oscar jubis
10-21-2007, 05:38 PM
"The next few weeks went by in a blur. People began to grow their hair; some affected British (or when they could pull it off, Liverpool) accents. A friend got his hands on a Beatles album unavailable in the U.S. and made a considerable amount charging people for the chance to hear John Lennon singing "Money (that's what I want)" at two bucks a shot. Excitement wasn't in the air; it was the air.
A few days after that first performance in the Sullivan show I spent an evening with some friends in a cafe. It was, or anyway had been, a folk club. This night one heard only Meet the Beatles. The music snaking through the dark, suddenly spooky room, was instantly recognizable and like nothing we had ever heard. It was joyous, threatening, absurd, arrogant, determined, tough and innocent.
It was not simply a matter of music, but of event. The event was a pop explosion; an irresistible cultural upheaval that cuts across lines of class and race and, most crucially, divides society itself by age. The surface of daily life (walk, talk, dress, symbolism, heroes, family affairs) is affected with such force that deep and substantive changes in the way large numbers of people think and act take place. Pop explosions must link up with, and accelerate, broad shifts in sexual behavior, economic aspirations and political beliefs; a pervasive sense of chaos, such as that which hit England in 1963 with the Profumo scandal, and the U.S. in the mid-60s with the civil rights movement, the Kennedy assassination, and later the Vietnam war, doesn't hurt."
(Greil Marcus, The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll)
Julie Taymor's Across the Universe is a musical about that "pop explosion". It is also a triumph of art versus commerce. Or more specifically, Taymor prevailing over Revolution Studios chief Joe Roth, who wanted to release a significantly shorter, studio-sponsored version. Across the Universe is certainly ambitious: to tell the story of the 60s in America using the best pop songbook of the era: the songs of The Beatles.
During that turbulent decade, a culture and a society became transformed by the civil rights and feminist movements, an unpopular war, the assassinations of charismatic leaders, and millions demanding radical change. Taymor dramatizes the era by weaving a plot propelled by songs. These are mostly performed by actors playing fairly representative characters. There's middle-class girl Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), whose boyfriend dies in Vietnam. She moves to the big city and develops political consciousness. Her older brother drops out of college and fails to avoid getting drafted into the Army, but not before introducing Lucy to Jude (Jim Sturgess). Like John Lennon, he grew up in working-class Liverpool. Jude comes to America searching for better prospects and the father he's never met. These are easily recognizable, somewhat archetypal characters befitting the nature and aims of the film.
Some of the well-known songs used in Across the Universe are transformed by the new arrangements and context given. At a slower tempo and without the insistent backbeat that turned it into the group's first #1 hit, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" becomes a melancholy song about undeclared passion. It's sung here by T.V. Carpio, as a high school girl named Prudence (by now you've figured the names of the characters are borrowed from Beatles songs) who can't reveal her attraction for a cheerleader. Not in 1964; not in small town Ohio. "It Won't Be Long" is presented as a carefully crafted girl-group ditty of staggering intensity, a mythical celebration of The Boy. Perhaps the most ingeniously used lyrics belong to "Let it Be". The first verse is sung by a black kid using a car to shield himself from riotous violence then, most poignantly, it becomes a gospel hymn during what turns out to be the kid's funeral. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", initially a break-up song for joplinesque Sadie and her guitarist boyfriend, is also used to mourn the death of Martin Luther King Jr.
Other numbers stand out for their choreography, or their mise-en-scene. "With a Little Help From My Friends", in which the joints being passed around are imaginary (to avoid an "R" rating), evokes scenes from Richard Lester's Beatlemania celebration A Hard Day's Night. The made-for-TV Magical Mystery Tour is echoed during "I Am the Walrus", which includes a memorable cameo performance by U2 frontman Bono. Elements from both Yellow Submarine and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band mesh effortlessly in the breathtakingly inventive "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite", reportedly the two surviving Beatles' favorite number and one producer Roth planned to exclude from the theatrical cut.
Simply speaking, Across the Universe works. It's a consistently entertaining, often delightful and moving film that achieves its lofty goals. That doesn't mean one can possibly agree with every one of the thousands of artistic decisions involved in choreographing, arranging, and giving narrative context to the beloved songs. Morover, there's a downside to having actors like Ms. Wood and Mr. Sturgess do their own singing_at times, they are just adequate. It'd be unreasonable to expect them to deliver musical performances of the caliber of Bono's or Joe Cocker's magnificent "Come Together". Having said that, Across the Universe is on its way to becoming a cult hit, the type to which viewers return periodically, with affection. I know I will.
A few days after that first performance in the Sullivan show I spent an evening with some friends in a cafe. It was, or anyway had been, a folk club. This night one heard only Meet the Beatles. The music snaking through the dark, suddenly spooky room, was instantly recognizable and like nothing we had ever heard. It was joyous, threatening, absurd, arrogant, determined, tough and innocent.
It was not simply a matter of music, but of event. The event was a pop explosion; an irresistible cultural upheaval that cuts across lines of class and race and, most crucially, divides society itself by age. The surface of daily life (walk, talk, dress, symbolism, heroes, family affairs) is affected with such force that deep and substantive changes in the way large numbers of people think and act take place. Pop explosions must link up with, and accelerate, broad shifts in sexual behavior, economic aspirations and political beliefs; a pervasive sense of chaos, such as that which hit England in 1963 with the Profumo scandal, and the U.S. in the mid-60s with the civil rights movement, the Kennedy assassination, and later the Vietnam war, doesn't hurt."
(Greil Marcus, The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll)
Julie Taymor's Across the Universe is a musical about that "pop explosion". It is also a triumph of art versus commerce. Or more specifically, Taymor prevailing over Revolution Studios chief Joe Roth, who wanted to release a significantly shorter, studio-sponsored version. Across the Universe is certainly ambitious: to tell the story of the 60s in America using the best pop songbook of the era: the songs of The Beatles.
During that turbulent decade, a culture and a society became transformed by the civil rights and feminist movements, an unpopular war, the assassinations of charismatic leaders, and millions demanding radical change. Taymor dramatizes the era by weaving a plot propelled by songs. These are mostly performed by actors playing fairly representative characters. There's middle-class girl Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), whose boyfriend dies in Vietnam. She moves to the big city and develops political consciousness. Her older brother drops out of college and fails to avoid getting drafted into the Army, but not before introducing Lucy to Jude (Jim Sturgess). Like John Lennon, he grew up in working-class Liverpool. Jude comes to America searching for better prospects and the father he's never met. These are easily recognizable, somewhat archetypal characters befitting the nature and aims of the film.
Some of the well-known songs used in Across the Universe are transformed by the new arrangements and context given. At a slower tempo and without the insistent backbeat that turned it into the group's first #1 hit, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" becomes a melancholy song about undeclared passion. It's sung here by T.V. Carpio, as a high school girl named Prudence (by now you've figured the names of the characters are borrowed from Beatles songs) who can't reveal her attraction for a cheerleader. Not in 1964; not in small town Ohio. "It Won't Be Long" is presented as a carefully crafted girl-group ditty of staggering intensity, a mythical celebration of The Boy. Perhaps the most ingeniously used lyrics belong to "Let it Be". The first verse is sung by a black kid using a car to shield himself from riotous violence then, most poignantly, it becomes a gospel hymn during what turns out to be the kid's funeral. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", initially a break-up song for joplinesque Sadie and her guitarist boyfriend, is also used to mourn the death of Martin Luther King Jr.
Other numbers stand out for their choreography, or their mise-en-scene. "With a Little Help From My Friends", in which the joints being passed around are imaginary (to avoid an "R" rating), evokes scenes from Richard Lester's Beatlemania celebration A Hard Day's Night. The made-for-TV Magical Mystery Tour is echoed during "I Am the Walrus", which includes a memorable cameo performance by U2 frontman Bono. Elements from both Yellow Submarine and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band mesh effortlessly in the breathtakingly inventive "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite", reportedly the two surviving Beatles' favorite number and one producer Roth planned to exclude from the theatrical cut.
Simply speaking, Across the Universe works. It's a consistently entertaining, often delightful and moving film that achieves its lofty goals. That doesn't mean one can possibly agree with every one of the thousands of artistic decisions involved in choreographing, arranging, and giving narrative context to the beloved songs. Morover, there's a downside to having actors like Ms. Wood and Mr. Sturgess do their own singing_at times, they are just adequate. It'd be unreasonable to expect them to deliver musical performances of the caliber of Bono's or Joe Cocker's magnificent "Come Together". Having said that, Across the Universe is on its way to becoming a cult hit, the type to which viewers return periodically, with affection. I know I will.