what is your favorite moment?

Oh hey!

My vote, after some reflection, would go to the scene in Part II where Frédérick and Garance meet again during Baptiste's performance.

...and great care is lavished upon them before the tickle-harvest.

The first performance at the Funambules - during the fracas between the Barrigni's and the Duberau's, someone in the audience calls out(not from the 'gods') "Shut Up!! I can't hear the mime!" - that was brilliant.

Any scene with Lacenaire

The meeting with the Count and Lacenaire on the stairs.
Garance meeting Baptiste jnr.

Where Nathalie says Garance cannot love Baptiste, because she has "all the love for him in the world". At which point, yeah, I pretty much dismiss Baptiste as a complete bastard! Not to mention the fact that Nathalie is much prettier...

There's something about Baptiste's meltdown in Garance's dressing room that really sticks with me. I think it's because Barrault is in the full mime makeup, so we're seeing him release all of this pure, unadulterated emotion behind this completely blank face. I don't know, the contrast, and the intensity of Baptiste was really affecting.

Does anyone think that this film influenced Moulin Rouge? Art, freedom, love etc, transcending all, etc. Or even that Moulin Rouge was a sort of remake/hommage? The best "moment/s" (the ones I can remember anyway) are the crowd in the gallery (the children of the gods of the title) - always judging, appreciating, ignoring, criticising - never seemingly the players, but in fact the only ones who matter.

V.poncy I know but that's the kind of person I am...

I would agree to a point about Baptiste, and remind everyone to read any 20th century British novel (or Updike, or McEwan) if they wish to encounter characterizations of what happens when people try to remain faithful in relationships where the love has moved on and individuals have been betrayed by fate.

[deleted]

I have not seen this film for maybe fifteen years, but certain scenes stuck with me.

I saw it in a lonely art theater with maybe a half dozen other viewers on a cold weeknight.

When Baptiste confronts the villain and his strongman in a pub with Garance, the strongman throws Baptiste through a window. There is a moment, and then Baptiste simply steps through the open window and reapproaches the table as if nothing had happened and he cannot be denied. The act is simple, naive and heroic. Though there were only a few viewers in the theater, I heard gasps because of the character's bold move and the risk and danger it represented.

A scene that frustrated me to no end was when the flamboyant, arrogant comic-relief actor character brags to a stage director that he can perform anything and entertain anyone. The theater is full of a rowdy crowd, which has booed everything off the stage.......the stage director tells the actor that "all we have is a bear costume". The actor accepts the challenge, changes into the bear costume, and heads for the stage............and then the scene fades out! We learn that the actor won over the crowd, but you could not believe the anticipation I felt when that bear headed out past the curtain--I thought I was going to seee one of the most well-written and entertaining scenes ever scripted! Instead, it's left to the imagination........or some may say left to a writer's cop-out. Such a scene....of an actor walking upright in a silly bear costume out before a hostile crowd and winning them over.....should be any writer's dream.