Julie Taymor utilized her experience on Broadway and in Hollywood for her latest Beatles musical movie "Across the Universe." She is one among few big-name female filmmakers and theater directors, with huge successes like the Academy Award-winning film "Frida" (2002) and the Tony Award-winning play "The Lion King" on her track record. She spoke to the Daily in a college press phone conference about the process of choosing songs and the different tools she used for her visually stunning movie.
Question: You went through over 200 [songs] and ended up with 32 in the film. Was there any particular song that you wanted to put in there because it was your favorite?
Julie Taymor: There were some great ones that we considered early in the screenwriting phase, like "Yesterday." We had the comedy of Sergeant Pepper after the Columbia riots, but comedy at that moment was not appropriate.
I think "And I Love Her" is a magnificent song, and we use it more in scores during the hash-up of "Across the Universe" and "Helter Skelter." You can hear that there, but it seemed a little corny when we were considering at that moment to have it as a duet for Jude and Lucy. You know the songs are in the movie to tell a story, so songs that I really adore outside the film - there are plenty of them - but at this time we didn't need them for the screenplay.
Q: Amongst all the other artists that were influential during this time, why did you choose only Beatles music?
JT: Because it was a Beatles musical. That was the idea. The whole point was to be doing a musical derived, created from the Beatles catalogue. Just like if you do "A West Side Story" (1961), it's all Bernstein's music; if you do "Hairspray," it's whoever that composer's music was ... It's not like "Moulin Rouge" (2001), where we were going to be taking different songs and creating some kind of tapestry out of it. It really is a Beatles rock opera based on the Beatles music, those four composers.
Q: Were the individual songs chosen [first] and then the story written around them? Or did the story come first with the best songs chosen for each particular scene?
JT: No, you kind of have it both ways. It started with a premise that we could set this musical using the Beatles catalogue in the '60s with this simple, but actually not simple, love story. But then, with the expansion of the story, we listened to the songs and when the songs were found, some of the characters in the story were created around those songs.
Jude wasn't created for revolution, but because the story of their love affair falling apart centered around the differences with Lucy being an activist and Jude being much more of an artist and not being someone who fights for a cause necessarily. "Revolution" seemed like a perfect song to express that sentiment - so [it appeared in] the scene in the SDR (Students for a Democratic Republic) office, which was SDS (Students for Democratic Society) originally.
A lot of things like "While My Guitar Gently Weeps": When we thought about the placement of that song after "Revolution" and the whole notion of this incredible time of violence, the Martin Luther King assassination seemed a perfect jumping off point for a song that was both intimate about the personal disaster that was going on between Sadie and JoJo and Jude and Lucy, but also the larger context of what was happening in the country at that time.
It's a round robin: Songs suggest a character. "I Want to Hold your Hand" is how Prudence was born when I heard that song sung by a woman without the lyric "I want to be your man" changing. And then the characters, once they were developed, you could find songs like "Dear Prudence" that would keep their story going.
So it was a really fun thing to figure out, because you're coming to a place where an action happens and you think, "I would love an induction center - what's the perfect song?" and it just jumps up like a light bulb.
Q: What are your views on the lack of high-profile female directors in Hollywood? Do you feel like it's harder for women to break into the industry because it's so heavily male-dominated?
JT: I would love to say no to you, but I think it's still very tough for women. I think they have to hold on tight and have a very strong, powerful reason to be doing it, a story they need to tell.
And what happens with women if they don't have a big success, it's much harder for them to get their second or third film made. It is definitely still male-dominated, but there are a lot of young women who are moving in, so I think it will change. But I can't say it's just easy.
Q: What is your take on the difference between the mediums of live-action theater and recording a film?
JT: I love bouncing back and forth from one medium to another, because if you choose a medium, it is a different tool to work with.
You can see the use of animation, computer-generated imagery, stock footage mixed with live-action realistic filmmaking [in "Across the Universe"]. It's a combination of naturalism and all those elements, because cinema gives me that power, that tool to do that.
And I think that because we've got those tools, you can really be expressionistic and theatrical - when I say theatrical, I don't mean it's like theater. A lot of the imagery that I do in "Across the Universe" I cannot do in theater.
When I do theater, I do what theater does best. Something like "The Lion King" is highly stylized where you actually see the mechanics; you see the strings, you see that there are puppets and mask. I try and adapt to what each medium does that the other one doesn't.
Q: How do you think the Beatles generation, all of the older people who grew up listening to the Beatles, is going to see the movie? Do you think they'll be attracted to go see it?
JT: Well, so far, so good. It's only been open a weekend, but I've seen it with people who are the age of the '60s, my older brother and sister's age.
I think this movie should appeal to everybody, from 10 years old up until 95, because if you lived in that time, then this is reminiscent.
And if you love the Beatles, I think very few people will feel you can't touch the originals, because for 40 years there have been amazing covers of the Beatles' songs, good ones and bad ones: David Bowie, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Fiona Apple. There have been unbelievable different versions of these phenomenal songs which can transcend the performers. Good renditions are good renditions because the songs are great.
The fact that it's playing to college-age and younger is what really makes all of us who worked on it extremely happy, because it's about young people and the times don't change that much, unfortunately.
