Defying his
father, young poet Christian (Ewan McGregor) joins the dark, fantastical
underworld of Moulin Rouge, falling into an ultimately tragic love affair with
the club's highest paid star, Satine.
Christian (Typing):
PARIS
1900
THE
GREATEST THING
YOU’LL EVER LEARN
IS JUST TO LOVE
AND BE LOVED
IN RETURN
The Moulin Rouge.
A dance hall, and a
bordello.
Ruled over by
Harold Zidler, a kingdom of nighttime pleasures. Where the rich and
powerful came to play with the young and beautiful creatures of the underworld.
The most beautiful
of all these was the woman I loved.
Satine. A
courtesan, she sold her love to men.
They called her the
Sparkling Diamond.
And she was the
star of the Moulin Rouge.
(Christian is at the typewriter again, taking a pause, his tears now flowing
freely.)
The woman I loved
is……dead.
I first came to
Paris one year ago.
It was 1899, the
summer of love. I knew nothing of the Moulin Rouge, Harold Zidler, or
Satine. The world had been swept up in a bohemian revolution and I had traveled
from London to be a part of it. On the hill near Paris, was the village of
Montmartre.
It was not as my
father had said:
FATHER: A village
of sin!
But the center of
the bohemian world!
Musicians,
painters, writers! They were known as “The Children of the
Revolution.”
Yes, I had come to
live a penniless existence.
I had come to write
about truth, beauty, freedom and that which I believed in above all things:
Love.
FATHER:
Always this ridiculous obsession with love!
There was only one problem.
I’d never been in
love!
Luckily, right at
that moment, an unconscious Argentinean fell through my roof.
