Oriental and Postmodern Elements in Moulin Rouge!

Bachelorarbeit von Sylvia Krenn

Introduction:

‘The show will be a magnificent, opulent, tremendous, stupendous, gargantuan, bedazzlement! A sensual ravishment. It will be Spectacular, Spectacular’. Zidler is right. That is what Moulin Rouge! is – spectacular. Zidler, the impresario of the Moulin Rouge, tries to sell the bohemian play 'Spectacular, Spectacular', which Toulouse and Christian present to the Duke. However, Moulin Rouge! is 'Spectacular, Spectacular' and vice versa. The Duke is the maharajah, Christian is the penniless sitar player and Satine is the beautiful courtesan. Luhrmann's latest work is loud, colorful, fast, postmodern, a melodrama and a musical, and it is about love. Opinions are much divided over this film and many critics wonder if it is just bad taste and kitsch or an ingenious piece of film art. In other words, it is an original Baz Luhrmann.

Until today, the Australian director produced three movies, which he calls the 'Red Curtain Trilogy'. He started with Strictly Ballroom in 1992, followed by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in 1996 and ended with Moulin Rouge! in 2001. Luhrmann calls his way of filmmaking ‘a theatricalized cinema style’. Baz Luhrmann definitely is a unique and versatile character. However, if his film is art or trash remains a matter of opinion. Luhrmann himself disassociates from any categorization in the sense of low culture and high art, taking into account that back in time Shakespeare was also considered as popular culture in the same way, as operas were the lowest form of culture at their peak times. He counters his critics and their objections, ‘die Story ist dünn und simpel’, with, ‘Doch gerade das ist eine Konvention des Musicals, aber auch der Oper, mit Ausnahme von Wagner. Aber eigentlich zieht auch Wagner nur einen dünnen Plot in die Länge.’ The other often expressed criticism that his latest work, ‘is a direct assault on eyes, ears, and expectations’ (Abele), and hard to exceed in terms of kitsch, he only defies with the credo that, ‘Persönlicher Geschmack ist der Feind der Kunst.’.

Moulin Rouge! is a mélange of film, music and dance. Set in 1899 but with contemporary music it is a work of extremes. Everything in this film seems to scream: 'anything goes!'. Nevertheless, Luhrmann follows a concept. Nothing in this film happens accidentally but it is his own style. Luhrmann's 'Red Curtain' style comprises several distinct storytelling choices. He uses a rather simple story, based on a well-known myth, which in Moulin Rouge! is the myth of Orpheus. Luhrmann wants the audience to know from the very beginning how the story will end and with a simple play-within-the play Luhrmann captures the audience's attention. He sets the story in a created world ‘that is once familiar yet distant and exotic’. Finally, each of his films has its own device, which makes the audience aware of the storyteller's presence and the fact that they are watching a film. In Moulin Rouge! music and dance is the device that creates the effect of an unnatural world. Although this movie sometimes seems chaotic with all its influences of opera, Greek myth, latest film techniques, modern pop music and Bollywood in particular, in the end Baz Luhrmann meets the ravages of time.

Bollywood is en vogue. In 2001, Andrew Lloyds Webber stages his West End and Broadway hit Bombay Dreams, the Victoria and Albert Museum opens an exhibition about Hindi Cinima's visual culture, and Bollywood music and Bhangra raps enter European hit parades. Luhrmann uses the exotic Orient in form of relatively unknown – at least the to Western audiences - Bollywood cinema to reinvent the old musical tradition ‘in a style as iconically heightened as any of the classic musical spectaculars [...] in a form ironic as never before’.

This paper aims at examining the use of the concepts of Orientalism and postmodernism in Moulin Rouge! and their significance in the larger scale regarding Bollywood as a representative of the East and Hollywood as the agent of the West. This paper shows that first of all, Luhrmann is in good company when utilizing the Orient for a genre rejuvenation and second that the use of oriental reference inevitably leads to the broader discussion of Orientalism. More precisely this paper explores on the subject of oriental and postmodern elements in Moulin Rouge!. But what is considered oriental or the Orient respectively? Moreover, what was Luhrmann's motivation to give this film an oriental look? The answer to the first question is part of a diverse and complex discussion circling around Edward Said's Orientalism. Thus, chapter two gives an overview of the development of the term 'Orientalism' and critically explores the subject of using oriental styles in literature and film. The latter aspect also partly covers for the second question, but the essential word here is Bollywood. Therefore, chapter three provides a history of Bollywood cinema and the basics of Bollywood aesthetics. Post-modernism is the term that is always mentioned in one breath with Moulin Rouge!. In a short note on postmodernism, this concept will be discussed firstly with regard to its general meaning. Secondly I will present its use in film, which provides the basis for the discussion of postmodern elements in Moulin Rouge!. Each of the first three chapters ends with a preliminary conclusion to link those different concepts. The main part is the film analysis with regard to the oriental and postmodern elements in the context of the previous discussions and results. Luhrmann's 'Red Curtain' style serves as structuring element for the postmodern analysis. The citation is based on the MLA Handbook. The referencee of film quotations refer to scene numbers according to the film protocol in the appendix.

Table of Contents:

1.	Introduction	3
2.	Orientalism	6
2.1	From Oriental Studies to Orientalism	6
2.2	Orientalism in English Literature	11
2.3	Orientalism in Film	14
2.4	Preliminary Conclusion	15
3.	Bollywood – the Hollywood of the East?	17
3.1	History of Bollywood Cinema	17
3.2	The Bollywood Aesthetics	20
3.3	Preliminary Conclusion	23
4.	Postmodernism	25
4.1	A Short Note on Postmodernism	25
4.2	Postmodernism in Film	27
4.3	Preliminary Conclusion	28
5.	Film Analysis of Moulin Rouge!	29
5.1	Postmodern Elements in Moulin Rouge!	29
5.1.1	The Many Faces of Moulin Rouge!	29
5.1.2	The Theatricalized Cinema Style	32
5.1.3	Essential Postmodernism: Imitation, Intertextuality and Self-reflexivity	36
5.2	Orientalisms in Moulin Rouge!	44
5.2.1	Orientalism and the Bohemian Revolution	44
5.2.2	The Bollywood Style	46
6.	Conclusion	49
	Works Cited	53
	Appendix: Film Protocol of Moulin Rouge!	i-lvi

Text Sample:

Chapter 3, Bollywood – the Hollywood of the East?

3.1, History of Bollywood Cinema:

Before Bollywood's Lagaan (2001) was entered as a contestant for the Oscars in the foreign film category, or before Baz Luhrmann declared his debt to Bollywood's spectacular musicality in the making of the film Moulin Rouge! (2001), or before Andrew Lloyd Webber deployed Bollywood's camivalesque musicality in his Bombay Dreams (2002) Bollywood was a relatively unknown quantity in the west.

In the beginning, the term 'Bollywood' as a synonym for Hindi/Urdu cinema had a pejorative connotation as it implies that Bollywood is simply an Eastern version of Hollywood. In the meanwhile, it has become a term that stands for Indian popular culture all over the world. 'Bollywood' actually derives from 'Hollywood' and 'Bombay' (which was renamed Mumbai in 1995), however, the tradition of Indian film is as old as that of Hollywood and can in no way be considered second or inferior. Quite the contrary, Bollywood produces far more movies per year than Hollywood does. Many sources give production numbers of nine hundred to one thousand films a year. This, however, only accounts for films produced in Bollywood together with films produced in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu. Bollywood, which is the name for Indian commercial films in Hindi - the lingua franca of India - account for one-forth of Indian cinema. Hollywood, however, has been stuck with a market share of under five percent since the invention of sound film in India. Indian cinema has its origins in Sanskrit theatre, Urdu-Parsi theatre and folk theatre, which were similarly kept together with a number of songs. Shedde even traces it back to Bharata's classic treatise on theater, the Natyashastra (second century B.C.), which called for dramatic action, joy and comic, folk music, song and dance, conflict, and a happy ending.

In 1896, the Lumière brothers' film Arrival of a Train was shown in Mumbai and from then on, the first films, mostly documentaries, were produced. The early films were partly filmed theater in the Bhangwadi tradition, emphasizing an interactive relationship with the audience. Film soon became a popular medium for everybody across any strata of caste and class. Soon the British occupying force realized the influence film had on the public opinion about nationalism, social reforms and war. In 1918, the British government introduced film censorship for two reasons. First, they wanted to use the cinema as an organ for British propaganda and introduce India to British high culture in form of Shakespeare. Second, they wanted to protect the Indians from the immorality in American films that dominated the Indian cinema at that time, which eventually lead to the well known 'kissing ban' that is still practiced today. Probably, the underlying intention was to squeeze out Indian and American films to give way for British leadership. From the thirties on they tightened film censorship particularly with regard to Indian princes, communist ideas and Gandhi. Consequently, Indian filmmakers had to switch to more shallow topics. The tradition of escapist cinema, which has been since the dominant form of Bollywood films, was born.

The first Indian sound film Alam Ara (1931) with its seven songs already set the standard for popular cinema. Due to Indian theater tradition and language barrieres, Bollywood films have always been musicals. The 50ies and 60ies are regarded as the golden era of Bollywood and the beginning of the multi-genre film. It was also the time of upcoming art house or 'parallel' cinema and its dissociation from mainstream 'Bollywood' cinema. Classic post-independence films such as Mother India (1957) were an allegorical reference to India's struggle for self-reliance through modernization. In the 60ies, Bollywood went global long before the West was talking of globalization. Since independence, Indian films have spread to the former Soviet Union, Latin America, Africa and South-east Asia, the Carribean, Fiji, the Middle East and Oceania. It became a cultural phenomenon due to millions of NRI (Non-resident Indians) Diaspora all over the world. Meanwhile, the separation of commercial and art house cinema continues throughout the 70ies and culminates in the purely political and realistic depiction of social problems in 'parallel' cinema and the increasing use of spectacle, emotions and escapism in Bollywood films. The 80ies are characterized by a shift to action films an increasing number of trivial films with trash chic. When in 1985 the trade embargo against America ended, it did not mean any threat to the Indian film distribution but rather inspired and reawakened the local film business. Thus, the 90ies mark a turning point for commercially successful films. The increasing number of well-off NRI in the USA and Great Britain and the emerging middle class in prospering Indian cities changed the focus on topics like wealth, fast cars, youth culture, and cosmopolitan lifestyles.

Most of the Bollywood films still circle around family dramas and love relations, but nowadays the song-and-dance sequences are mixed with hip-hop style and Western dance moves in the MTV tradition. Globalization establishes themes like migration and displacement in Indian cinema. In this context, Said's Orientalism takes on a complete new form. Indian filmmakers make use of Western styles and even settings – many scenes in Bollywood films are actually shot in Switzerland or Wales – to conquer the Western market. Moreover, Bollywood takes traditional English literature as a basis for its film as is Bride and Prejudice (2004), and Diaspora filmmakers are directing successful Western films such as Eliszabeth, Four Feathers, or Bend it like Beckham. In the meantime, Lars von Trier borrows from the Bollywood film Dil Se for a scene in his Dancers in the Dark, ARTE shows a regular Bollywood special and the most famous entertainment star of the twentieth century is Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan.

Bollywood films are anything but real. ‘If Hollywood has techniques that permit its fictional world to appear internally coherent, Indian films are orchestrated by another sensibility of reality.’ In terms of Baudrillard, Bollywood is a simulation of a new model India: global, upcoming, prospering, powerful, playing on the chords of capitalism but relying on Indian morals, traditions, and values. The main factor of success is its own distinct style, the Bollywood formula of song, dance, tragic, joy and emotion that mesmerizes its audience. In a country that is still largely poor, Bollywood films epitomize an escapist fantasy far off every day life reality.