Can't stand the light.

Last night, while sitting in front of my TV idly flipping channels and finding nothing on, I suddenly thought: why don't I put on Moulin Rouge? I haven't seen it in a good long while.

And as I was starting to reach for the DVD, I stopped, because I'd suddenly realized that I couldn't bear to watch it again, at least not right then.

Not because it's a tragedy--and I'm not giving anything away; you find that out in the first few minutes of the film--but because the film itself is so heartbreakingly beautiful, so perfectly-judged in every frame, that the thought of watching it again at just that moment (exhausted, sleep-deprived) was, in a way, too much.

Here's the strange thing: much as I love MR, it has never made me cry. Romance can choke me up, tragedy can turn me into Niagara Falls--and yet, despite the fact that it does both very well, and I am without a doubt caught up in the characters' joy and grief, my eyes stay dry during MR.

But I am far from unemotional. What shakes me is the visual, lyrical beauty of the film. The film itself is highly-stylized, but the style alone does not draw me--nothing bores and irritates me faster than style without substance, and nothing could be farther from my reaction here. There's something undefinable but almost tangible in the melding of mood, visuals, and music that shoots straight past my regular set of movie-going emotions, gets me in a place much, much deeper, and holds me absolutely breathless for the duration of the film. It's a film that I can appreciate at all levels, because I am not only watching a beautiful story, but a beautiful presentation of a beautiful story--and I think that is what, in a way, overloads the brain of yours truly.

Of course, Baz Lurhmann has said that the intention behind the stylization was to make you aware that you were watching a film even as you watched it, rather like a theatrical production. Which is a big risk, as movie-goers are more accustomed to naturalistic movies these days and a movie lacks the immediate charge of live theater; but since the experience is actually enhanced so much by seeing both the story and the telling of it, I can only conclude that the man knows what of he speaks.

This is a film you either love or hate. I think I'm quite madly in love with it.

LOTR has a not dissimilar effect on me. But more on that later.

Can't stand the light.

Last night, while sitting in front of my TV idly flipping channels and finding nothing on, I suddenly thought: why don't I put on Moulin Rouge? I haven't seen it in a good long while.

And as I was starting to reach for the DVD, I stopped, because I'd suddenly realized that I couldn't bear to watch it again, at least not right then.

Not because it's a tragedy--and I'm not giving anything away; you find that out in the first few minutes of the film--but because the film itself is so heartbreakingly beautiful, so perfectly-judged in every frame, that the thought of watching it again at just that moment (exhausted, sleep-deprived) was, in a way, too much.

Here's the strange thing: much as I love MR, it has never made me cry. Romance can choke me up, tragedy can turn me into Niagara Falls--and yet, despite the fact that it does both very well, and I am without a doubt caught up in the characters' joy and grief, my eyes stay dry during MR.

But I am far from unemotional. What shakes me is the visual, lyrical beauty of the film. The film itself is highly-stylized, but the style alone does not draw me--nothing bores and irritates me faster than style without substance, and nothing could be farther from my reaction here. There's something undefinable but almost tangible in the melding of mood, visuals, and music that shoots straight past my regular set of movie-going emotions, gets me in a place much, much deeper, and holds me absolutely breathless for the duration of the film. It's a film that I can appreciate at all levels, because I am not only watching a beautiful story, but a beautiful presentation of a beautiful story--and I think that is what, in a way, overloads the brain of yours truly.

Of course, Baz Lurhmann has said that the intention behind the stylization was to make you aware that you were watching a film even as you watched it, rather like a theatrical production. Which is a big risk, as movie-goers are more accustomed to naturalistic movies these days and a movie lacks the immediate charge of live theater; but since the experience is actually enhanced so much by seeing both the story and the telling of it, I can only conclude that the man knows what of he speaks.

This is a film you either love or hate. I think I'm quite madly in love with it.

LOTR has a not dissimilar effect on me. But more on that later.

No silence.

Comments have been shut down for this extraordinary post, but what has already been written there is no less worthy of being read, and it is growing elsewhere.

I have no personal experience with sexual violence, but it happened to a very close friend of mine long before I met her. We have lost touch now for many years, due not to discord but simply to distance and time, and I would never presume to speak for her. But in large part for her sake, I am passing this post and its powerful message along.

No silence.

Comments have been shut down for this extraordinary post, but what has already been written there is no less worthy of being read, and it is growing elsewhere.

I have no personal experience with sexual violence, but it happened to a very close friend of mine long before I met her. We have lost touch now for many years, due not to discord but simply to distance and time, and I would never presume to speak for her. But in large part for her sake, I am passing this post and its powerful message along.