Remember

In project talk about themes: love, sexuality, sensuality, 'camp' theatricality.

Red Curtain Posters

Red-curtain Moulin Rouge!

Red-curtain Romeo + Juliet

Red-curtain Strictly Ballroom

Articles from Empire Magazine

Empire November 1992 Review on Strictly Ballroom by Mark Salisbury:
"The sleeper of Cannes festival recieved a 15 minute standing ovation Luhrmann's
offbeat, vibrant and at times decidedly hilarious tale..."
"What originally began life eight years ago as a drama school production is
conclusive proof of the enduring power of the fairytale - in this case Cinderella"
"A more entertaining piece of fluff you'd be hard pushed to find"

Empire April 1997 Review on Romeo + Juliet by Bob McCabe:
"Baz Luhrmann takes the audience on a unique ride through one of the Bard's
best-known texts illumiating the story, occasionally subjugating the language but
always delivering a vision that is bold, brassy, hugely inventive and accesive
and, in a strange way, just right."
"It's a big leap from an antipodean dance hall to Shakespeare with guns"
"Shakespeare's name fills up the title, but this is clearly Luhrmann's vision and
it's a genuinely inventive one. Yes, at the end of the day you can say that it's
just a gimmick designed to sell the Bard to the masses. But a bloody good
gimmick all the same."

Empire October 2001 An article on Moulin Rouge! by Colin Kennedy:
"The rules are relatively uncomplicated: take a simple story based on a
recognisable myth, set it in an artificially heightened world and exploit 'some
kind of device to awaken the audience.' For Moulin Rouge!, Luhrmann hit upon the
Orpheus myth the story of a Greek lyre player who journeys into the underworld in
a doomed attempt to reclaim his lady love."

Rotten Tomatoes

strictly ballroom
romeo + juliet
moulin rouge!

Baz info

A website with info on Baz, his background etc called infoplease

Romeo + Juliet cont...

Empire magazine review - website archive link here

Similarities between Production teams

Strictly Ballroom (SB)
Romeo and Juliet (RJ)
Moulin Rouge! (MR)

Craig Pearce - Screenplay writer on SB, RJ and MR
Jill Bilcock - Film Editor on SB, RJ and MR

Martin Brown - Co-prodcuer/producer on RJ and MR
Catherine Martin - Associate prodcuer on RJ and MR
Donald McAlpine - Cinematographer on RJ and MR

Moulin Rouge! info

imdb for film
Specifics
Production
Bazmark Films
(20th Century Fox)
Budget
$52,500,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend
$71,614 (USA) (51 Screens)
£2,403,378 (UK)(284 Screens)
AUD 3,739,000 (Australia)
Gross
$57,386,369 (USA)
£17,934,410 (UK)
AUD 27,387,000 (Australia)

Romeo + Juliet info

imdb for film
Specifics
Production
20th Century Fox
Bazmark Films
Budget
$14,500,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend
$11,133,231 (USA)(1,276 Screens)
Gross
$46,338,728 (USA)
£3,422,173 (UK)

Strictly Ballroom info

imdb site on the film
Specifics from site:
Production
M & A
Australian Film Finance Corporation (AFFC)
Beyond Films
The Rank Organisation Film Productions Ltd.
Budget
AUD 3,000,000 (estimated)
Gross
$11,738,022 (USA)

More info

Interview with Geoff Andrew of the Guardian from Friday September 7, 2001. here

Baz Luhrmann

Sight and Sound stuff

June 2001 - article about Moulin Rouge
"That Luhrmann all but throws away the film's snarling can-can dancers in one frenzied scene that mutates into a Felliniesque pageant replete with dwarfs and a snake wrestler indicates his lack of interest in the conventional Belle Epoque imagery used in John Huston's 1953 Moulin Rouge and Jean Renoirs 1955 French CanCan. The spiritual influences he says are sunrise, Les Enfants du Paradis, The Red Shoes and Lola Montes."

"Like Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge! was made in what Luhrmann describes as 'red-curtain style'. The immediate theatricalism...warns us that the film about to unspool will not trade in the homogenous utilitarian naturalism that has dominated Hollywood cinema since the eclipse of the musical and the melodrama in the 60s."

"In lifting this particular red curtain, Luhrmann invested his film with this own version of the passionate illusionism that characterised the work of Michael Powell, Marcel Carne and Vincente Minelli, directors whose films have used the backstage set-up as a window into surrealism."

October 2003
When talking in an interview about the work of Charlie Chaplin Luhrmann said
"I never missed an episode because of my fascination with the way the films were made. I still try to keep a small degree of the cross-fertilisation and the fluidity Chaplin enjoyed between script, shoot and edit. I leave enough space so that even in post-production I can rewrite, reshoot, recut around the core draft. This is a legacy of the time i spent watching Chaplin make films when I was ten."

Websites

IMDB
Baz Luhrmann has listed Bollywood films as a major influence on his work, especially on Moulin Rouge! taken fromWikipedia
Baz Luhrmann fansite here

Focus Films

The 3 films I will focus on are:
Moulin Rouge (2001)
Romeo and Juliet (1996)
Strictly Ballroom (1992)

Auteur Project

Director/auteur = Baz Luhrmann
Question = To what extent could Baz Luhrmann's films be characterised by Red-Curtain cinema?