Readers, I have a true piece of art to share with you today. Moulin Rouge is a movie unrestrained by Apollonian culture. Bez Luhrman ripped off the veil of reason, misleading science, and clarity and created a world of pure Dionysian song and spectacle. Yet, he still retained the balance of the fantasy of dreams and the chaos of wild intoxication. He removes the limits of appearance and moderation of the artistic world and presents a “bewitching and alluring,” reminder of “the ecstatic sounds of the Dionysian festival.” How can “the psalmodizing artists of Apollo, with his phantom harp-sound…[compare] with this demonic folk-song! The muses of the arts of ‘appearance’ [pale] before an art which, in intoxication, spoke the truth” (509). Other directors of late have shown us weak, unemotional movies filled with politically correct moderation. Just Moulin Rouge’s main character Christian has more knowledge and truth than all of the recent movies combined. He is the perfect example of “the esthetically sensitive man”(499) driven only by passion and looses restrain through his exploration of Dionysian emotion and love. Though an actual life must be lived with a balance of the two, Moulin Rouge is the new Dionysian orgy of the senses.
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