Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge similar to the Orphean myth.  Orpheus is man with the ability to charm all living things with his music. He began the archetype of the inspired singer. He attempts to retrieve his wife from the underworld. This is similar to Christian who is an inspired singer and appears to the other characters to be a brilliant musician and writer. He also tries to save his true love by keeping her from the evil Duke.

Christian, a young man moves to Paris to become a writer and take up bohemianism involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits who highly value love, beauty, freedom etc.  His heroic archetype is him being a hero as a lover. He falls in love for Satine who was already claimed by the Duke of Monroth a potential investor in the cabaret. He is purely motivated by his love for Satine to complete his quest to win Satine's love. He says that "the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to lover and be loved in return". The Duke agrees to pay for the show but only if he could see Satine. The Duke is the devil figure. He offers his wealth to Satine if she give herself to him. Satine and Christian see each other secretly and explain to the Duke that they are just rehearsing. The Duke get extremely jealous of the time Christian was spending with Satine. Christian is determined to win Satine and strongly believes that love is the most important thing of all. He tries to convince Satine that she doesn’t need the Duke’s money to be happy and that love is more important. It is quest clear that his journey is the search for love and to rescue the damsel in distress. Battle between good and evil: Both the good and evil force have a great desire the Christian represent the good force because he is in love with Satine. The Duke is the evil force, he only desire’s Satine because of her beauty.

Characteristics of a Hero’s Journey: The Duke is a monstrous man that Christian meets. He is very greedy and violent because he threatens to kill Christian because he is jealous that Satine is in love with him. Satine is the beautiful lady who is Christian’s inspiration because he is in love with her. The origin of the hero is mysterious as there is no background information given about Christian. He struggles for something valuable and important which is love.

Departure: When a group of performers discover Christian talent they convince him to present his work to Satine a courtesan and the star of the Moulin Rouge. At first he is reluctant because he doubted that Satine would listen to a poor writer.

Initiation: This is when Christian enters the Moulin Rouge. A lot of the costumes and dresses are red (Rouge is also French for red) which represents violent passion, disorder, anger and physical stimulation. It is much more dangerous, greedy and deceitful environment.
The Road of Trials: Could be when Christian has to improvise a play when he is caught with Satine by the Duke.

The Innermost Cave: When Satine forces Christian to leave her because the Dukes threats and because of her sickness that she is dying of that she has kept a secret. This is a hard time for Christian and he becomes depressed and isolates himself from the rest of society in his house. He then realizes that he can’t give up on their lives and that Satine is still in love with him.

Return and Reintegration with Society: He sneaks back into the Moulin Rouge to win back Satine. He accidentally ends up on the stage but walks off with the audience very confused. Toulouse yells out “The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” which inspires Christian to start singing a duet with Satine, their secret love song.  This confirms their love for each other before she collapsed and passed away. Later Christian writes a story about their love so that their love “will live forever”.