Colombia Pictures, Sony Pictures Releasing
This summer, I returned to Julie Taymor’s jukebox musical, Across the Universe (2007), whose 34 tracks are centered on The Beatles. Known for directing Frida (2002) and the Broadway smash, The Lion King (1997), Taymor and her partner composer Elliot Goldenthal, per IndieWire, poured through Sony’s 200-title Beatles songbook, working with T-Bone Burnett and screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (The Commitments) to create the story for the Across the Universe.
The film is a sprawling ‘60s period love story bringing the central characters together during the tumultuous decade–the music, the psychedelia, the anti-war fevor. Jude (Jim Sturgess), in Liverpool, enlists in the Merchant Navy, then jumps ship to land on the New York shores. Stateside, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) struggles with the men in her life being shipped to the Vietnam War. Max (Joe Anderson) strives to be free in a world that threatens to pin him down. Jo-Jo (Martin Luther) escapes the Detroit riots to pursue a career playing guitar. And Sadie (Dana Fuchs) is an aspiring singer whose bohemian Greenwich Village apartment brings all the characters together as they forge new relationships, lose their innocence, and face the world attempting to collapse in on them. After describing that last line, it now seems apt that I’m rewatching the film in this current climate.
Now a cult classic, Across the Universe was received to mixed reviews and was a critical bomb (due to a weak rollout in theaters), earning back only half of its total production budget at the box office. Some vitriol may be from the sanctity for which many fans still hold The Beatles, but I sill love it. But I love the ambition of it. The unabashed, unapologetic artistry of it all–the eye-popping imagery, the fanciful sets, wardrobe, hair and make-up, and the choreography! My god the choreography (Daniel Ezralow)! The film’s wildly inventive with a rich narrative threading multiple stories at a critical moment in history. It’s refreshing to see a project aim to be so ambitious, I’m in awe. While I hope it entertains, I hope it also inspires others to be just as wildly and creatively ambitious.