is there anything so fraught with stark drama, with more impending doom, than the dark splotches of blood coughed into the snow white kerchief of a heroine, at the otherwise height of her beauty.
i watched "moulin rouge!" the other evening, entranced at the spectacle of color and production values, and simply enchanted by nicole kidman's performance as the heroine who resides in the dark ominous shadow of death. to my mind, it is a better musical than "caberet," and i like that movie just fine, thank you. but, nicole kidman and ewan mcgregor take the cake as star crossed lovers. they are quite lovely together.
when i was in high school many years ago, jack williams honor's english class was bussed up for a ride to walla walla & the liberty theatre, to enjoy, i suppose, a production of "la boheme." i remember little of the movie, but i was struck that the heroine could sit up in her deathbed and sing the bloody bejesus out of a song, just to pitch back at its conclusion and die, dead as a post.
and so, as much as i enjoyed "moulin rougue," and i did enjoy it, and marveled that one could make a very good musical from basically one song, i could not help but remember the death scene climax in "la boheme" as i watched the death scene climax of "moulin rouge!"
how do they do it, those lovely women? how do they stay lovely and desirable as they die, and where do they summon the power to belt out songs from lungs ravaged by disease and so near, you should pardon the pun, the final expiration of their own expiration.
it is one of life's little mysteries that i kind of savor. simply, ... , miraculous. and, i suppose, only curmudgeons seem to notice.
john jay @ 04.25.2011
Comments