Editing and Rhythm in An American in Paris and Moulin Rouge!
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	Narrator:  There is a long tradition of setting romantic stories of struggling male artists and their female muses in Bohemian Paris. Two spectacular cinematic renderings of this romance with Paris are Vincente Minnelli's An American in Paris and Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. Both films feature extravagant costumes and settings, as well as memorable musical numbers. However, a significant point of contrast between these films, one that corresponds with the historical difference between classical and post modern film aesthetics, is rhythm and pace.
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	Narrator:  Both films open by establishing their glamorous setting. An American in Paris, made after World War II, is aimed at least in part at paying tribute to America's ally. The opening sequence shows us Paris for tourists, each distinctive vista captured in a moving crane shot. The credits and the first eleven shots, linked by slow dissolves, last more than three minutes, giving us time to take in the panorama—to be aware of our touristic gaze.
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	At the end of the establishing sequence, the camera finds the hero, Jerry Mulligan, played by Gene Kelly, asleep in his tiny garret studio. Mulligan wakes up and looks at us directly, a device that is typically avoided in serious dramatic films. But is used here to establish an easy intimacy. The establishing sequence of Moulin Rouge also finds the hero in a garret. The wide screen film opens with a conductor before a theatrical proscenium, which
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	reveals a black and white silent cinema style title card, marking the time and place.
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	Narrator:  The camera then swoops down over Montmartre, slowing down and then, speeding up again. As it finally finds the protagonist, Christian, played by Ewan McGregor.
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	Narrator:  As he picks up the narration, the movie explodes with color and quick frenzied shots of the Moulin Rouge nightclub. The different rhythms of the two films are most evident in the dance and musical scenes, and are mainly due to the different styles of editing. The smooth transitions in the dance scenes in An American in Paris contrast starkly with Jill Babcock's jarring editing in Moulin Rouge. For example, in a scene inspired by the artist, Toulouse-
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	Lautrec in An American in Paris, a nightclub provides the background for a dance sequence in which the average shot length is 20 seconds.
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	Narrator:  In contrast, Moulin Rouge mixes musical styles--the backstage musical, MTV pop, Bollywood--in a mélange made more disorienting by rapid movements caused not only by the number of moving bodies, but also by the camera work, CGI and montage. A medley of "Lady Marmalade" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit," with Master of Ceremonies Zidler rapping, uses more than 100 shots, averaging less than a second each.
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	Narrator:  In addition, elements of the framing reinforce the editing choices in the two films and contribute to the differences in pace. For example, in the concluding sequence in An American in Paris, Kelly's virtuosity and that of his partner Leslie Caron, are displayed in long shots on elaborate sets. Combined with a longer shot length, the scene feels
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	both languorous and epic. On the other hand, the close ups in Moulin Rouge, combined with quick cutting, help generate a sense of feverish motion.
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	Narrator:  An American in Paris was made at MGM, Hollywood's most opulent studio. and it represents the epitome of Hollywood's escapist style. The Hollywood classic, An American in Paris, is very different from Baz Luhrmann's post modern Moulin Rouge, with its pastiche of styles, discontinuous editing, stock characters, and risqué dancing. But despite the differences between the two films, one can tell that the classic predecessor was one of Luhrmann's
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	inspirations for his own fantasy of Bohemian turn of the century Paris.