Moulin Rouge (1952)
(On Cable TV, December 2020) There is a particular charm to the way Hollywood used to make biopics – a mixture of caricature, big stars in famous people’s roles, mannered filmmaking and some very specific idea of what a “prestige” picture could be. So it is that in Moulin Rouge, we head to late 19th-century Paris to learn about the life of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, as played by José Ferrer. The attraction to the topic should be obvious: Toulouse-Lautrec was a genius and a tortured man – physically stunted due to a childhood accident, unlucky in love, spectacularly alcoholic and perpetually living close to poverty. He incarnated much of what many people imagine when they think about troubled artists in the 1890s. For 178cm Ferrer, taking on the role of 152cm Toulouse-Lautrec meant undergoing a physical transformation and making good use of unusual filmmaking techniques such as trenches, fake knees and body doubles. Then there’s the visual attraction of the topic: It would have been unthinkable, even in the 1950s, to shoot Moulin Rouge in anything but colour. The musical numbers are, of course, very can-can: I strongly suspect that most of what we think of as being the aesthetics of the Moulin Rouge (or that period), including the 2001 version of Moulin Rouge!, can be traced back to this film. Absinthe shows up (naturally), as do dark stockings and garter pants. The character of Toulouse-Lautrec perfectly fits the colourful, seedy, exhilarating world created here: Director John Huston knew what he was doing, and the result is a film that deserved its Academy Award nominations. Ferrer is quite good, and there are other known names, such as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in the cast. The 2001 Moulin Rouge! (which doesn’t share much than the title and the setting) is one of my favourite movies of all time, but this 1952 title is perfectly likable in its own way.
