Postmodernism in Moulin Rouge

8/28/08
Moulin Rouge and "Breaking the Frame"

In the film Moulin Rouge, director Baz Luhrman portrays the main character Christen writing the story. Throughout the film Christen narrates the film which continually flashes back and forth from him telling the story to him living the story. Through this continual breaking of the film's stream of consciousness, we as the audience are constantly reminded of the inevitable death of Chrsiten's love, Satine. As David Lodge suggests from the article "Breaking the Frame", this interuption breaks us out of our focus on the movie and reminds us the direction in which the film is going. In addition to the flashbacks to the story's author, Luhrmann makes use of modern day songs in order to detach the film from the year in which it was set, 1900. This seems rather odd due to the fact that Luhrmann went through all the trouble of creating a 1900 Paris, yet took the film in a direction that included music from a different era.