'The Pitch (Spectacular Spectacular)' - Original Film Version
Performed by Nicole
Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent, Jacek Koman, John Leguizamo, Garry MacDonald,
Richard Roxburgh and Matthew Whittet
Lyrics by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce, Music by Jacques Offenbach from 'The Can Can'
from 'Orphee aux Enfers'
Produced by BLAM, Josh G Abrahams and Marius DeVries
The performance of this song is definitely one of the most ingenious concepts I've ever seen on film! In the movie, The Pitch serves as an impromptu story pitch to an unsuspecting Duke. To the audience, it is truly a 'Spectacular Spectacular' performance by the entire principal cast! The amount of rehearsal time it must have taken to make this sequence work must have been tremendous. The cast members sing, mixing dialogue with musical story telling, performing frantic dance routines and accompanied by fantastic costumes and set design. The timing is brilliant, with non-stop ideas that leave you wondering how on earth they managed to pull it all off. But they did, and it most definitely works.
The Pitch was written by Baz Kuhrmann and Craig Pearce and is set to the music of the traditional Can Can. What a brilliant idea to set the entire premise of the film's Moulin Rouge performance to the music that made the establishment so famous in the first place! This sequence is definitely a highlight of the film, and has to be watched repeatedly to realise the amount of work and detail that went into bringing Baz and Craig's vision to life in such an extraordinary fashion.
Lyrics:
Zidler - Spectacular,
Spectacular!
No words in the vernacular
Can describe this great event
You'll be dumb with wonderment
Returns are fixed at 10%
You must agree that's excellent
And on top of your fee...
All - You'll be involved artistically
Duke - What do you mean by that?
All - So
exciting the audience will stop and cheer
So delighting it will run for 50 years
So exciting the audience will stop and cheer
So delighting it will run for 50 years
Toulouse - Elephants
Doctor - Bohemians
Zidler - Indians
Satine - And courtesans
Satie - Acrobats
Argentinian - And juggling bears
Toulouse - Exotic girls
Bohemians - Fire eaters
Satine and Christian - Muscle men, contortionists, intrigue, danger
Satie - And romance
All - Electrified lights, machinery, all with electricity!
So exciting the
audience will stop and cheer
So delighting it will run for 50 years
So exciting the audience will stop and cheer
So delighting it will run for 50 years
Spectacular,
Spectacular
No words in the vernacular
Can describe this great event
You'll be dumb with wonderment
The hills are alive with the sound of music
So exciting the
audience will stop and cheer
So delighting it will run for 50 years
So exciting the audience will stop and cheer
So delighting it will run for 50 years
Christian - The
courtesan and sitar man
Are pulled apart by an evil plan
Satine - But in the end she hears his song
Christian - And their love is just to strong
Duke - It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside
All - So
exciting the audience will stop and cheer
So delighting it will run for 50 years
Christian - The
sitar player's secret song
Helps them play the evil one
Though the tyrant rants and rails
It is all to no avail
Zidler - I am
the evil maharaja!
You will not escape!
Satine - Oh Harold, no one could play him like you could!
Zidler - No one's going to
All - So
exciting we'll make them laugh we'll make them cry
So delighting...
Duke - And in the end should someone die?
All - So
exciting the audience will stop and cheer
So delighting it will run for 50 years!
Duke - Generally I like it.
