Moulin Rouge

The Moulin Rouge on Boulevard de Clichy at night

The Moulin Rouge by day

Moulin Rouge (French for "red mill") is a traditional cabaret, built in 1889 by Joseph Oller who already owned the Paris Olympia. Situated in the red-light district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, near Montmartre, Paris, France, it is famous for the large red imitation windmill on its roof. The Moulin Rouge is a symbol of French Culture as well as the Bohemian influence on Western Europe. The building has a rich history that is still being added to today. Over the past hundred years, the Moulin Rouge has remained a popular tourist destination for many visitors each year. Today the Moulin Rouge offers musical dance entertainment for adult visitors from around the world. Much of the romance from turn-of-the-century France is still present in the interior environment.

The design and name of Paris's Moulin Rouge has often been imitated by other night clubs worldwide.

Notable performers at the Moulin Rouge have included La Toya Jackson, La Goulue, Josephine Baker, Frank Sinatra, Yvette Guilbert, Jane Avril, Mistinguett, Le Pétomane, Edith Piaf and others. The Moulin Rouge was also the subject of many paintings by post-impressionist painter Toulouse Lautrec who in turn romanticized the building.

"Moulin Rouge" was also the title of a book by Pierre La Mure. This book was the basis for the 1952 movie of the same name. It was also the name of the 2001 film Moulin Rouge! starring Jim Broadbent, Ewan McGregor, Nicole Kidman, John Leguizamo and Kylie Minogue. Both films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, but neither won the award.

Contemporary description

Andrey Bely wrote in his 1906 letter to Alexander Blok about the Tavern of Hell at Moulin Rouge, where lackeys were dressed as devils:

''Sometimes I would venture from my sepulchre to the jazz of night Paris, where having gathered the colours, I would think them over in front of the fire. I could be seen walking through a funeral corridor of my house and descending down a black spiral of steep stairs; rushing underground to Montmartre, all impatience to see the fiery rubies of the Moulin Rouge cross. I wondered thereabouts, then bought a ticket to watch frenzied delirium of feathers, vulgar painted lips and eyelashes of black and blue.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted numerous posters and scenes of night life at the Moulin Rouge.

Naked feet, and thighs, and arms, and breasts were being flung on me from bloody-red foam of translucent clothes. The tuxedoed goatees and crooked noses in white vests and toppers would line the hall, with their hands posed on canes. Then I found myself in a pub, where the liqueurs were served on a coffin (not a table) by the nickering devil: "Drink it, you wretched!" Having drunk, I returned under the black sky split by the flaming vanes, which the radiant needles of my eyelashes cross-hatched. In front of my nose a stream of bowler hats and black veils was still pulsing, foamy with bluish green and warm orange of feathers worn by the night beauties: to me they were all one, as I had to narrow my eyes for insupportable radiance of electric lamps, whose hectic fires would be dancing beneath my nervous eyelids for many a night to come.

"Moulin Rouge" television & movies

On July 1, 1962, the Ed Sullivan Show was taped at the Moulin Rouge and featured American singing star, Connie Francis and France's most famous rocker, Johnny Hallyday.

Six movies have been made with the title Moulin Rouge:
* In 1928, directed by Ewald André Dupont.
* In 1934, directed by Sidney Lanfield. Lucille Ball appeared as a chorus girl.
* In 1939, directed by André Hugon.
* In 1944, directed by Yves Mirande.
* In 1952, directed by John Huston, starring Jose Ferrer and Zsa Zsa Gabor. See Moulin Rouge (1952 film).
* In 2001, directed by Baz Luhrmann. See Moulin Rouge!

Also:
* French Cancan by Jean Renoir in 1955 is a fictionalized history of the Moulin Rouge.

There has also been:
* "A Night at the Moulin Rouge", a 1951 film (also circulated under the title "Ding Dong!") of burlesque acts of the "Moulin Rouge" club in Oakland, California.

The Moulin Rouge can be seen in the PlayStation game Medal of Honor: Underground

External links

* Moulin Rouge Paris — official site, containing information about the beginning, fall, and restoration of the Moulin Rouge; available in French or English.