Across the Universe

Julie Taymor's musical, Across the Universe, featuring 34 Beatles' songs plus cameo appearances by Bono, Eddie Izzard and Joe Cocker is a film I did not think I would manner that would usually be improbably quick - but the cultural layering is both subtle and not so subtle, and the audience enjoys this phantasmagoria of a ride. Max soon receives a notice from - you guessed it - The Selective Service - and promptly tries to think of ways with his friends to get out of appearing before the draft board. The song I Want You is layered with a poster of Uncle Sam and Max's appearance before the draft board. You have to see this scene to believe what happens next. One of the flat mates, Prudence (T.V. Carpio), suggests that Max tell the board that he 'wants to pillage the towns and rape all the girls and women who look like her ' (she is Asian) and whammy - the painful reference to the My Lai Massacre has just been thrown. Sadie channels Janis with her booming voice, and then, in a huff - Sadie walks off stage, leaving singing and bed partner Jo Jo (Martin Luther McCoy) alone on stage, as she channels Tina leaving Ike. JoJo's story in the movie is worthy of a mention. JoJo (who is channeling a softer Jimi Hendrix), arrives in New York after his younger brother was killed in the Detroit race riots. JoJo's younger brother is seen, open coffin, in a deliberate reference to the 1955 murder of 14-year old African American Emmett Till by white men in Mississippi. It is exactly these types of references layered in with the magical mystery tour of singing, dancing and special effects that makes Across the Universe more than just another song and dance movie or much more than another pop movie or another movie referencing the Fab Four. The dance numbers themselves are worthy of big-time Broadway attention. Lucy, (Evan Rachel Wood) is the high school student who lives in (a tony Connecticut suburb, the backyard to NYC) and who takes up with the leader of the student radical group SDR - Students for a Democratic Republic, as the group channels the radical SDS - Students for a Democratic Society. What starts out seemingly innocent enough for Lucy and the SDR does not end innocently at all. The protest movement is alive and well. Yes, Lucy and Jude fall in love. And no, the love story is not simple. They break up at one point, and Jude later finds Lucy at a Columbia anti-war demonstration in which both are arrested. The complication of course, is that Jude is a British subject. By the time we see Bono - we are now post mid-1960s in the plot timeline - somewhere around 1967 - having heard such songs as Girl, Helter Skelter, Hold Me Tight, All My Loving, It Won't Be Long,(performed by Evan Rachel Wood) Let it Be (performed by Carol Woods and Timothy T. Mitchum), Come Together (performed by Joe Cocker and Martin Luther McCoy), and Why Don't We Do It in the Road? (performed by Dana Fuchs.) Max, Lucy, Jude and others board a 'magic bus' with Dr. Robert, a shaman, (played and sung by Bono, who - with an American accent, channels Ringo and is even Dylan-esque in his cultural references) who sings I Am the Walrus. Joe Cocker appears as three separate street characters: Tramp, Pimp, and Hippie. Selma Hayek appears as 5 digital representations of a nurse in the song Happiness is a Warm Gun. Another stunning set of images of song, politics, dance. Even though the 34 songs are all songs originally written by Lennon and McCartney between 1963 and 1969, all are redone here as original compositions for the movie. The pace is slower, the songs are all sung live, with only a couple of exceptions. If you are such a die-hard Beatle fan that seeing a newer treatment of Beatles material seems anathema to you, then I still think you will enjoy this movie. I don't know of one person of the generation who lived this who hates this movie. If you are a fan of musicals and if you enjoy clever 1960s references, then you will enjoy this movie. The famous song featuring Lucy only appears in the credits with Bono singing it. Other featured songs include Revolution, While My Guitar Gently Weeps (as a tribute to MLK), Strawberry Fields Forever. In the DVD, Jullie Taymor mentions that Strawberry Fields forever was shot live, not as a digital composition, something that surprises all viewers of this fantastic footage, graphic and realistic as it is, like a newsreel. Stunning. Simply stunning. Art, culture and politics interwoven.

Despite some serious flaws, I gave this movie five stars because the best scenes (and there are many) are the most exciting musical scenes in the 80+ year history of sound movies. A few of the most memorable examples are listed below. The intro: Jim Sturgess singing "Girl" straight into the camera, inviting us into this strange and haunting movie, and much later singing the beautiful title song in a crowded subway car. Joe Anderson singing "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" as a bedridden patient in a veterans' hospital, in the most brilliantly choreographed and produced musical scene ever filmed. Sturgess singing a joyous, exhilarating "I've Just Seen a Face" - in a bowling alley, of all places - in the second most brilliantly choreographed and produced musical scene ever filmed. Sturgess, Anderson, and a handful of playful Princeton frat brothers singing "With a Little Help from My Friends" as they tumble and leap like gazelles over the furniture, through a crowded bar, across a rooftop, down a huge marble staircase and out into the quad, in the THIRD most brilliant... etc. Joe Cocker (thank God he's still around!) singing "Come Together" as Lennon must have dreamed it could be sung: sleazy and gutsy and oiling its way under your skin, as he growls in time to the languid windshield wipers of a bus, then appears as a panhandler in a bathrobe in the bus terminal, then as a Times Square pimp driving a mile-long white 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible; then the scene slides into 27 seconds of the most astonishing movie choreography ever: hundreds of dancers on a sunlit midtown sidewalk; and it finishes in the Village with Cocker again, this time as an aged hippie with long Stephen Stills blond hair. Wow. As I said, there are many great scenes; those are just the cream of the cream. BUT (and unfortunately this is a BIG but) the so-bad-you-want-to-strangle-somebody scenes abound too; fortunately, they are easy to skip over. ANYTIME you see either Eddie Izzard or Bono anywhere on screen (and you quickly learn which scenes they are in), skip to the next scene on the DVD. I don't know how to say how bad those two are - except that they are as bad as Cocker is good - and their scenes add nothing to the movie. The many great scenes make watching this movie pure delight; just keep your thumb on the remote and your eye peeled for Bono and Izzard. (PS: I never liked The Beatles until I saw this movie.)

Excellent video, story and acting

I'm a Beatles fan. I was nine years old when they hit Britain with their first Number One hits, and the Beatles became utterly intrinsic to my English child and teenage years. I am so-wrapped up the Beatles' world that in 2001, i wrote and performed a play, "I AM THE WALRUS", which was about the assassination of John Lennon. So, when I first learned of this movie "Across the Universe", a musical where not only were the Beatles songs NOT sung by the lovable "Mop Tops", but it was made by a YANK!!!! What a bloody cheek! I was so prejudiced, as I started watching the film, I was convinced I was going to hate it. BUT in the less than 10 minutes, I was sold. I loved it...and I thought, hey, why shouldn't an American make a movie about our boys, if the Beatles had changed, influenced and improved their lives. The Beatles transcend all borders. They belong across the universe. And Julie Taymor, the director, didn't disappoint me. I was already an admirer of her films "FRIDA" Frida [DVD ], and "TITUS" Titus [DVD] [2000] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC ]. What I especially loved about ACROSS THE UNIVERSE was how Taymor made the film relevant to today, with it's anti-war message. It was easy to see the parallels between America's scandalous military involvement in Vietnam, and America's wars in the Middle East today. But Taymor's homage to the Beatles is not preachy...it is colourful, truly psychedelic, entertaining, surreal, inventive, imaginative, romantic. It is a great movie, and Julie Taymor, for sheer artistic imagination and visual innovation and ingenuous use ofmusic, is for me, America's answer to great British directors like Ken Russell, and Alan Parker. Dreams My Father Sold Me: Poems and Graphic Art of Nabil Shaban

Un film che possiedo in tre copie, un DVD originale in inglese, uno italiano ed infine in Bluray, con backstage e scene tagliate, lunghissimi contenuti speciali, un film del film. Film che ho visto e rivisto almeno 20 volte, tra i più belli in assoluto che mi hanno riempito anima e cuore. La struttura cardine del film è l'adozione e interpetazione di musiche dei Beatles che acquistano nuova vitqa e siognificati attraverso la rielaborazione geniale che ci offre la talentuosa regista Julie Taymour, del periodo della rivoluzione culturale e dei costumi degli anni '60, sullo sfondo del '68 e guerra del Vietnam, che racconta la storia di un giovane di Liverpool che va in America a trovare il padre mai conosciuto, e nell'ambito di questa ricerca trova amici sinceri e una ragazza, in una complessa situazione che trova uno sbocco solo dopo il suo ritorno in Inghilterra. E^ un musical, nel senso che le vicende sono raccontate e sottolineate anche da momenti di grande bellezza e impatto delle musiche e danze, dove i protagonisti, dotati da insospettabili bellissime voci sanno donare emozioni e brividi, in particolare per chi ha vissuto in quegli anni e ha amato i Beatles, ma non solo, perché è un film che parla di valori al di sopra delle mode e del tempo, parla di amore e amicizia, della pace, del contributo diretto o indiretto dell'arte nella vita di ognuno di noi. Un film che consiglio caldamente a tutti.

観る人すべてが“全身でビートルズの音楽を楽しめる”映画だ。 映画を観ていると、制作に関わったすべてのキャスト・スタッフたちがビートルズを正しく理解し、愛しているということがよく伝わってくる。 ビートルズの曲と映像が、無理のない自然なかたちで同化し、並行して展開してく。 特に、４曲目からの「I Want to Hold Your Hand」〜「With a Little Help from My Friends」〜「It Won't Be Long」〜「I've Just Seen a Face」へのスピーディーな展開には、大変に感激した。映像と音楽を完全に並行させたスピーディーな盛り上がりは、知らず知らずのうちに観客を映画の中に同化させてしまうマジックだ。自分は、目の前に広がる映像にくぎづけにされ、流れるビートルズの曲を無意識のうちに口ずさんでいた。 その中でも、「With a Little Help from My Friends」の場面は最高だ。曲の根底を崩さず、よくここまで楽しく編曲できたかと思うすばらしいアレンジである。特に、ギターの裏の入り方がすばらしい。曲のコンセプト・展開に完全に同化したキャストのエキサイティングな演出も大変によかった。この曲を歌ったRingoも観たら、大喜びで拍手を送るだろうと思うすばらしい場面であった。 なぜここまで感激できたのだろうか？この映画の魅力をあらためて考えてみた。 サントラを聴き直してみると、それぞれの曲を歌うキャストたちがビートルズの曲の根底を忠実に守り、素直に歌い表現し、“ビートルズマジック”を再現させている。 それぞれの曲を歌うキャストが、ビートルズの曲の本質を正しく見極め、自分の役にピッタとリとマッチさせ、演出している。 また、ビートルズの曲の大きな特徴である輪唱・ハモリ等も原曲とおりに入れられおり、各キャストが、ビートルズをよく聴きこんでいることが分かる。各キャスに良し悪しがつけられない。一人ひとりが、自分たちの心で、ビートルズの曲の永遠性を目いっぱいに表現している。 曲の詩を各場面のストーリーにうまくマッチさせ、ビートルズの詩によって各キャストのセリフを成り立たせている脚本も見事である。自分としては、普段はほとんど意識することなく聴く“詩の意味”を、あらためて字幕で見て確認することができた。 ビートルズして最後のライブとなる映画「LET IT BE」の屋上でのライブを再現した、「All You Need Is Love」のエンディングは実に見事な演出である。場面、曲の選択とともに、大変に美しい終わり方であった。 一般的に、どのような映画でも面白くないところがあるものだが、この「アクロス ザ ユニバース」は、どの場面においても、それぞれの感激が満ち溢れている。ビートルズの曲を材料とした映画の中では、「I am Sam」以来の秀作である。 ビートルズファンは当然のこと、ビートルズをあまり知らない人たちにもぜひ観てもらい、ビートルズの曲のすばらしさを知るきっかけとなってほしい映画である。

タイタスという映画に感銘を受けて同監督の作品ならやっぱり素晴らしいだろうと思って観てみました。期待通りでとても良かったです。演技と歌の人達が皆ルックスも声もあたたかさがあり魅力的でした。曲のアレンジも、囁くような話し声からだんだん歌に変化していったりとセンスの良さを感じました。ビートルズの好きな人、又イマジネーション豊かな映像の好きな人必見の映画です。特典のフォトギャラリー等も盛り沢山でした。