Baz Luhrmann had directed another movie in which a love story is set against a background of dance, costumes and colourful scenes. This is "Strictly Ballroom" made in 1992. In "Moulin Rouge!", he chose the colourful life of Paris in a time often called "the Naughty Nineties" as a background. But Lurhmann's plan was not to make a movie about history. He wanted to make a movie that the people of today would enjoy, just as much as the people of Paris had enjoyed the can-can in the 1890s. So Luhrmann did not use the music, dance-styles and lighting of the 1890s. He used popular modern music that young people already knew, and he used modern lighting, special effects and costume ideas to create a movie that young people would think was very entertaining.