Film Moulin Rouge Reflects Cafe Concert Trend

Art Business News, August, 2001 by Laura Meyers

Whether or not you love the opulent fantasy musical, this summer's Moulin Rouge has inspired a wave of fashion and style imitators. Will it do the same for the art world?

Set in the glamorous and notorious Paris nightclub in 1899, the $52.5 million movie musical Moulin Rouge celebrates the famed "rendezvous du high life" with period design and modern pop tunes seen through a 21st-century lens. The film is filled with opulent and garish hues, beautiful, seductive women and, as one

reviewer pointed out, more red velvet per square inch than any movie ever made.

It would seem the time is ripe for a film about the era. These days, French lithographic posters from the 1890s are all the rage, especially those depicting Paris' outdoor cafe society or the glorious music halls like the Moulin Rouge, Folies Bergere and Casino de Paris. Popularity has its price: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's magnum opus, "Moulin Rouge," of which only six copies are known to exist, recently fetched $250,000. Many period 1890s Cafe-Concert genre posters by other artists now sell for upwards of $4,000. And the growing interest in these large-scale works comes not only from serious art collectors, but also from corporations looking to fill their white walls. Reproduction posters are everywhere today, from local cafes to the walls of television characters' homes and workplaces in such series as NBC's "Friends" and the WB's "For Your Love."

And although the film Moulin Rouge has, thus far, failed to reach its makers' financial expectations (having earned at the domestic box office less than its production cost by the end of June), this cinematic tour de force has inspired dress fashions, intimate apparel, accessories, cosmetics and furnishings that reflect the lifestyle and mood of Paris at the cusp of the last century.

Fashion writers described the steamy lingerie looks that showed up on the Paris catwalks last spring in Comme des Garcons, Martine Sitbon, Colette Dinnigan and Feraud as "Toulouse-Lautrec-esque." Indeed, Bloomingdale's even opened Moulin Rouge theme shops in New York and Los Angeles, showcasing very sexy--and very red--clothing inspired by the movie.

For art publishers and dealers, Moulin Rouge-style imagery--both contemporary renditions and true vintage Cafe-Concert genre art works--may be a tougher, but not impossible, sell.

"There's always an interest in Art Nouveau, and specifically Cafe-Concert posters depicting the entertainment and dancers in the cafes, theaters and cabarets in Paris," said veteran original poster dealer Laura Gold, owner of Park South Gallery at Carnegie Hall in New York. The gallery specializes in classic original posters by such artists as Toulouse-Lautrec and Jules Cheret. "The film really had very little to do with the times, with the glorious Belle Epoch atmosphere just serving as background for the story. But though I don't see a direct result yet, I'm sure Moulin Rouge will eventually have an effect [on her business], especially among young people who will be introduced to the era by the film."

Artists, Courtesans, Freaks and Dreamers

As the film's Orphean tale unfolds, a young writer-poet-musician (Ewan McGregor) descends into the absinthe-soaked, decadent underworld (Paris' Montmartre district) in search of ideal love. There, he meets a bawdy group of Bohemians led by painter Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo). The writer, Christian, falls tragically in love with Satine (Nicole Kidman), the Sparkling Diamond, Paris' most famous courtesan and the star of the dance hall-cabaret, Moulin Rouge.

Director Baz Luhrman spared few expenses creating a visual look for Moulin Rouge that explodes with color, opulence and joie de vivre. The starting point for hair and make-up design was Toulouse-Lautrec's own jarring and exuberant color palette of white, pink, red and orange. The cabaret owner's hair is a distorted orange-red, while the "boho" writer Audrey's hair is a flamboyant dark blue. Luhrman used bright and glittering lighting effects and shocking, sexy costumes inspired by the nightclub's real Can-Can girls, inventing a striking, self-consciously theatrical world--a "Palace of Women" where customers (and film audiences) can lose themselves in the fantasy.

"I really, really loved the movie," said Carol Solomon, whose [S.sub.2] Art Group publishes recreations of vintage French posters of the era using 100-year-old presses, including Toulouse-Lautrec's famed image, "Moulin Rouge."

"For me, the film was a visual feast, especially the opening sequences that captured, it seemed, all the famous Toulouse-Lautrec characters" who the painter captured in his sketches, oils and lithographs.

"I think Moulin Rouge is really about the extravagance and opulence of the time, and it could focus people on, and enhance their appreciation for, the art of that period," Solomon continued. "We have had people come into our gallery who now notice these posters, and connect it to Moulin Rouge."

The actual Moulin Rouge opened in Paris in 1889. It was a time when Parisians had more leisure time find money at their disposal, and they spent it on diversions and live "entertainments" at music halls, theaters and cabarets. Compared to American vaudeville, Montmartre's stages had more dancers, singers, acrobatics, animals (tamed monkeys and donkeys) and outrageous costumes. The risque outfits of the Can-Can dancers occasionally prompted the police to check they wore underwear.