Baffled at last

Rating: Null/10 (5 January 2002)

Most of the time I can understand, intellectually at least, what prompts my younger friends to love some work of art which strikes me as imitative, amateurish, ugly, and evil. They haven't seen the originals, they have no standards, they're decadent from being over-entertained, they've grown up in an unspeakably corrupt system, their attention spans have been destroyed by commercial interruptions, they're chemically unbalanced by all the estrogen in commercial fried chicken, et cetera. But I am baffled at last by the vogue for "Moulin Rouge." I've conceded to, if not comprehended Stephen King, Andrew Lloyd Webber, insult comedies, gangstah rap, and Quentin Tarantino, but the sloppiness, vulgarity, and shrill camp of "Moulin Rouge" defeat me. I can find no way of contemplating this awkward construction that does not leave it looking like garbage. I find myself weeping for the great artists who labored with unrelenting perfectionism to make the beautiful musicals of the past tributes to human potential. Why, I ask myself, did they whip themselves to present masterpieces of grace when the public will settle for such clumsy dreck as "Moulin Rouge?" I suppose all true artists really work for themselves, and to satisfy some muse who bids them make life a little, or a lot better.