We Can Can Can!

Can Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman actually sing?

Baz Luhrmann reinvents the musical with Moulin Rouge!

Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann's follow-up to Romeo + Juliet hits UK cinema with a mass of publicity and marketing behind it. A star studded premiere in London's West End, attended by the Prince of Wales, heralded one of the most extravagant and surprising movies you will see this year. When writer/director Luhrmann chose it as his next 'Red Curtain' film little did he know that this was going to be his biggest challenge yet. Bringing late 19th century bohemian Paris to life would be difficult enough but making the movie a musical brought up a whole new set of problems. The musical was really a dead concept, in film terms. The public only accepted singing and dancing when cartoon characters performed it. Woody Allen had some critical success with 'Everyone says I love you' and 'Evita' was a hit, but they never made the box office numbers that a movie of this size and cost would have to recoup. How could he and co-writer Craig Pearce make an audience want to pay money to watch a musical on the big screen?

The Moulin Rouge of that era was, basically a 'Place of Women' built to make money from the ever growing interesting the dance craze of the time, the can-can. The music of that era didn't really adhere itself to a modern 21st century audience, so Luhrmann and Pearce had to come up with a whole new concept. "It's about manipulating the elements that existed in that world, so they read now, so that a modern audience can access this period world" explains Production Designer Catherine Martin. Luhrmann wanted to create a world in a style he dubbed 'Real Artificiality', creating a Paris where it was normal for people just to breakout into song and it would look and feel completely natural.

The music and songs are what a musical is all about, but the challenge was to make it appeal to a new audience, were most of them wouldn't have ever seen a live action musical at the cinema. In researching the film, Luhrmann and Pearce looked back at the heyday of the musical, the 1940s and 50s. Here they saw that even when a movie was set during a specific time period, songs from the time were incorporated into the production so the audience had something to connect with. That connection was to be triggered by integrating 20th century pop songs into the characters situations. With songs by Lennon and McCartney, Sting, David Bowie, Madonna, Elton John and even Dolly Parton and Rodgers and Hammerstein, the film music was going to be as extraordinary as the visuals.

The story revolves around two very strong characters who both discover real love for the first time, a love that really shouldn't be. The parts had to be played by really good actors, who could get across the height of emotion involved, but of course they also had to be able to hold a tune. "We had to find two people who were actors first and foremost, but who could also sing," explains Luhrmann. When both he and casting director Ronna Kress saw Nicole Kidman performing in the West-End version of 'The Blue Room', they knew straight away that they had found Satine. Kidman was immediately offered the role of the Parisian nightclub's courtesan star.

Many actors were considered for the role of Christian, but Luhrmann always had Ewan McGregor in his mind. He knew he had the acting ability to bring a certain sensitivity to the role but he didn't know if Ewan could sing. But he embraced the opportunity saying, "I've been waited all my life to do this kind of singing and dancing", his tenacity and untapped vocal talent won McGregor the role, "I was musical at school, and I used dance when I was a kid".

Instant chemistry erupted between the two leads, much to the delight of Baz Luhrmann, as Nicole and Ewan had never screen tested together before the movie went into rehearsals. This chemistry rubbed off on the rest of the cast, taking all the tension out of singing, "We had four months of rehearsals to sail into that world using music and dancing to tell the story. Perhaps the most important thing about the whole rehearsal process was that by the time we started shooting, singing wasn't an issue," recalls Ewan McGregor.

After nearly three years in production, Moulin Rouge opened in Australia and the US in May, to critical acclaim on both sides of the pacific. It is currently Australia's highest grossing movie of the year and is on course to be the biggest movie in Australian history. It reaffirms the promise Luhrmann showed in Romeo + Juliet, as both an inventive and visual filmmaker. Moulin Rouge pushes him into the category of director, that every movie they make turns into and event that you can't afford to miss.

Oh, and trust him on the sunscreen.

(Quotes are taken from Moulin Rouge Press-pack and are copyright 20th Century Fox)

(For my cousin, Rachel Moor)

Jamie Kelwick

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