Battle of the Faves: Moulin Rouge vs. Eyes Wide Shut
The Editors of In the Mood discuss two of their favourite romances in a Nicole Kidman double feature.
Gabrielle: Happy Valentine’s month, Sennah!
Sennah: You too, Gabrielle! Any plans?
Gabrielle: I was thinking of having a dinner party because I love the Valentine’s day aesthetic but I find it’s a little wasted on a straight boyfriend. How about you two?
Sennah: Aw I love that! We always just use it as an excuse to order food. To be honest, I associate the day more with one of my childhood bestie’s birthdays (hi Sarah)!
Gabrielle: One of my favourite things is the Holiday dollar store aisle, how it changes from Halloween to Christmas to Valentine’s Day then Easter. It was one of the few retail stores open through the pandemic and it was very therapeutic to walk through that aisle.
Sennah: Ooh, Maybe I’ll get some sweet treats. Or maybe after when they’re all on sale!
Gabrielle: I almost bought a teddy bear holding a heart but I stopped myself lol. Speaking of Valentine’s, are you a fan of romance films?
Sennah: Yes! I love love, and seeing it on film. Rom-coms are a big comfort for me, but now I find myself getting emotional over any kind of romance in any movie haha. What about you?
Gabrielle: As we covered in our holiday newsletter, I am not really a rom-com fan, but I love romances. Done right, it feels like it’s what cinema was made for. Any faves?
Sennah: I recently rewatched Titanic for the first time as an adult, and was shocked by how much it affected me. I had unconsciously reduced it to “it’s been 84 years…” memes and karaoke songs, and forgot how much of a truly amazing love story it was! I cried during the movie, before going to sleep, then again when I woke up the next morning; it was really startling!
I also recently saw Happy Together for the first time and sobbed tons, too. I guess I just love a good ‘ol cry these days lol. What about you?
Gabrielle: I feel like this is going to sound so teen poet of me, but I don’t cry easily, especially at films. I wish I did, seems cathartic! But I did sob after seeing Pressburger and Powell’s Gone to Earth, which was embarrassing because I saw it at a film festival and people must have known. But when I went into the bathroom another girl was crying in the stall, so I wasn’t alone.
Sennah: That’s so sweet that there was a fellow bathroom cryer with you! That happened to me after I saw Portrait of a Lady on Fire too.
Gabrielle: That’s definitely an emotional one. I recently watched The Passionate Friends, which was incredible. Something about the 50s really allowed for big, sweeping, unapologetic romances! But the ultimate one for girls my age might be, another Leo vehicle, Romeo + Juliet…
Sennah: Ooh yes — which leads us to your pick for today’s Battle of the Faves, also directed by Baz Luhrmann… Moulin Rouge! Why did you pick it for our chat?
Gabrielle: I’ve been wanting to revisit it for a while. It was such a huge deal when it came out among my group. I went to theatre school so we were always about a wine cooler away from singing it out loud. And I think it has that reputation, as a corny, theatre kid movie. But some of the images from the film have really gotten stuck in my mind, I wanted to see if it was as gorgeous as I remember.
Sennah: Totally — I don’t think I saw it until much later because I so strongly associated it with the theatre kid vibe haha. But it’s really memorable and striking. All the lush textures and colours popping out, the weight of Satine’s diamond necklace... did it all live up to your memories?
Gabrielle: My hope is to rescue it from the theatre kid gutter! And yes it did, I got emotional watching it, not because of the romance, but because it was so stunning and unrestrained, and I don’t think we get films like it anymore. I’m glad you mentioned the necklace, I looked it up and it has 143 diamonds in it and cost 3 million to make. I was struck at how incredible it is to watch a film where they built all these stages, someone painted the moulding gold, someone upholstered that elephant! It doesn’t feel like we get much of that excessive beauty these days.
Sennah: Yeah, that kind of lavish attention to detail feels really rare now. And “excessive beauty” is such a great way of putting it — it’s similar to how I felt while watching Nicole Kidman in this haha. I kept saying “she’s too much!” out loud, in awe. I was completely overwhelmed by her hair, her skin, her lips. She’s like this jewel in the film, and you can see why the whole story centers around everyone fawning over her!
Gabrielle: Absolutely, and she does have a quality that seems precious, like porcelain, like she might break if you dropped her, and the film loves to drop and catch her! Have you ever known someone like that in real life?
Sennah: Yes! It’s honestly magical to watch, especially when it’s this subtle yet effective slow burn. I remember at first wondering if I was the only person who found this person magnetic— I’m easily charmed!— but then I realized watching others interact with/react to her, that we were all equally bewitched haha. What about you?
Gabrielle: I’ve known a few people like that, it’s interesting to watch, but challenging as well. Everything submits to that kind of beauty! A friend was talking about Kristen Stewart and described her as a plaything for directors, and how she is willing in that exchange. It was really interesting, like both her and the director are curious to see what she’ll look like in this scenario or in that outfit, or saying those lines… and I feel like Nicole is also a plaything, she likes to pick projects where she’s an object to admire or torment or be tormented over, where her beauty becomes the object of interest, the stuff of the film. I’m thinking Dogville, Birth, and of course Eyes Wide Shut, your pick for today’s chat.
Sennah: Totally. And I had forgotten how much of Moulin Rouge was all about jealousy/possession over Satine as the object of everyone’s affection. Satine “belongs” to so many different people, who all want her for their very own and can’t live with the idea of others touching or “having” her, too. They repeatedly mention how jealousy can drive you mad, which I thought would be fun to talk about. Do you consider yourself a jealous person?
Gabrielle: I am very prone to jealousy and competitiveness, with women and men, around love, beauty, success, clothing… you name it. It’s an ugly emotion but it fuels me, it feels painful and pathetic but the intensity can be invigorating. And it often points you to where you need to go, what your true desires are. How about you?
Sennah: I’m the same! But I love what you said about how jealousy can be energizing, and a signal of your desires. I think this is how I’ve tried to rethink my jealousy more as envy, which I feel is a more positive feeling of wishfulness and admiration, rather than feeling threatened. I find it’s really similar to being infatuated!
Which reminds me… I liked in Moulin Rouge when Zidler catches Satine and Christian kissing, and she tries to convince him that “it’s nothing, it’s an infatuation!” To me, infatuation is far from “nothing”! What do you think — do you get infatuated easily?
Gabrielle: I remember Chuck Klosterman, who I was obsessed what in high school lol, said the only difference between infatuation and love is that we call it love when it works out, but if it ends quickly, or turns out badly, we call it infatuation in the hopes of undermining it. But love can be temperamental and destructive and burn out fast. I do get infatuated easily, and once, as an exercise, I started saying that I was in love when the feeling of infatuation came up (not to the object of my infatuation, I’m not insane, but to my friends and myself and in my writing). I thought: love is an arrow, you don’t get to choose when you get pierced.
Sennah: Omg I love that, and you. 🥺 I love how that puts more trust in the word and the feeling. And as they say in the movie… “without trust, there is no love” lol.
Gabrielle: How did you feel about the romance between Satine and Christian, did you feel they had chemistry?
Sennah: Similar to what you said, the film’s set pieces and atmosphere drew me in more than the actual romance between Satine and Christian. I loved all their intense eye contact haha but I’m not actually sure if I bought their chemistry. I wonder if it’s because I’m more attracted to Nicole Kidman when she’s playing more cold, detached. What did you think?
Gabrielle: I was a bit disappointed at first that they didn’t have much chemistry. I didn’t really buy the romance, and I wondered why the film was so romantic in spite of this. But I figured that it was more about the romance we invest in pop music, the way we can apply a pop song, with its simple, universal lyrics, to our own experience of love. Moulin Rouge is about the idea of love, but it still has so much heart and feeling!
If you like Nicole as cold and detached then you must love her in Eyes Wide Shut lol.
Sennah: Haha yes! So I hadn’t seen Eyes Wide Shut until this past December. I remember you told me to watch it around Christmas time, and I’m so glad I patiently waited! When did you first watch it?
Gabrielle: I watched it many years ago when I was in high school. I remember it was a film my parent’s friends were talking about a lot, but not one my friends had watched. I was pretty blown away by it at the time. I remember one of their friends saying how it wasn’t about sex, it was about relationships, and I thought that was absurd! But the last two times I saw it, it seemed to be primarily about class, about the secret activities of the uber-rich.
Most people talk about it these days as a Christmas movie, so I was really compelled that you suggested it for Valentine’s Day. What does it say to you about love/romance?
Sennah: Wow, I love that you got to experience it in high school! I chose this movie because I was drawn to the domestic scenes the most. They weren’t romantic, but so sexually charged by jealousy and obsession. My jaw was on the floor watching the stoned argument scene between Alice and Bill. Nicole Kidman was like a slinky cat, playing with her trapped prey!
I also loved not knowing whether the movie was sexy, scary, both, or neither. My husband and I had sex right after we watched it — then right after that, we told our other married friends to watch it, and they did and told us they had sex right after, too! I found that really funny, but also telling of how well the movie played on all that built-up foreplay, before climaxing to that iconic last scene, and Nicole’s last line: “fuck.”
Gabrielle: That’s fascinating! It’s like you all felt an impulse to sort through the issues the film brings to the surface. I can’t remember if I had sex after the last time I saw it, but I remember wondering that if we did, would we be trying to prove something? I find it interesting that we get this glimpse into Tom and Nicole’s real marriage, it’s a brave thing to do as a couple.
Sennah: Totally! And I hadn’t really known them much as a couple, aside from those infamous pics of Nicole crying with joy after divorcing Tom. Seeing them on screen together, I felt like I finally “got” why they were a thing. I’m not attracted to Tom, but I thought he and Nicole had so much chemistry here. The way she interacted with him made me realize that if I met him in real life, it’d be really hard to ignore his intense energy lol, for better or worse. Are you a Tom fan?
Gabrielle: Tom is so fascinating to me, I was surprised to hear that straight guys our age still think of him as a really alpha, hot guy. But in the last decade, most women I know have totally shifted and now find him really unappealing. He’s a big icon for pickup artists, they think of him as someone who could seduce any woman in the room, but watching this there’s just such a lack of sexual pulse. Like he’s obsessed with sex because it’s foreign, unnatural to him.
Sennah: Yes! And I was shocked at how well the orgies in the secret society depicted that: completely saturated in sex, yet alien and almost frightening at the same time. It really felt like a fever dream.
Gabrielle: That orgy scene is such iconic millennial jerk-off material. It’s a great example of a time when we had to watch art films to see sex scenes. I love what you said about the film being domestic, it’s very true. And their home feels aspirational but authentic, the kind of place you would want to live. It adds to the mystery, why are they both so eager to stray?
Sennah: I love how both of our picks deal with jealousy. When Alice got mad at Bill for not ever being jealous of her, I got flashbacks to feeling insecure in early relationships — that ugly yet intriguing feeling of wanting to belong to someone, maybe to feel possessed in some way… to be paid attention to, I guess. I also liked how much Eyes Wide Shut unraveled how normal, harmful, and powerful a fantasy can be: “no dream is just a dream.” What’s a dream or fantasy of yours, Gabrielle?
Gabrielle: No one has ever really expressed feeling possessive of me, not sure what that says about me lol. I think a sense of possession in a long-term, stable relationship is not the same, it doesn’t have the edge of danger, maybe more a reality you’ve settled into.
Watching Eyes Wide Shut again, I thought about the fantasies that couples have individually, the ones they can indulge privately knowing that there is a safety net that they, ultimately, aren’t willing to endanger. I think Eyes Wide Shut is ultimately telling us that the whole night was a dream, and I find it funny that even in his dream he won’t cheat on her!
Sennah: Haha one of my friends is like that — in his dreams, he won’t ever cheat! I find that really funny and interesting too. I’ve had a few dreams where I’ve cheated, but they’re definitely nightmares as opposed to sexy fantasies lol.
Gabrielle: I don’t think most women fantasize about orgies or supermodels or even of excessive wealth. It’s probably true that most women’s fantasies are closer to Nicole’s in the film, just one man who genuinely, powerfully wants you. I think a part of me guards a little secret singledom, that state of being vulnerable to whatever current might take you. I guess I fantasize about recklessness, even though I have something I know I would not risk. How about you?
Sennah: That makes sense! Hmm, my fantasies are kind of all over the place. I feel like they’re polar opposites, too — I’m either desiring a more reckless and wilder life, or itching for a very basic and boring one haha. Give me all or nothing, please!
