Across The Universe (Julie Taymor, 2007)

[Soothsayer]

I'd like to see Chris Cunningham have a crack at something like this...maybe his take on Kiss songs.

And didn't people learn their lesson that this type of backpatting cultural cherry-picking is an embarrassment from Ralph Bakshi's American Pop?

[flyonthewall2983]

This is from the article Antoine posted earlier in the thread. This quote bothers me for so many reasons, the primary reason being similar thinking that went behind the whole Sgt. Pepper debacle. That if you make a movie around the music of The Beatles, the plot doesn't matter. And that seems to be the case here, as far as the creative drive behind what might be the biggest flop of the year.

Another insider says: "She told Sony her movie was going to be 'so much bigger than Bond. We have the Beatles.'

I'm probably taking this out of context of what she might have actually said to Sony, and I'll give her the benefit of the doubt if the context was different.

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I think Julie Taymor's choice to use the songs of the Beatles stacked the critical cards against her. People's expectations and relationships to their songs are so loaded going in that no matter what, it would never be quite what they expected.

I thought the film really captured the energy of '60s and the fracturing of the dreams and idealism of the flower children of that era. Taymor really presents a wonderful tableau - yes addressed by the music of the Beatles - that wonderfully mix art, politics, love, music into something fascinating. I think the familiarity of the music makes the journey a bit easier to swallow and allows the viewer to get immediately involved in the characters and story. Anyone going into the film expecting some kind of reverential interpretation of the songs is going to be disappointed.

Yes, the film is too long, the script a little rough around the edges, and some sequences are entirely unnecessary, but the bulk of it works. "Strawberry Fields Forever", The US Army induction sequences, the nurse sequence, and the trio of sports sequences at the beginning of the film are great. And it really does a great job of capturing the passionate period after high school that many of us go through when we get completely consumed by our passions and convictions.

I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that this is a "flop" from. It's playing on three screens in the theatre I went to see it at, and it was nearly full during my showing. And I believe reading earlier this week that tracking or whatever on the fifty-five screens it's showing on is very strong. It has yet to go wide and I think if/when it does, it will do quite well.

[Matt]

I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that this is a "flop" from.

Simple economics. Any film that had a budget of $77 million (and reportedly went well beyond that, not to mention prints and advertising) and which has only made $5.6 million halfway through its third week of release is a flop.

That said, it does seem to be something of a hit with its target audience. One of the arthouse theaters near me that is situated in a "comfortable" suburb is playing it on 3 of their 4 screens. That's pretty unprecedented. Making the theater a one-stop-shop for baby boomers, they are playing the Pete Seeger documentary on the other screen.

[Antoine Doinel]

I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that this is a "flop" from.

Simple economics. Any film that had a budget of $77 million (and reportedly went well beyond that, not to mention prints and advertising) and which has only made $5.6 million halfway through its third week of release is a flop.

It has been a limited release at this point. It goes on a much wider release in more theatres this Friday.

[Matt]

It has been a limited release at this point. It goes on a much wider release in more theatres this Friday.

Fair enough. I thought it had already opened wider, but it was only in 339 theaters this past weekend. Its per-screen average was about $6,000 which is pretty good--better than almost everything else in the top 10.

[gubbelsj]

I haven't seen this yet, and am not sure if it will even play down here in SD, but from what I can make out via clips and trailers, this reminds me of Twyla Tharp's disastrous Broadway production of The Times They Are A-Changin', in which Bob Dylan songs were incorporated into the mush-headed story of a traveling circus family, with actors hanging from the moon to warble Mr. Tambourine Man and others pantomiming dogs for entire songs. The whole production just seemed so odd, so daft, so wrong-headed, so utterly lost, yet not odd or daft enough to succeed as Bruegelian showpiece. As it is, Across the Universe looks like Twyla Tharp directing Forrest Gump, with all the treacly boomer self-love such projects come programmed with.

But I haven't seen it. And I did like Titus. So I could be wrong.

[Ted Todorov]

Funny you should bring up Dylan -- having seen both this and I'm Not There within days of each other -- I hate to say it, but Across the Universe is hands down the better film. Throw rotten tomatoes at me if you wish, but notice that most of the hate in this thread is from people who haven't bothered to actually see it.

I'll leave you with just one thought -- both movies are uneven, both have moments that transcend the whole. But to take one example, the reinterpretation of I Want To Hold Your Hand in Taymor's film, is far more original than anything that happens in I'm Not There.

[Andre Jurieu]

Funny you should bring up Dylan -- having seen both this and I'm Not There within days of each other -- I hate to say it, but Across the Universe is hands down the better film. Throw rotten tomatoes at me if you wish, but notice that most of the hate in this thread is from people who haven't bothered to actually see it.

I'll leave you with just one thought -- both movies are uneven, both have moments that transcend the whole. But to take one example, the reinterpretation of I Want To Hold Your Hand in Taymor's film, is far more original than anything that happens in I'm Not There.

As someone who has also seen both films, I have to say I'm firmly entrenched on the other side of the fence. Taymor's interpretation of I Want to Hold Your Hand is slightly interesting/mildly amusing in a shallow kind of way, but her movie is pretty much just another banal representation of the 60s, reinforcing the regular conception of the period.

I'm Not There is interesting throughout because it arranges its entire form around the concept that Dylan's persona was forever changing, thereby not allowing anyone to form a coherent interpretation of the artist or his work. The film is more concerned with how Dylan's work influenced our perception of the him, rather than how we can understand his work through knowing the various major events within his life. Instead, Haynes' film kind of posits that the entire concept of a biography will always be elusive, especially when its subject refuses to be interpreted in any uniform way. The only problem I really had with the film is that it overstayed its welcome a bit, but I thought the ideas within I'm Not There are far substantial than anything in Taymor's film.

[filmnoir1]

I was fianlly able to see this film on dvd. Taymor continues to surprise and excell with her surreal visual acumen. I think the two best moments of the film are the induction scene where Max is transformed into a soldier en masse by what resemble life size GI Joe dolls. Equally interesting is the Strawberry Fields moment wherein Jude's art is juxtaposed with the images of the war and Max struggling to stay alive. Overall the film is quite entertaining.
My one quibble is that this film like so many others set within the 1960s uses a brush meant for houses rather than artistic canvases to paint with broad strokes a picture of the America in the 1960s that seems as if everywhere it is spiralling out of control. Also why is it that in every 60s film it is also someone from the middle or upper middle class that is shown facing hardships and "slumming" it? Is it simply because they had the leisure time required to think, fight and love? If revolution were to ever really be achieved then it must happen with the workers, a fact that Marx and Lenin recognized, while everyone else cannot. Ideology is the product of those with capital therefore it is pointless to speak to them, for true change can only happen by speaking to the real people of the streets.

[Mr Sheldrake]

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. I thought the induction physical was the best sequence as well. I went through the process in 1970 and it caught the terrifying mood exactly. I don't think there were too many sons of wealthy families getting drafted though.

[Belmondo]

"Sexy Sadie, what have you done? You've made a fool of everyone."

For me, the movie resembled the jelly doughnut I ate while watching it - sweet, slightly sticky, and filled with the kind of empty calories which are enjoyable to consume but end up causing slight stomach distress.
The occasionally wonderful visualizations and occasionally excellent reinterpretations of Beatles songs proved to be not quite enough.
If the movie begs to be successful on sheer entertainment value, then it may be unfair of me to criticise it for failing to resonate on any aspect of what the 1960's were really like. Nevertheless -

It could have resonated, and all the elements were right there. If the plot had just been a bit stronger ... if the songs had been used a bit more thoughtfully. Yes, many of them were nicely done, but too many more were too unthinkingly literal; i.e. naming a character Prudence and having her hide in the closet so we could sing "Dear Prudence, won't you come out and play?" to name just one example.

The sixties were ill remembered here and all I got was simple sugar when I wanted complex carbohydrates. Note that I carried my doughnut metaphor to its logical conclusion, but honesty compels me to admit that although I lived through the sixties, I remained blissfully stoned out of my mind for the entire decade, and I too, am only borderline capable of determining what does or does not resonate.
But, whatever it was, it was not in the movie; and whatever it is now is still to be explored.

[jbeall]

Just watched the dvd, and I really enjoyed it. Of course, a lot of that has to do with the fact that every two minutes brings another Beatles song, but what the hey.

I agree with the film's critics who think the narrative is a bit too schematic, and there are a few too many shorthand references to Beatles songs, as if they were just trying to squeeze as much in as possible, but I thought that several of the re-interpretations of much more upbeat songs (for example, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand") were fantastic. Pop music has become so unoriginal lately that top-40 radio is full of bland reinterpretations that add nothing to the original, and I certainly can't recall an upbeat song being turned into an expression of forbidden longing.

Also, the "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" scene (especially the soldiers bearing the weight of the Statue of Liberty) was nothing short of brilliant!

I felt a little distant from the film b/c I wasn't alive during the 60s, but I'd like to see what my parents think about it--they're roughly the same age as those characters--because while the narrative was a little too loose, I completely agree with the NY Times reviewer who thought a number of the songs did a great job of refracting the experience of both individuals and the generation as a whole. If the script had to suffer a bit for that, so be it; the film was conceptually brilliant and beautifully realized.

[Marcel Gioberti]

Total disaster. This reminds me of that Woodstock II that was sponsored by Pepsi back in the early 90's but...worse. It's a Beatles musical sponsored by JCrew and Abercrombie & Fitch, commodifying every key moment from the 60's with more saccharin dishonesty than Forest Gump. Now my appreciation of Titus is even more guilty.

[noelbotevera]

Across the Universe (Julie Taymor, 2007)