technicolor motif. Then there's the one with the bleeding heart and the death lilies that the team painted. I chose the flowers as a foreshadowing of what was going to happen. This feels so theater to like thrift all your shit and then like bring this symbolism and like hand paint it. Like that's the part that feels theater. Like, you know, when doing film now, I feel like, and if you have a higher budget in theater, you'd print out the fabric. You'd like have a a perfectly done illustration. yeah And you'd do that maybe, yeah but like, yeah, painting it added to the dreaminess of it. Like this world in this movie, it feels like it's in a little, not a snow globe, but maybe a beach globe. Like it feels very,
00:15:51
Speaker
self-contained and like this funny fever dream. There's these like Mexico City, Miami, Venice Beach like inspirations and something that really stands out to me. So I hope that you're all familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet, quick goog. Yeah, I don't think we need to. Yeah, we don't need to. It's pretty old story. There are two families that basically are like the mob, you know, they're like connected families. And when you normally see that in movies, you usually see something, I mean, they're always each represent representative of like a certain group will have a look to them. Sure. And when you think of like the mob, you think of suits, you know, like everybody's kind of
00:16:36
Speaker
very put together new york in a certain way. i go gangster yeah all that Very much. And in this you have the Capulets and they are very like, I want to say like Latin inspired and yeah like very much you'd be familiar with seeing a lot of this like San Francisco and South. like And Miami. and I mean a different culture.
00:17:03
Speaker
all over different cultures. And they're very much like combined different things, but for us, it wasn't very far to go to see this. And like the super kitsch Catholicism all over the place. Like my background was in Catholic Church, so I was like, this is real familiar. You felt very at home with all of that. Yeah, neon crosses everywhere.
00:17:28
Speaker
Then the other family, the Montagues, they're very like open Hawaiian t-shirts. I believe that Kim Barrett describes them as like, they felt like they could have been like from the military, like they surf, but like they're ex-military or something and they're just like getting up to no good.
00:17:45
Speaker
i love this visual language so much because you don't have anybody who's boring, if you will. You know, like there's no yeah relaxing your eyeballs with either. There's no more sedate side. And like nothing is like, oh yeah, that's exactly what I would expect to see. There's no none of that. Everybody's flamboyant and there's no real definition of flamboyancy. It's just open and it's everywhere. And I i mean, I love it. Also, there's a cameo in the movie of Kim Barrett and Catherine Martin, the scene where Juliette's mother is being dressed as Cleopatra. The two maids who are putting the costume on her are the costume designer and production designer. I love that little detail. I didn't recognize that in the moment, but I was like, oh, that's so, and then just like when stuff like that happens, a I hope means that the behind the behindthe camera experience of those people was that everybody was having this like wonderful artistic collaboration. like That's what I hope that means.
00:18:52
Speaker
and Right? Like it's like, oh, let's put this in here. Yay. Like I just, this is one of my like most beloved, like this list that we're going to go through of these movies. But this, I was like the age to be so passionately into this and It's like exciting to watch Baz Luhrmann's speed in his like camera motions, all the storytelling style. It can really make or break you as a viewer. But what like kept me through it was the very dramatic story. Alita DiCaprio at the time because it was 1996. Like who am I? It's a pre-Titanic. I'd already seen him die in Titanic. No, pre-Titanic. No, but by the time I was like 13 and I'd already seen him die in Titanic. So I was like, you're just born to die and I'm born to cry about it. Lana Del Rey, born to die.
00:19:49
Speaker
um But there's like the visual storytelling that happens in these costumes is so very much how I see costume now. So thank you Kim Barrett for shaping my eyeballs because there's There's so much flamboyancy, so much that Tybalt, who is called the the Prince of Cats, whose boots have like in in embellished or like sculpted cats on the heels. And like i mean there's like religious iconography all over the place. There is that foreshadowing of like the lilies. And then there's very sedate storytelling happening that isn't as flamboyant. And there's like Juliet and Romeo, even though they have the iconic
00:20:35
Speaker
Ball costumes that were familiar with from the the cover of the movie, which is like she is dressed as an angel. She has her little halo twist and her hair. I love that detail of the little halo. That detail is so great. And those wings were just as iconic as the wings from ever after. Oh, for sure.
00:20:54
Speaker
just as much and Romeo dressed his Lancelot in his armor with like regular pants. Was his chain mail shirt knitted? Was it a knitted chain mail? I kept looking at it. It feels like it was because we never, I mean, ADR, but it doesn't seem like it's heavy. It didn't seem like it, the rigidity that you get from like, I mean, chain mail flows, but it also like, it moves differently. Yeah, there was a softness to it in a way that seemed a little too soft for it to be. But that's an old theater trick is a lot of times if you're watching people on stage and they're wearing chain mail, it's a knitted cord that's been painted
00:21:38
Speaker
you know, silver and gray and black and all like. So it's just kind of fun to be like, I hope that it is a knitted one because that's like another way of like bringing that theatrical sensibility into the costume. Well, also he was the chain mills heavy, too yeah super heavy. And he was like the size of like a twig.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah, he was skipping around. Yeah, he was running around, jumping. Then in this ball scene, this is maybe one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Like there are vignettes all throughout, but costume wise, it's got to be one of the best because it has all these extras. Desiree is singing, kissing you. ah It's like Mercutio, RIP Mercutio, my favorite God, but not forgot, Perrineau. Oh my God, the drag, the ball, the ballroom drag of it all. The inspiration was so strong. So strong, the cape and like the lingerie, the skirt, the heels, the wig, the makeup, like this Mercutio,
00:22:49
Speaker
Kim Barrett writes about how she wanted him to always be in something kind of sheer, like you could always see through because he was so vulnerable. And the way that Harold Peronot acts this Mercutio out, you feel that vulnerability where as a kid, I was like, this feels like bipolar, you know, where he's like so high.
00:23:10
Speaker
and then solo. And, like, he's always got his heart on his sleeve. Like, Romeo, we never really trust when you actually... Like, if if you have things made about Romeo today, people kind of, like, talk about that character, like, ugh, what a prick, because he's just... Two seconds ago, he was obsessed with Rosalind, and now he's obsessed with Juliet. So he's very flighty, but, like, intense.
00:23:34
Speaker
Guess what? He's 16. He's a child. And so Mercutio seems a little bit older, like even just you know spiritually like older. And you feel that. like He feels like this leader of the pack. And he just like feels like he's more grounded than almost anybody else in the entire world.
00:23:59
Speaker
And yet, because of the sheerness of some of his costumes, he also feels like he's less tangible. And that's because he's not there for long. He is taken away in a heartbreak. I cry. I cry. I like that so much. In that article, Kim described Mercutia's death as being sacrificed.
00:24:23
Speaker
yes And I think that that is a really interesting word that I haven't really encountered in the context of Romeo and Juliet, like specifically Mercutio's character, that like that his his death is a is a result of like, that his vulnerability and his openness and his like emotional honesty kind of doomed him to being sacrificed to this war between the two families that like he couldn't, may like he was not going to survive through no all of this. And oh, it's so sad. When he dies, like I was really watching that scene and just like this time, like from from a different perspective now and just really seeing how sad Mercutio is because Romeo doesn't tell him straight out what's happening. and he's Mercutio is trying to defend Romeo's honor and yet Romeo is just taking the beating and then says just just accept it Mercutio and Mercutio is like why so everything I do everything I am doesn't mean anything in this moment
00:25:37
Speaker
like all of this that I can offer doesn't mean anything and you won't tell me why and then he dies and it's just like she also described like the sheer fabric acting like a veil and that way we can he's not wearing armor you know like he doesn't have any armor on like like other people do and I just these little details the fact that Juliet yeah this episode is gonna be long yeah And Romeo are both pretty sedate compared to everybody else that we see. I mean, Romeo like has the Hawaiian shirts going on, but he's pretty chill with his customs. It's very muted compared to everybody else. Juliette's more often than not in white, except for... Oh, the scene where she threatens to kill herself um to Father Lawrence, where she's wearing a schoolgirl uniform. And it's like a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. And those are those are, I was a Catholic schoolgirl, those things do not modernize. Like they don't, they really hold on for a real long time. And
00:26:49
Speaker
So there's just a lot of like very subtle sedate choices that are also like very again i'm gonna use the word like iconic when you look at them because they have a very solid shape to them or they like tell you a story when you look at it. When you see and Claire Danes as Juliet in that schoolgirl uniform, you see a girl who's being innocent and then she whips out a gun and holds it to her head and says, like fix this And like um then there's the crazy stuff like Juliette's mother wearing this crazy robe right before she gets dressed as Cleopatra, which is also the most sparkly, like amazing, bright theatrical outfit. But the robe is this like sheer pink number with like, I think it's pink and it's got this like hot pink boa. yeah And then there's 3D butterflies on it.
00:27:44
Speaker
like if you If you could encapsulate my idea of glamour when I was like a kid, that robe is it, 100%. That, to me, who was like the epitome, and specifically that it was the most like useless decorative robe in particular, like that garment.
00:28:09
Speaker
but like the the marabou the three the butterflies the color like all of it i'm like wow what a queen many say it's just like there's so much of this color that like really you drown in it.
00:28:25
Speaker
And it's like, but but you drown and you drown and you drown and then it makes sense. Like it's not so busy that you can't follow the story. Every character that you isolate is solid. Like yeah there's, everything has thought behind it and everything has this design to it to be like, this person chose these things and this person chose this because they wanted to be a Viking cowboy with chaps made out of a muppet for this and like,
00:28:55
Speaker
In that big ball scene, if you freeze it, there are a lot of lingering shots over crowds. There are Shakespeare references throughout. I mean, Cleopatra. Cleopatra, Juliette's father is Caesar. Caesar or Mark Antony. He's one of them. But both Roman. He's an ancient guy. He's a Roman guy. Forget I said.
00:29:23
Speaker
No, never. It's down forever. In the bathroom scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet, which is also iconic with the fish tank, yeah there's a man relieving himself on his side of the fish tank, which is the men's restroom. And he's dressed in Renaissance clothing and he's supposed to be William Shakespeare.
00:29:41
Speaker
Which is the perfect, like, I think that Shakespeare as a person would appreciate that cameo. I think that he would be like on board for being portrayed that way. I get it. Yeah. I get it. I have to say, like, as someone who had only seen this movie once and was sort of, like, arms folded, frowny face, um one of my favorite action movies of all time is Hot Fuzz.
00:30:07
Speaker
and they go see a production of Romeo and Juliet and I mean... That really pulls from that, yeah. theyre like Like the the end... ah like Okay, so the actual play of Romeo and Juliet ends with them in a tomb, dead, and it's very like serious and sad because it's a tragedy and these are teenagers that died for no reason and it's very sad.
00:30:35
Speaker
But what I love about the influence of this movie is that in Hot Fuzz, they're just seeing a production of Romeo and Juliet that has nothing to do with this movie. But they show the final scene in the tomb and the actress who plays Juliet is wearing the angel costume and the actor that plays Romeo is in the Lancelot costume. And It I think that it's like that shows you how impactful and oh iconic sorry this movie was in shaping our idea of Romeo and Juliet that like.
00:31:19
Speaker
They're just doing an unspecified visual gag in Hot Fuzz and we know exactly what they're referencing and we understand the joke is that this like horrible community theater production of Romeo and Juliet is so far off the mark.
00:31:37
Speaker
that they don't understand that like Juliet doesn't die in an angel costume in this movie. And it's perfect. Why would you be hearing it? And I love comedy. I love it. Yes. Fantastic. And like those those series that series of movies is incredible.
00:31:54
Speaker
This movie was, I think I was so attached to it to to go back to the me in high school being such a pain in the ass. This was so important to me for so many reasons that were partially because I was a very dramatic teenager, very deeply in my feelings. And I could watch this and just like release a lot of emotions. But it was also to me because I was i was reading things that weren't what my fellow teenagers were interested in reading. Like I was very much in my head in like a fantasy world, all these things again, also very dramatic because I was also a teenager. um And this felt like such a unique way.
00:32:42
Speaker
to tell an ancient story yeah well. yeah Because like we could recognize these clothes. we could I could have hopped a bus and gone to Haight-Ashbury and like picked up something that looked kind of like almost anything in this movie. And like I could find a kernel of like this world in that world. And so it gave every every design piece and of course we're focusing on costume, really supported bridging the gap between a story and a format of storytelling that is usually formal. Like even when people are doing it professionally, like Shakespeare
00:33:25
Speaker
It's usually either like, oh, it's an avant-garde thing or, you know, there's something to it. But it's it's more often than not when people think of Shakespeare, they think of Shakespeare in time period clothing. yes And they think of it as being very stiff-necked and, like, very static. Also, like, posing, like, artificial blocking. turned out like through yonder window breaks. And like it loses it all even though there's no skull. Oh, yeah. ah And like it loses all meaning or people usually focus on the horror of a thing, at least in their memory. Like if I think of Hamlet right now, I think of a few really awesome productions, but I usually think of very dark things and blood and how do you show blood on things? White black clothing. and so So, you know, and so it's like with this, it really brings it
00:34:15
Speaker
to now in 1986. And like people in cars, the guns that they have say sword and dagger on them. Like this world is a world that we visually recognize. And the way that they're talking is a way that we hear. And so people in my English class when I was a teenager, we saw this the, is it the Zeffirelli version? So did we, yeah, we only watched the necessarily one in class, which I'm just like, okay. Although that, way I mean, we could talk about that one because people had a lot of feelings when that movie came out about Juliet being dressed in red instead of white, yeah which I didn't even question. I'm like, she's a beautiful teenager. What do you want? Like, whatever. Yeah. And also that 70s medieval thing was like a pretty great thing. Like that could be a whole category on its own because Camelot. but like Correct. um
00:35:09
Speaker
The Zeffirelli version was one where it was very Shakespearean, capital S, in performance and in telling. yeah And so all the costumes, beautiful though they were, were what you expected. And so you just kind of didn't listen to the words because it's like, yeah, I get it, thee, thy, thou. And with this one, yeah like Romeo chasing after Tybalt and the fight scene where that culminates in Tybalt's death is revenge from Mercutio.
00:35:40
Speaker
Leonardo DiCaprio has the barrel of a gun pressed to his forehead. He has this shirt that's like ripped open because it's probably hot. He's got his like, it's like pouring rain, I think at that point. The pants, it's pouring rain. The pants he's wearing are pants that I wanted in middle school so bad and like saw everybody wearing and I can't even, they remind me of, um,
00:36:05
Speaker
They were like Ben Davis pants and like I was ah There were there were things and still are if you had Adidas shoes if you had like this brand thing cool whatever then you're yeah automatically cool Ben Davis pants were that where I was And it's like they look like those, which ah were basically like skater kids were, and they looked really awesome. And he just looks like this kid. Like he looks like a kid who's been like running through the rain and is just like not doing well. Losing his mind. Losing his mind. And he screams.
00:36:44
Speaker
either thou or I or both must go with him. And I was like, oh my God. And he changes like to talk about not costumes. He changes how he delivers it where he's like crazy. And then he gets real serious. And then he fires off two shots at Tybale who's running away from him. And you see Tybale, does he have a tattoo of like a sacred heart?
00:37:04
Speaker
on his chest or was that a shirt? yeah So there's also some Unsung Hero makeup department. Yeah, there's a huge, someone has a huge back tattoo of like the Virgin Mary. Oh, that's Father Lawrence. That's right, that's right. He's a tattoo because he also has a sheer shirt and he has a giant black cross tattooed on his back. Like tattoos, makeup, hair are all used to I feel like Father Lawrence was a fascinating character to me in this rewatch because it's not what you I mean like as someone who
00:37:39
Speaker
like I had like minimal contact with the Catholic Church as a kid. like my um my dad like My dad had been raised Catholic when he was like little, but I think they stopped going to church when he was an adolescent or something. so like Every once in a while, one of my if like an older relative of mine passed away, there'd be like a Catholic service or we'd go to like midnight mass at Christmas, but it was very rare.
00:38:06
Speaker
But I had, you know, minimal understanding of the Catholic Church. And Father Lawrence is just not what you expect a Catholic priest to be like with his giant back tattoo. At one point, he like puts on his like Hawaiian-y shirt and then like puts his casting underneath and his robe onto like vestment. Thank you, vestment. Yes. um And it was just like.
00:38:32
Speaker
They didn't have to do that. That was a very deliberate choice that they did. And that shirt, when I when i saw it it, I feel like it's similar to the one that Romeo wears toward the end. I think we've read somewhere that Romeo's shirt, his floral shirt is Father Lawrence's shirt that he takes from him at some point. like It looks really similar. like Romeo's shirt, what a great thrift find. Snaps to that. It kind of reminds me of origami paper. and yeah like That pattern felt like really recognizable. so i mean How amazing that he's Father Lawrence like is very, very involved in these two characters, Romeo and Juliet. He wants them to be happy. He wants also for them to bridge the distance between their two families. I feel like he can strategically see that. And even if they disappear, it will have created some form of peace.
00:39:25
Speaker
And so he has this protection over both of them. And the idea that when he sends Romeo away, that he's even sending him with a physical representation of like his protection of this boy is just like, you Oh my God, like there are so many things that we can talk about and it's really hard to figure out exactly where because I want to talk about
00:39:59
Speaker
Romeo in that shirt at the end of the movie, and he's next to Juliet, and they are still so visually different. They're both of their families. They're both of their, you know, they're in column A and column B. Juliet is in this long white dress, her funeral dress, and he's just in this outfit that he's been surviving in. And when they die, they embrace and they're just like this visual difference, but they're both sedate to the same level because he's mostly darks and she's in all white. So there's like still a balance even though they're visually different. And that is true throughout the whole thing because when Juliet is dressed as an angel, she's in all white, but there's like a little bit of texture like in the dress and how it's, instructed like a vague corset-y shape, like there's a little bit going on. Yeah. But there's not like a lot of color and he's wearing all silver and then like the navy or dark pants. And so he's like just darker with some more texture. I don't know. There's just like this great balance between the two of them throughout, which like really highlights now how young they are. ah because they don't have all of this stuff that they're trying to convey. like They're not wearing these high-powered suits until the wedding between the two of them where she's wearing like a cocktail dress and he's wearing a suit that was made by Prada for him. They really, really look like kids dressed up as their parents in that scene. like Even though they're in these more formal outfits, they're they're just little baby-faced children in this movie. I think that's something that makes it hard to relate to other interpretations of this story. A lot of the time, as you end up with older actors trying to play younger, to play Romeo and Juliet,
00:41:49
Speaker
because, you know, there's a general feeling that, like, an older actor has more experience and maybe, like, more technique to fall back on or whatever, whatever. Tell that to Claire Danes' is chin wiggle. I know. Whenever she cries. And to Leonardo DiCaprio cry. Literally. I mean, yeah you know, like, you know what I mean? Like, it's a lot of productions tend to cast older actors to play them. Oh, yeah.
00:42:15
Speaker
And the story makes so much more sense when you're like, yes, a 13-year-old would marry someone that she's known for 36 hours and then commit suicide. That is kind of a... It's like it only works when you believe that these characters are experiencing these emotions for the first yes time. And watching this as a teenager at in that age range, because yeah, I probably did see it after it came out when when we were 10, but like, or nine, but it really was a thing for me, like stylistically everything, because I was also super into garbage. Garbage is on this soundtrack. Quentin Tarver does two amazing songs. One is a cover, maybe both are covers, but like incredible music does the right, like all these amazing artists. So I used to listen to the soundtrack all the time. it's Just like cry about it. like It's ridiculous. But um they are teenagers. like The actors were close enough to being the ages of the characters that it was not a distant memory for them. yeah And there's this like moment when Romeo is climbing up to Juliet's balcony. Famous moment in Romeo and Juliet. And he has taken off the shoulder armor and he just has like the knitted part, if you will.
00:43:36
Speaker
And he's climbing up the ivy and his pants are like sagging and you can see like the shirt underneath, you know, the faux armor like poking out. Like he looks like a teenage boy who hopped off a fixie and is like this wall. And it's just like all these things, you know, they could have called cut and like fixed it to make him look super put together. But instead, they wanted him to look like a boy who cares about what he looks like, but he's a boy. I mean, we could we could talk about this for years. And we probably will off mic. Yes, off mic. But this is a high i recommend from me because it is such a beautiful way of story like visual storytelling. The costumes are not what you expect of a Shakespearean production.
00:44:27
Speaker
they just are so bright in a world that's about a very sad story. And like it it is that thing of like leading you to an expectation and then going look deeper. And I just like, I love it. And I think that kind of the overall feeling that I get from the design, like the costumes, and then also like the set design and, um you know, like the way it interacts with lighting to a certain extent with like all the neon and stuff is these people understood this story and they understood what they wanted to say about it. And they understood, like they had confidence in their vision
00:45:10
Speaker
and and they were correct to have confidence in their vision because they executed it beautifully. But sometimes I think these types of movies are a lot more possible at the beginning of your career in a way. I agree. Because you don't have, like no one It's not like no one's rooting for you to succeed, but nobody has these like studio expectations on your production because they didn't even give you any money to begin with to make the movie. yeah And I think it gives you freedom in your Artistic expression even if you don't have all the resources and time and stuff that you might have later but like it forces you to really dig into what you want to say and how you can say it.
00:46:04
Speaker
And what's amazing too, again, referring to the Vogue article, there's this chunk where Kim Barrett talks about the fact that, um to quote her, this is after her talking about the designers helping them. But um the bulk of the clothing was fabricated by Barrett's team of pattern cutters and seamstresses, including these famous Hawaiian shirts, which were all painstakingly hand painted as riffs on a piece she picked up in a mini or Miami thrift store. So what's amazing is that this was at the beginning of a career. I mean, like there was a theater career background and and some other stuff, but like for being head of like a big, big, big movie that became very famous and well known.
00:46:49
Speaker
like there's so much freedom here and even working with designers that the way that it's being recounted, it feels like it was very, this movie is very much a product of its time and the design is a product of its time because it feels like these designers were like excited to share their ideas and it wasn't, The way it's being told in this article feels like there wasn't so much gatekeeping, but like, yeah, let's do this. And like, if you look at the Capulets like costumes like, oh, okay, John Leguizamo in this is dressed so incredibly. Like he's he's got the smooth lines of like a little athletic matador. Like he is just these like vests that he's wearing here and there. He looks like a dancer. He is snatched for days and he just looks like this dancer and he's got like curls on his edges like it's just he is the style of him and the other fighting men of the Capulets is just like so designer and so smooth like it's
00:47:50
Speaker
It's just incredible. And i I don't know that unless you had those relationships already existing that that might happen now. And that you also at the same time have a team.
00:48:03
Speaker
of cutters and seamstresses and fabric ah painters and all of these people who can build these things. like There's just such a ah confluence of events happening that it really does feel like when you see good theater where there's a beautiful collaboration of like all these hands. And I think that, like visually speaking, there's like so many things going on everywhere, but everything is carrying its weight.
00:48:31
Speaker
And it's just like, what a what a time. And I'm so glad that this movie came to exist so that we could see it. And then they could go on to make it. To our next movie. Okay, time for the intermission. You know, let's go to the lobby.
00:48:49
Speaker
So moving on down the road to Moulin Rouge, which came out in 2001, so this is five years after Romeo and Juliet, and this is I believe chronologically Baz Luhrmann's next movie, like he moved from Romeo and Juliet to Moulin Rouge he's keeping his Australian roots by casting Nicole Kidman as Satine. So team so um I don't think we need to get into a whole plot synopsis on Moulin Rouge, but I will say like the tiniest bit of plot is um that it's based on a couple different
00:49:29
Speaker
um like well-known stories and operas. So we have a lot of influence from La Boheme, which you can kind of see a very clear connection to the Bohemians in this movie. And there's also some, I guess there was a lot of reference that they were making to the Orpheus myth.
00:49:49
Speaker
um So that's Orpheus goes down to the underworld to rescue Eurydice, which I didn't overtly pick up on that, but Baz Luhrmann has said that out loud to people that that was an inspiration for him in Ewan McGregor's character of Christian. so like Christian wants to be an artist, he wants to be a bohemian, he comes to to Paris, and he ends up at the Moulin Rouge, which is this very famous club. It was a real club that really existed at the end of the 1800s. It's where you can find the iconic can-can dancers. um And I've seen it in a real life, though I did not get to go inside. I went on like a very, very whirlwind
00:50:37
Speaker
ah not ideal short trip to Paris and we got like carted around in like a tourist situation but we did walk past the Moulin Rouge and I pointed at it and I went that's the Moulin Rouge and then we had to keep walking um and there was no giant elephant outside.
00:50:56
Speaker
which is terrible. It's the heart elephant had heartbreaking. I love that elephant head. So yeah, we both kind of talked about like our first time seeing this movie at the beginning, but was there anything that like struck you this time that you hadn't noticed before with this one, Ariel? ah So I watched this movie so many times. Same.
00:51:26
Speaker
I was a summer camp counselor for a brief period of my career. And there was a summer where our kids, like we had like 13 kids, my co-counselor and I, and they were like, we would play the soundtrack because it was like a great soundtrack to just like dance around to. yeah And there were some inappropriate things for some kids to say, but there's like the love medley.
00:51:51
Speaker
we the kids decided that we had to put it on for the talent show and that my co-counselor and I had to act as the two main characters singing to each other. readable And that they were like, we'll dance around and we'll help you sing, but you have to do it. Cause we did it for them to make them laugh. And we like had to cut in every once in a while and change some of the words. But this movie was so present, not only for people my age, cause this is probably like when I was We were like 13. Yeah. Oh wow. eighteen When I was as a counselor the and the kids who were 11 and 10 were equally as taken with like the music and they knew the movie for reference points. So on this watch in my 30s, having been working in theater, having
00:52:43
Speaker
grown and been aware also as ah is a person of multiple ethnicities um of yes yeah the conversations about cultural sensitivity, cultural appropriation. yeah ah We cannot talk about this movie and without talking about spectacular, spectacular and the Orientalism of the Moulin Rouge because that was a thing that was present during this era.
00:53:15
Speaker
ye And it was also present in this movie, which is 23 years old, probably made 24 years ago. yeah And I had this like long conversation with my husband this morning about this because I was just like, I want to talk about it. But I read an op-ed about this movie where somebody was like, I watched it and I was so disgusted by it and I will never watch it again. And the stage show was far superior because of this whole thing. Oh, do they change that in the stage show? So if we're going to talk about this movie, we have to talk about the stage show. They do. They change the story completely in the stage show so that none of this is there. The elephant is a major motif on the um
00:53:59
Speaker
the actual set design, yeah but they change this. So there is no South Asian medley. I'm glad to hear that. I'm very glad i'm also glad to hear that. That was a very wonderful change. It was good to see. It was also very evident of the growth that is in theater and is happening in many, many areas where we can definitely do better.
00:54:24
Speaker
Historically, theater is not immune from gross Orientalism. You can find it all over the place. And you see that a lot in this because there's very much like, yeah, we'll get into it. But like there's the Argentinian, there's, you know,
00:54:43
Speaker
like the leg was Zamo, the Toulouse Lautrec of it all. There's so much here, like Toulouse Lautrec. There's like characters of color that exist on the fringes of the movie and like never get any specificity agency lines of dialogue. Except for like a moment of like violence like here or there. Like there's certain, there's a lot of things happening from a very white gaze. And we have to call that what it is, which is a product of its time. And I think that, you know, this was very formative for us. Like we were teenagers and to be real,
00:55:23
Speaker
these conversations were not happening the way that they are now. And I think to say something like this article, I just like really thought about it. And I'm not mad at the person who wrote it, unless the people who write, unlike the people who write stuff about Rings of Power, which you can hear me get real fussy about.
00:55:41
Speaker
this, this I feel like I support this person's opinion to be very, very upset with this movie and to hate it. Go for it. I think that the design and the storytelling had a massive impact on me as a teenager. And now looking back on it, I can from an adult perspective and in a perspective from where we are now talking about these things, I can say this was faulted very much so. And if it were made today, it would not be made this way. and I would fucking hope so. Yeah. Yes. it's like Even though there were beautiful costume pieces,
00:56:15
Speaker
what they represent, which is Orientalism and appropriation is not and so great. And so like the the reason for why they're there stinks and they were kind of a little bit hard to look at yeah um because of this. And like i I kept trying to just like isolate the work, but you can't, you really can't. Like you can say, look at all this beautiful work that these people made, but this is one of those things where you're like, this was not, Yeah, like if if we could there could be an interesting conversation about how people at the end of the 1800s viewed these cultures and like very much misunderstood them and denigrated them and
00:56:59
Speaker
did all I mean there's a point where the Argentinian who's playing the role of the sitar player where he's like in chains and there's like one of the black men I believe is like whipping him like there's just like yeah there's there she a lot happening. I'm glad that I can look at it now and go, oh, no. I'm glad that we can have a more realistic and aware conversation about it and that we're not just like, oh, it's fine. It's a good sign when you can look back on something and be like, oh, that just was horrible in that way that you could be like, okay, so as as bad as things can be right now,
00:57:46
Speaker
like some things have changed, thank God. And the stage production of this is a great example to a point. They're like one of the greatest things is that there is like a diverse cast now on stage, which is wonderful because there are so many like lovely and very talented performers who are a part of that show. And there's also the removal of this Orientalism from the movie to the stage production. They have altered it so as to gracefully move around that and still tell the heart of the story without
00:58:25
Speaker
taking from someone else, yeah except theirs. And I did see this, I saw it once and I saw it a couple years ago and I had very mixed feelings about it. I was not a massive fan. I thought that the the stage production, I thought the costumes were wonderful. You have a story about that, I believe. I do.
00:58:42
Speaker
And I thought that the production design was wonderful. Like it was a beautiful theater experience. But this is a musical and the music for the stage production. I was not a fan and I could not get behind. That was confusing to me because I didn't. Yeah, like I so I have not seen the stage production. um But when I found out that the music was changed, I was like,
00:59:10
Speaker
Why? Like I don't yeah think, I mean, maybe there are certain things that, you know, needed to change like here and there, but like the music wasn't really current when the movie came out. They- I think because like I had a conversation with somebody about it. Yeah. I think that it's licensing.
00:59:28
Speaker
that some of the licensing may not exist because like as they were going on tour they were also still evolving it because maybe there were certain places that they couldn't play certain things and so I think that that complicated it but Ooh, the resolution. Again, this is not my production. This is not really my thing. The decision to make this a jukebox musical instead of taking the spirit of the movie, which, yes, is jukebox by combining things that exist and altering them, ah they didn't hold to the spirit of that. Like I, going to see Moulin Rouge on stage and hearing, do you ever feel like a plus
01:00:14
Speaker
oh from oh And singing firework and having Satine and Christian hold the hands while singing firework to each other by Katy Perry. If only you could see my face. I was not a fan. And I was also not a fan that storytelling, before we even get to the costume, storytelling wise, they changed. Like in this, okay, I could totally see being annoyed as hell, the character of Christian.
01:00:43
Speaker
I can see it. But in this, there's a very thin edge, there's a very thin line. They stay in the movie very successfully for me on the edge of naive and yeah romantic, yes which is in line with the theme of the Bohemian aspirations. right yeah In the show, they turn him into an incel. How do they turn him into an incel? They take the gun out of the Baron's lackey's hands and they put it in Christian's hands. And there is a point in the show where he literally tells her
01:01:19
Speaker
I'm going to kill you and then myself because if I can't have you, no one can. Okay. All right. Okay. Hold on. That's the Duke's point of view in the movie. The Duke's point of view is yes if I can't have you, no one can. yeah And so in the movie- And we recognize that in 2001 as, yes, that is the villain- That is bad. That is a villain point of view. And that in the story within a story, in Spectacular Spectacular, the show that they mount in the Moulin Rouge,
01:01:53
Speaker
the Baron gets wind of the fact that Satine might not be doing what he wants. And so he demands that they change the ending and that the Maharaja wins. Well, let me tell you, the stage production that exists now, they have softened the character of the Duke and the design of the Duke on stage is a little bit more S and&M going. It's interesting. And they made him they tried they made him charming.
01:02:19
Speaker
Oh, no. And then they made Christian go from this like romantic to if I can't have you, no one can. So the stage production to me does not is not effective because the story and like you can have a story and you can have beautiful costumes. But if it's just technically supporting the story.
01:02:39
Speaker
There's no way in for me. Yeah. Whereas in the, and like the costumes are lovely on this in stage production, but in the movie, I feel like we're seeing something uphold like a whole story so that you feel like this world exists again, like in a little snow globe. Yes. Yes. And, and there's so many. What was your connection to the stage production before you went on? Sure, sure.
01:03:08
Speaker
but Oh, whatever. Yeah, so my my connection to the stage production is like a thin little spider's web of a connection. But you know, I i will cling to it um as much as I can. So I lived for a few years in New York. And one of my first jobs that I had there, I spent a year working for this company that made costumes for Broadway and dance productions. And it's kind of like a whole different world there in terms of how things get made. So if you're working on a play or a movie or something, like you expect, oh, here's my costume team. And generally speaking, they're in one place and they're working together, especially in theater. You expect there to be a workroom.
01:04:04
Speaker
Everybody's there. People are working together. They're making everything. um But it's not like that. For for Broadway costumes, each workroom is like it is an independent business. And sometimes they specialize in certain things. So if you're doing a stage production, you will only come to them to make certain items or certain pieces of the whole. So as a designer,
01:04:29
Speaker
you're shopping your show around piecemeal to these different companies to make the things that you need. And like one workroom might specialize in tailoring and do all of the menswear for your show. And one workroom might specialize in working with stretch fabric and they make all of the leotards for your ballet or whatever. So the company that I was working for, um we did mostly women's wear and we did um a lot of dance type stuff. But my job there specifically was ah the shopper for that company. So I spent all day in the garment district, in the fabric stores,
01:05:16
Speaker
with a giant metal ring that had all these little manila tags on it. And my job was to collect fabrics watches based on the designer's costume rendering for whatever little bit of this show that we were working on.
01:05:36
Speaker
and get as many options as I could possibly find for every piece of that costume and bring them all back and hand that ring to the designer or their assistant or the draper or whoever and have them like flick through my little fabric Rolodex, pick the one that they wanted,
01:06:01
Speaker
and send me back to the store to buy it and tell me how much to get. And so ah one of the things that one of the projects that we worked on while I was there was we made all of the Can Can Girl costumes. And we made several of Satine's costumes for the original Broadway production of Moulin Rouge.
01:06:24
Speaker
So I had my giant metal ring with all my manila little tags on it. And I just had every single piece of colored netting and organza that you could find in New York City. And they were flicking through and picking all the Can Can Girl skirt ah color options, color combinations. um We made all their corsets. We had an amazing corset maker at that workroom, and that is one of the reasons why we built a bunch of costumes for Satine.
01:07:00
Speaker
Despite like finding fabric for all these can-can girls, I've never seen the show because that's one thing that I think is also really different about working in that environment is like if you're in a shop that's building the costumes for a show, you usually get to go see the show when it opens. But because everything was so piecemeal and you know we just did like our little part of it and like every every shop did their little part. The number of hands that touch those costumes in Moulin Rouge is insane. They're not giving free tickets to everybody that had something to do with that show. So a lot of times, you work on shows like that. And unless you go and pay to see it, you don't see the show. So I haven't seen it. And it was pretty hot property when it first came out. So that would be hard to maybe get a ticket. Yeah.
01:07:55
Speaker
I just like, thank you for sharing that because I love that, I love like hearing you know each other's experiences and I have not worked in New York and I would not trade your place. The only thing that I would want, like I would not trade your place at all being a shopper.
01:08:12
Speaker
But being able to wander around like the fabric district as it was before 2020, not an experience I can have because that decimated that area. But like what an experience, I'm sure. All right, let's get into this. Other than all of the ways that this movie disappoints us now in its in cultural insensitivity and just total tone-deaf thing,
01:08:39
Speaker
ah What can we talk about positively that is good? Because there's, I mean, there's a lot of beautiful work in this movie. it's There's a lot of beautiful work. There's a lot of beautiful work. Like, yes, there is cultural insensitivity, but I, that's, I think why I brought up that op-ed is that it's hard for me to wash away the whole thing yeah when instead I feel more comfortable saying this was a product of its time. And like these were not, were not,
01:09:08
Speaker
were We were not where we should have been and we're still working to get there, but that does not discount the beautiful work that was done. yeah um And there were things that were not as blatantly whoa, you know? yeah And like there is- Yeah, like everything pre-spectacular, spectacular, there's,
01:09:33
Speaker
certain things, but like generally they they kind of stay in their lane of like France, 1800s. There's a lot of historically accurate, like there was a lot of work done because again, other articles, there's a Vogue article about this movie as well with ah Catherine Martin, the designer, and Angus Strathby was also listed as a costume designer.
01:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, straight straight. And I'm so sorry for Miss. Oh, no, you're right. Strathy. You're right. Strathy. But Catherine Martin, I believe was she was also a production designer on Moulin Rouge. But yeah, probably then wore two hats. And so likely. Yeah.
01:10:16
Speaker
Yeah, and so she talked about that there was a massive effort to make historically accurate costumes so that the world again felt grounded because in this movie it's very evident the Baz Luhrmann style of like constant motion and things happening and like animated things happening. yeah It's overwhelming and then there are moments when it's very devastating because those things aren't happening and um like the editing is crazy. But ah yeah, so there's a lot of like historically weighted things where you see silhouettes that you're expecting of the 1890s. There are
01:10:57
Speaker
So many men's suits and so many tuxes in this that are used kind of like as a weapon because every time you're in the Moulin Rouge and the performers are performing and you look out to the audience, most of the time you're looking at the audience, it's all men wearing exact where earning yeah the exact same thing and it makes them effectively all faceless yeah and like like rabid yeah and so that it's and incredibly effective to just use tuxedo but make it this like absolute blanket statement and it's just like little every time you see it. Like I was struck in this watching how
01:11:39
Speaker
starched and crisp and like hard those looks are compared to the other menswear that we see of like the bohemians and everything was so much more softer and lived in and and it was like, ooh, what's the term I'm looking for? The social propriety of yes the customers was like, they're They're on a little field trip to the Moulin Rouge. They're just dipping their toe into something salacious and dirty. They're yeah upstanding citizens. like They're there for one reason. They don't live there. They're there as tourists. That, I think, was so well communicated without yeah needing to comment. like It's just there. you don't No one has to say anything. And even at some point when we see women in the audience, they look
01:12:30
Speaker
like their costumes are hot off the presses. And it's it just kind of keeps the communication that everybody who's in those seats are of a different economic status. There's no dirt on their hems. They are clean, clean, clean.
01:12:45
Speaker
And then the moment you get behind the curtain, it feels like working in the theater because like the costumes that the showgirls and and showmen and everybody, all those costumes that are being worn are so flashy and bright and like shiny. And they are so so of a different world. Like the makeup that some people are wearing, Harry Ziegler and Marie are wearing white paint, like to different degrees with like circles of rouge on their cheeks.
01:13:15
Speaker
yeah And then like the bright, like, well, not bright, but like red lip to like create the illusion of like youth and life. And it's like so theatrical. But once you get backstage and you see like Marie in her worn in clothing and you see like how offset the theatrical clothing that like Satine is wearing and the other dancers are wearing.
01:13:40
Speaker
It like kind of loses its shine because you realize that it's all a costume. so And like theatrical paint is meant to be broadcast in a theater for a distance. right That's why musicals are so over the top. and So you can see it.
01:13:58
Speaker
ah flattening light Situation like that so you need to contour to camera to contour you need to create this characterised language but the moment you step backstage and those stage lights aren't on you yeah it's like look like it can be anywhere from like clownish to like grotesque. kind of grotesque and And Harry Ziegler at certain points is grotesque. And part of that is that, yeah, those colors on his cheeks and on his lips, he's trying to be like, I'm this, you know, boisterous, happy to lucky man, but really he's a businessman. And like, there's a scene where I wanted to throat punch him in the Baron where it's the like a virgin sequence.
01:14:38
Speaker
And I was like, it's so disgusting. And like, there's also, to talk about the, I mean, it's a part of the story, but like the the misogyny of it all. There's a point where the doctor tells Harry Ziegler and Marie that Satine is dying of tuberculosis. And Harry Ziegler says, don't tell her. And all I could think about was Lurlene Wallace. Have you ever heard that story? No.
01:15:05
Speaker
She died in ah the sixties. She was a governor. She died in 1968, her husband. So at that time in American history, I can't speak to the rest of the world. If you had a diagnosis of any kind, the doctor would tell your husband, they wouldn't tell you. She had a diagnosis of cancer. The doctor told her husband, your wife has cancer. Her husband decided we're not going to tell her. So she died without any medication, without any treatment and not knowing that she had cancer.
01:15:35
Speaker
And that was like, what the hell? And then it reminded me that like women in America couldn't open can open checking accounts until 1974. I had a breakdown that I hadn't had before watching this because I'm in a different place yeah and the costumes couldn't The costumes were both effective and couldn't distract me from this because the costumes of the Moulin Rouge are meant to be, it's a theater. it is It is theater. It is these people who are struggling and scrabbling for any scrap of joy or life.
01:16:10
Speaker
And they can't just break away from the Moulin Rouge and go get a new job. Like, based on their job history, other people will not hire them. yeah And this is what they can do. And there is no place like the Moulin Rouge. So they are they are essentially stuck. that's That's kind of what made them family to a point that we can recognize from working on theater productions when they say, well, we're family. um Anyway, the costumes that they they wear.
01:16:37
Speaker
hide so much grotesquely in the world because it is romantic and it is naive and the character of Christian is that voice and Satine is the voice of kind of like reality, but wanting to be taken away from reality. And so she we see her as this beautiful bell of the ball, the diamond of the Moulin Rouge, if you will. yeah And then throughout the movie,
01:17:05
Speaker
we see her like she gets she wears a lot of dark clothing throughout and then when she's with Christian she's wearing lighter things and she gets to kind of like the weight is taken off of her like visually when she's like in his apartment and they're just like being two young lovers. And so the way that her color palette of like saturated reds with that evening gown and like the dark, dark black rhinestones, all these things,
01:17:38
Speaker
Even at the very end, she's wearing white, which is more sedate than most of her other costumes, but it still has this like headpiece and rhinestone for Jesus. she's She's still weighted down because it's ah that's a lot of costume, even though it's sleeveless and all these things. No, that stuff is heavy.
01:17:58
Speaker
all of Nicole Kidman's costumes in this movie are. Oh my God, she's snatched to her body. I read a quote from her saying, yeah, like there there's a quote from her saying that she found it really difficult to do the performance choreography in some of those corseted pieces because they have her tight laced. Like we talked about corsets in a previous episode that it wasn't relevant to that, but we um But there's a big difference between wearing a corset as a supportive garment and wearing it as a tight laced garment and she's her character is wearing it as a tight laced garment because we're in
01:18:43
Speaker
She's a sex worker. We're in like ah an environment that's inviting like fetish and sexualization. Fettish and the cis hetero male gaze, like all these things. And she's supposed to be presenting herself yeah as basically a gift to be unlaced. She's also presenting herself as something to be looked at that's delicate and feminine to like a very specific image.
01:19:08
Speaker
And all of those things are very effective. And especially when she's wearing all of these things that are related to the Moulin Rouge, they are so... How do I want to describe it? But it's like heavy. And part of that is the meaning of what she's wearing. Like there's one scene when she and Christian, it's the mistaken identity where she thinks, oh, the young and Duke, and he's like trying to get enough courage to... poetry Yeah, to tell her about a show and she's like trying to seduce him and she's wearing all black. She's got stockings. She's got corset. She's got this robe that's like sheer. Even that just feels heavy where that's not something she would choose to wear. That's her work clothing. That's not her and we see things that she would want to wear spotted through the movie throughout their romance when she's just like in a comfortable robe that looks older and worn but cared for or cared for and time and um like has a little pattern on it. like there's just yeah
01:20:09
Speaker
we're able to see her character is a woman who has a job, and she's doing that job. And like her story is that she's trying to tell this person she loves that this is the job I have to work in order to survive. like i also is This is what I have. Just like from a purely um like technical costume point of view, I really appreciated and I think more this time than any other time, really appreciated that she does an onstage quick change in the opening yeah scene of the movie. And I just love the like the energy of that change whereas like as soon as she, because it's like all the Kankan girls hold up their skirts to create like a little tent for her to change in. And as soon as she drops in,
01:20:59
Speaker
she drops the character and she's like, okay, what's the plan? What do we need to do? Who do I need to be? Like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah while she's like getting like zipped in. I was really impressed that she did a glove change in there. I have to say that's hard. Oh my God. And you know, like didn't have spandex back then. Okay. So no just, but I was like, those moments, I just like, I feel at home.
01:21:23
Speaker
in those moments and I felt really at home later in the movie when they're showing like rehearsals for spectacular spectacular and people have like the rehearsal clothes but then like one hat or like one costume item that I was like I feel so at home in that environment and they also have like different rehearsal clothes. So they're not constantly wearing just like this one outfit with the piece that they're using like as a stand-in for the actual show. yeah there There are certain scenes where they're wearing bodices and skirts that are pretty comfortable and they're doing their like dance practice. Then there's another scene where some of the dancers have removed their bodices and they're just in corset and skirts. The skirts are tucked because they're hot.
01:22:09
Speaker
And that's what dancers are like. Dancers are like, this is hot. It's hard work. So I'm going to wear something comfortable. That's why there's the stereotype of the spandex with like the leg warmers and all the layers. And so they were able to represent that in a way i'm i'm I've seen.
01:22:24
Speaker
but like period. And it was great. And the fact too, that like, because this is the Moulin Rouge, the dancers don't kind of care about the way that they're dressing in mixed company, the way that right you technically period would care if you were like in a middle class household. So it's just like, they're just, we're working, so we're going to take the shirt off and like, let yeah the shoulders breathe. There's one really, um really key change that they made to the can-can dancer costumes that I think is worth mentioning. So yes in real life, the real can-can dancers, they have their roughly skirts that they lift up and they have their little um like bloomer situation underneath.
01:23:11
Speaker
They were split bloomers in real life. And if anyone doesn't know what that is, I don't know if I want to describe it in detail for you. But let's just say the name says it. I think you get it. They could not have achieved their PG rating or PG-13 rating if they had been historically accurate. So that was one of those things where I'm like,
01:23:36
Speaker
you know, we like to think as modern people that like everything that we do is like the most audacious version and everyone in the past was like buttoned up and whatever and it's like, okay, get over yourself. Okay. No mores were equally is like all over the place.
01:23:56
Speaker
ah That was that was a detail that I was like, okay That is an important change that you need to consciously make when you're making a movie about the Moulin Rouge. Holy god percent because your rating would change Like how you care for your actors would change all sorts of things would be very different your yeah, your audience would be very different there's also I mean, therere there are like individual costume pieces that we could call out. like There's so much beautiful work in this. I know. um Like, NeNe legs in the air. Which, like first of all, name. Incredible name. What a name. She has this green coat that I love in the scene where Harry Ziegler is announcing Spectacular Spectacular and that they're going to build like a new
01:24:43
Speaker
addition to the theater for it. um There are so many corsets on display that are just like so neat to look at. um In the the elephant when um Nicole Kidman and Christian are dancing for the first time and she has that black deal on and he has a black suit with like a red vest on. They have a dance sequence where they go out. It's like a dream sequence where they go out of the elephant and they're dancing in the clouds and they have the same costumes.
01:25:19
Speaker
but made out of different glittery fabrics. I never noticed that until this watch. Didn't notice that until this watch either. was like like rose Like he like he throws a handful of glitter. So well he opens an umbrella is right an umbrella and then it comes down like rain. And so I was like, Oh, it's just landed on his shoulders. Right? Like that's yeah in all caps. I have glitter rain, but yeah, I didn't notice ever until this watch that it actually is. They had clothing doubles.
01:25:49
Speaker
And I just like ah beautiful the dream sequence version. And I just like, I thought that was so heightened and beautiful. And these are the things that lend to this movie becoming a stage production is that it essentially is like the whole concept of the red curtain trilogy is that, I mean, Baz Luhrmann has talked about it before, you can look it up. And so I'm just going to paraphrase because of me.
01:26:14
Speaker
Um, the whole concept of the trilogy is to kind of break, not break the fourth wall by looking and engaging with the audience that way, but welcoming the audience in so that you feel that you are a part of it in a way that other things don't engage you. So having these dream sequences, having this like fast paced stuff that like shakes you up and having the absinthe, you know, with the bohemians, which like breaks convention and all this, like Kylie Minogue is the green fairy, like all this stuff.
01:26:44
Speaker
is to break, you know, A to Z storytelling and to to bring you into, like, to to not try to pretend that this is not a production. It is. yes But to make it be like, we're telling you a story and here's the red curtain of it all. And so that's what it feels like, is it feels like a stage production, the way that it's it's put together. And so,
01:27:09
Speaker
Like, yeah, having doubles that are heightened and then going back to the regular very stage production. Amazing. i have to I have to just mention, I watched this movie, I don't know, maybe like within the last year with Jonathan and he'd never seen it before. And it was in the middle of the first scene in the Moulin Rouge. So we're like 10 minutes into the movie.
01:27:35
Speaker
And he just turned to me and he was like, if the whole movie is going to be like this, I don't think I can watch this movie. Like it was too much. My but eyes will leave my skull. I think that that's true for a lot of people. like I know Baz Luhrmann is very polarizing whether people like it or a not because it is yeah very overwhelming. It is. It's very much a style. and it's like I loved that you brought up um Hot Fuzz earlier because Edgar Wright is also a director who has like a ah fast cut fast yeah style. I love his movies. I love his movies so much so we do have to talk about them.
01:28:17
Speaker
But Baz Luhrmann, I feel, was like, I'm not a cinema student, so I can't like quote different directors and cinematographers who like did round breaking things. And I wouldn't want you to if you could.
01:28:33
Speaker
But like it felt like Baz Luhrmann's language, the visual language that come with the Baz Luhrmann production really like opened a few doors into the audience's perception of how you can tell me a story. And then other people were able to have their own version of that.
01:28:50
Speaker
Yeah, and not necessarily due to Baz Luhrmann, but maybe because of stuff that was happening in the 90s, and then maybe like feed off of each other a little bit, but they were each from all these different places prepping us to be able to accept story in a different way. And yeah, if I were coming into Baz Luhrmann in my 30s, it might be a little bit much. Right, right. This hit me at the right time. yeah When I was Christian myself, I was like, romance. Just ah super naive and it was like a perfect, oh, I'm this. well Oh my God. Like there's, because there is like a historical accuracy to a point in this movie, there's a lot of it in history, but it's Yeah, there's a lot of like dark, when we're not talking about like the the theater, the Moulin Rouge costumes, there's a lot of dark clothing. Actually, yeah, with the Moulin Rouge costumes, because like in the Roxanne scene, it's pretty dark. Yeah, it's pretty dark. um But there's a darkness to Satine's color palette.
01:29:57
Speaker
It just gets heavier and heavier and heavier and then has moments of brightness and then like It's just like at the end having her in this white sleeveless number Yeah, the like rhinestone headpiece and then she has blood on her skirt and she's laying in Christian's arms in red and white rose roses like it's just oh my god, it's the visuals are so stunning.
Cinematic Stereotypes and Visual Poetry
01:30:26
Speaker
um Yeah, there's also one of those movies that like I think helps create the stereotype that like
01:30:33
Speaker
If you cough into a handkerchief and there's like a drop of blood, you're going to be dead by the end of the movie. Well, I think that this is actually like the result of that because there's a movie. I know this because I think of a Shirley Temple movie that I watched when I was a kid because I used to watch Shirley Temple when I was a kid. But there's a movie called I don't remember what movie it is that you see this, but there's a movie called Camille. And Camille is also the story of Moulin Rouge. It's a sex worker and ah a man falls in love with her and then she dies in his arms. And he has this whole like, and she's like, I always loved you. And like, that's definitely the coughing in the
01:31:14
Speaker
the thing And that's like from the 40s or the 30s, I think. yeah No research done on that in order for me to prepare to tell you that information. I just remember seeing a couple scenes from something a long time ago. The design that comes with the Baz Luhrmann project, when like he's done so many things that I haven't seen, but like when you see that name, you know that you're essentially getting in your screen this massive stage production that even though it's on camera, there's something about it that steps outside of reality even further yeah than the convention of watching the story. It's going to be heightened. It's going to be poetic. It's going to be so very much. Do we have any like kind of final thoughts? I just feel like
01:32:05
Speaker
What these meant to me as a millennial was that in the 90s, we had the film and that changes the quote like what you're seeing on screen. like Digital versus film is everything that you're seeing is different than stuff we saw when we were growing up. There was a different grain, a different texture. Everything that just climbs through with these costumes,
01:32:32
Speaker
It just shows like such a sensibility that all of these designers had of the medium that they were working with. and that they could like really pull you in with, I mean Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet are very opposed visually, right? Like yeah there's a pretty tight palette in Moulin Rouge. Like there's a lot of black, there's a lot of white, there's a lot of red, and then there's like other things. Yeah, color explosions that are kind of controlled, but it's like pretty visually yeah connected.
01:33:07
Speaker
And in Romeo and Juliet, it is very, very vivacious and flamboyant and all over the place. And these two things were some of my first forays into understanding how what what you put on a person's body can support the story that you're telling. They can make it heavy, it can give you the illusion that it's light. And then once you see past that lightness, everything is still bright. Like Romeo and Juliet, everybody's still wearing all these super bright things until the very end when they find the two children who have killed themselves.
01:33:42
Speaker
Um, but behind all that lightness is so much violence and so much anger and so much hatred. Everybody looks like they're a party boy. Like it's, it's just learning that messaging and communication can be a part of costume. These were very fundamental in that aside from like being perfect, like tear fodder because that emotionally speaking. were very, very important to teenage me. What about you? Final thoughts? Well, I guess I'm going to have to kind of gloss over Romeo and Juliet because it wasn't super foundational to me, so I'm only going to talk about Moulin Rouge, I guess. Fair. I think I was already a bit of a history nerd when this movie came out, but I think a lot of
01:34:26
Speaker
movies that were kind of telling stories from the past had this sort of intellectualizing effect. And they kind of approach, I think we have a tendency to approach stories from the past like with an emotional distance of being like, that was then we know better now.
01:34:47
Speaker
And we don't we're not the same as those people, and we can't like relate to them in that way. And I think that that's what turns a lot of people off from finding history like interesting. is It's just seen as this like thing that you couldn't ever possibly relate to. And I think with Moulin Rouge and sort of the film and like visual style, that Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin and Angus Strathie brought to this was like immediate visceral emotional connection to the characters and a way of being alive that
01:35:31
Speaker
can't be like contained. There's so much going on for all these characters and there's so much to look at and there's so much to care about and there's so much to love that you like have to get invested in the story and you have to care about it because you can't watch this movie from like an emotional distance. You can only watch it by being part of the story, which is clearly what he was trying to do. Yes, there are issues in the laundry, but truly it was a product of its time. And it's it's important to have the conversations about things and to think about it and not just sweep it under the rug and pretend that something didn't happen or say like it's perfect. um But it still is very, very beautiful. Like the costumes, the work that was done is beautiful.
Teaser for Next Episode: Discussing Hook
01:36:22
Speaker
And I'm glad that the stage show has updated some of that. All right, thank you so much for listening to our coverage of two of Batswurman's projects, Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet. We are so happy to be like calf deep in movies that made millennials, us millennials, being the millennials and especially- The only ones that we care about. The only ones, the only ones.
01:36:49
Speaker
If you want to join the discussion, by all means, please find us on Instagram and let us know what you think. But our next movie, I'm so excited about because like with Romeo and Juliet, how I was surprised that Melinda didn't care for it when she first saw it.
01:37:05
Speaker
The next movie is the one that we talked about in our Ever After episode. you might like like it's It's a good thing that we record this podcast remotely because we're or we're going to be like the two like kangaroos in boxing gloves. 1920s boxers. i am just This is apparently a contentious film with like a lot of different opinions flying around and I didn't know that there were different opinions until like last year when my husband i saw on Reddit or heard in a podcast that people hate this movie. We fall, he and I, on the side of loving this movie because it's magic to us from our childhood. The movie is Hook starring Robin Williams and I cannot wait to hear
01:37:58
Speaker
everything. All of your thoughts will end up. This movie is a travesty. It should have never been made. It is a gross, gross perversion of the Peter Pan story. And I found it psychologically horrifying as a child.
01:38:15
Speaker
Oh, we're going to get into it. And I'm so excited. I'm almost afraid to watch it again because I'm afraid that I won't hate it. What if it convinces you that you like it? Yes. I'll have to relitigate my entire personality if I like the movie. So this is a very vulnerable place for me to be. And I just want everyone to appreciate that. You know, contention ahead or complete conversion. I'm totally jazzed about it. I'm so excited. Please give it a watch. Let us know how you feel about it. Please don't watch it. Do not give them more dreams. Do not give them more airtime. I'll tell you everything you need to know about this movie when we talk about it. Oh, it's going to be so good. Yay. All right. Thank you so much for giving us a listen. Will, I don't know.
01:39:10
Speaker
you'll hear us next time. but Yeah, I mean, I hope so. Bye!