#such an interesting question that’s for asking! love disecting their beautiful performances

[tutuandscoot]

I haven’t seen Moulin Rouge so I don’t know the storyline/characters well. How do you interpret Scott in the Roxanne portion? I’m asking about the Olympics version specifically, not the original version. Some people say he’s Christian the whole way through the program but that confuses me? In the Roxanne doc T says she’s “like his puppet” and that’s how I think of it. I think the first half of the program the focus is T’s character and S is more of a threatening figure/force/energy/idk rather than a character. Like he’s this “puppet master” figure and he’s playing off of her. Then somewhere around the Carmen rotational lift he slides into the character of Christian. But I could be way off. How would you best explain his part?

So I have talked about my take on this quite a few times but ofc I’m happy to explain again!

I only watched MR for the first time about 6 months ago and I saw the stage show about 1 year ago. VM’s moulin rouge was always amazing to me though I did find myself kinda making up my own story as a I watched it, now having seen the movie it makes so much more sense and the way I had mostly interpreted the program holds up.

(I’ll give a super brief synopsis first) In the movie Satine works at.. essentially a brothel that moonlights as a theatre company (set in the late 1800’s in Paris), the theatre (named The Moulin Rouge) is desperately bankrupt and may close down, leaving all the performers essentially homeless and forced out to work on the streets (you should know what I mean by that) Satine is the star of the show but nonetheless of it fails she will be helpless and left for dead too. Christian is an aspiring writer from London who shows up in Paris, gets taken to the MR and immediately falls in love with Satine. On this night, the man who runs the theatre has an investor there to watch and potentially fund the theatre, Satine is employed to seduce (F’ck him) to keep the theatre running.

Etc etc etc.. she meets Christian and they fall in love but the have to keep it secret bc she is still wooing the investor.

In the movie (not to spoil too much) but the scene where Roxanne is sung, Satine must ‘go through’ with letting the investor (he’s called the ‘duke’) r*pe her. It cuts between that scene and Christian fearful and heart broken at what Satine is going through, when really he and her could just run off together and never live this life again.

So, I have mostly always interpreted the first half of their program (so the part set to Roxanne) as Scott not actually playing any one character- not Christian but also not the duke. I view it as him playing a manifestation of the life Satine has lived, having to seduce these men and be abused just to stay alive, be this sparking light in this long running theatre production that everyone loves but in reality she is a terrified slave. She has never been allowed to love for the sake of love- she loves for money.

So there is choreography of him grabbing her and stalking her and getting in her face. There were more violent pieces of chore in the original version like in the circle step sequence where he’s just straight up choking her. It’s super upsetting makes your heart ache for T and the character she is playing (bc they are both such beautiful actors it feels so honest),

Sorry, we’re talking about the olys version.

So yes, I interpret it the exact same way as you. Between GPF and Nationals they softened his character a bit to make it more about T’s character- not ‘softened’ like as in their precious loving hugs, but made him less of a domineering presence and instead more of shadow/threat lurking behind her and controlling her every move- he’s controlling her like a puppet- she has no will of her own in the environment she’s trapped in, must perform (both on stage and in the bedroom) upon command. (The movie is not that dark graphically- only in context/undertone and VM definitely psychologically lean into those dark undertones in their program while not performing the most R rated chore possible).

In the olys version I feel his (lack of) character starts to shed from him as they finish the circle step sequence and he stars playing more into Christian’s character and the lyrics and singing get more desperate and it’s very reminiscent of the scene in the movie where he’s so desperate to help her (see my breakdown essay on the rotational lift I explain this part).

When they talk about the jealously in S’s acting I dont interpret so much as the jealousy of Christian but more of the duke being jealous that Satine doesn’t actually love him, even though he doesn’t actually care about that- he just wants attention and his d*ck handled and probs enjoys abusing women bc he can.

It is a bit confusing and I think to understand even the surface level nuances they were feeling and portraying takes multiple watches. It can also I think be interpreted different ways which is fine.

It never made sense to me, even without seeing the movie, that he would be playing the character of Christian the whole way through- I don’t see how she could fall in love with a man who has spent that whole time manipulating her/ abusing her/ playing with her heart.

But then if you did want to interpret it as that.. and just forget about the connection to the story of MR, it could be seen as a bit of a broad comment on the idea of Stockholm Syndrome.. or even a comment on domestic abuse in its self. I’m certainly not inclined to interpret the whole program like this, more so I feel they are themes that could be pulled from it depending on how you looks at- that’s the great think about art.

It does make me think a bit- going with a program like this that is based on a well known movie, well known music and very of the musical theatre genre.. it was a very risky direction to go in such an important season of competition bc while Moulin Rouge is well known, it’s more those two words that are well known- some associate it with the actual MR in Paris, some the movie, some the touring musical (I associate it with my first ever competition dance group where we did ‘Diamonds’), and so if you don’t know the story of the movie… like it’s pretty clear the general structure of the story and that they fall in love and she dies at the end, but the nuances no and then if you have seen the movie, how do you then interpret their characters??

That’s what’s hard and has always bothered me about figure skating- like when people use music from ballets- say for eg Swan Lake and they are dressed as either a white or a black swan but use random pieces of music from throughout the ballet. Swan lake is a 4 act ballet and odile (the black swan) doesn’t turn up till the 3rd act, but some skaters will come out dressed as a black swan but will be using music from the white swan pdd- which is a completely different part of the story and is a different character all together. It really bothers me. If they were to just use white swan (so act 2or 4) and dress as a white swan and they interpreted a specific part from the 3 hour ballet- that would make more sense to me.

What VM did I think now having seen different version of the MR story; they very start with the stat. lift is like a prologue- an introduction/sets the scene. Then moves through kinda what happens behind the scenes at the MR, not the flashy costumes and dancers- that’s where they really interpret the darker themes of the story. The end of Roxanne really encapsulates this pivotal scene in the movie, then Come What May is just all about them and celebrating their love (both in the story and VM..). The death scene in the Olympics version is a bit quick- I really liked the time they took and the emotion poor out of them in that chore earlier in the season, but the final lift in the olys is so iconic and you know exactly what it means- what has happened to her. I really love how they centred the story around T’s character and had her go through and portray all these emotions, while not it anyway was S a background player - it could not have been done with anyone else but those two. The story in this case works in a skating program format because they do manage to tell a story arc that respects the source material- without skipping over parts/ too many music changes.. it’s just extremely well designed and executed piece of art.

It was so incredibly brave of them to go this way bc it was truly something different not just for them but in the direction ice dance was going and has since gone- it really was (I think) the last true ‘showstopping’ program by far on par with and imo more iconic than Bolero and even their Mahler.. but it could’ve done so wrong in the hands of any other ID team, team of assisting coaches, choreographers. If they weren’t the best athletes their sport had ever seen with the skating elements executed near perfectly, then if they weren’t such beautiful actors and dancers with chemistry so hot it melts the ice… the judges may not have got it and it would’ve flipped- only in VM could this program not just flop, but be as iconic as the movie it’s based on (baz essentially said so) .