Baz Luhrmann has said he flew to Mumbai specifically to experience Bollywood from inside the audience — not to research, but to feel it. He sat in a packed cinema and watched Raj Kapoor's Shree 420 and understood immediately what a musical could be: communal, ecstatic, unapologetically emotional. Kapoor was called the Charlie Chaplin of India. Awara and Shree 420 are the two films that taught Luhrmann the register Moulin Rouge! needed.
Films That Influenced Moulin Rouge!
