Abstract
In 2004, Baz Luhrman, the director of Moulin Rouge and Romeo & Juliet, was hired by Chanel to create a television commercial for their best-selling N°5 Perfume. The commercial, often referred to as “Chanel N°5, The Film,” is essentially a 180-second-long short film that feels more like a sophisticated movie trailer for a fantastical love story than a typical TV ad. In this paper, I conduct a semiotic analysis of this theatrical Chanel advertisement, breaking down the symbolic structures, including various codes, metaphors, myths, and narratives.
