Julie Taymor, director of Across the Universe, strives to transcend. With roots in theater, opera, puppetry and television, her productions - like the hugely popular Broadway production of The Lion King - reflect a layered and dynamic artist. She recently spoke with Street about her film, influences and why the '60s are still relevant to today's youth.
Street: You're known for wanting today's youth to be more active. What's missing in contemporary social movements and where do you fit in?
Taymor: My belief is that entertainment can be both fun and cause discussion. The first thing is for people to start discussing what they see. In the '60s there was the war and a strong desire for change. We should look at how change was started and continued by the youth movement. And I'm not just talking about the Iraq war, but many, many issues that need to be discussed openly and actively these days.
Street: Of all the Beatles songs you were selecting from, was there one song that you wanted to use but couldn't fit in with the story?
Taymor: There were many of them. Like "Yesterday," "The Comedy of Sgt. Pepper," and others. There are so many marvelous songs, but some just didn't work in the film, whether they seemed a bit corny or contrived. The songs were used to tell the story, so we didn't need some of the great ones in the screenplay.
Street: Of all the other artists that were influential during this time, why did you choose to use the Beatles?
Taymor: Because it was to be a Beatles musical, of course. [Bob] Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and others weren't the point. It wasn't like Moulin Rouge where we were going to take different songs and create a tapestry. It was specifically a Beatles opera.
Street: Which came first - the songs and then the story, or vice versa?
Taymor: It's both ways. We chose the Beatles catalogue and a simplistic love story that revolves around and developed in tangent with the decisions to use the songs. The scene with Jude and the SDR [Students for a Democratic Republic] - which was based on the real-life Students for a Democratic Society - when he sings "Revolution," came together out of the music. However, the song that follows that scene is set to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," which interplays with the assassination of MLK Jr. and the relationship struggle between Jude and Lucy; that was a pragmatic use of music. Once the characters were developed, you could find songs that kept their stories going. Things just jumped up and together; it was a lightbulb kind of thing.
Street: Is it still hard for female directors to break into the industry these days?
Taymor: Not as much as it used to be, but women still need to hold on tight. If they don't have a big success the first time around, they have a lot harder of a time trying to get a second and third film made. There's still some inequalities.
Street: There have been numerous reports that you and the studio (Sony) fought extensively about the film's cutting. How did you end up winning that battle?
Taymor: (Laughing) That's a bit personal. All I can say is that I'm not the only artist to go to battle. Many artists fight the same struggle that I had to. You just have to hang in there and get your work made in the way you want it. But I'm not against compromise if it's for the best; I try to listen and appreciate the collaborative nature of film. I also come from other disciplines where getting my art made according to how I see it has always been true. When I make a film, it can sometimes be harder to do that.
Street: Can you describe the differences between work in theater and work in film?
Taymor: I like working with other mediums. It allows a combination of naturalism and all these other elements. Cinema gives me that power, that tool to do what I want. You can be theatrical and imagistic with cinema. Not theatrical in the sense of being on a stage, but rather acting out drama and sentimentality in more delicate ways - one can't always do that with theater. When I do theater, I do what it does best. My productions, like The Lion King, are highly mechanized - you can see the puppetry, the mechanics of the stage and its workings. In Universe, it's shot as a real studio movie over a long period of time. I try to work with that and its strengths. I try to adapt to what each medium does best.
Street: What makes Universe different from other films out today like the musical Hairspray?
Taymor: I'd say it's not a musical; it's a rock opera .?I'm for pure entertainment sometimes, and I also like raw movies that mandate you to think when you're watching them. But I wanted to make a movie that combines those two qualities - a movie unlike most movies these days. This one has surrealism, magic, realism and everything.
Street: Do you think people of an older generation are going to be attracted to this movie?
Taymor: Well, so far, so good. I've seen it of the age of the '60s who lived back then, and I think this movie should appeal to everybody. From ten-year-olds to those of that time. And for 40 years there have been covers of the Beatles' songs - both good and bad. Good renditions are still moving and can sometimes even transcend the originals given the context. The fact that it's appealing to college-age students is also really gratifying. Its about young people, and we were aiming for them. But people of all generations should hopefully respond to this story.
Street: What did you do to make this movie relevant to today?
Taymor: I don't think the Beatles songs are out of date. They're too good, too fresh, to get old. One can do bad versions of them, but the songs themselves are still relevant to people going through heartbreaking, glorious, poetic, weird, mystifying and wacked-out experiences. We also have cameos ranging from Bono to Joe Cocker to Eddie Izzard. We also have some newer actors like Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess; Sturgess, especially, is blowing everyone away. And it's not about plot in the musical - it's about the feeling conveyed through the songs and that sense of being pulled into the movie.
Street: Why is my generation so fascinated by the '60s?
Taymor: Right now kids have tremendous freedom. In the '60s the kids were forced to rebel against everything from hair to their futures to their politics. I think it's appealing to see a generation of revolutionaries. Yet this same generation is your parents - a generation that got very conservative. But back then it was cool to be arrogant, rebellious and out there doing what you wanted to do regardless of the authority. There were all these movements about free love, black power and anti-war. It was a time of change, and the change came from youth. The youth always has that power, and they have to grab it and go against the authority. Right now we have a very insidious authority, and we have the Internet that keeps people together but separated. We need to look back then, notice that it was when they were out in the streets was when the fires got started. I want to show what that wave of excitement was like to the youth of today.
Street: What is our generation like compared to the '60s?
Taymor: I think it's quiet. I think it's fairly obvious that the draft in the '60s got people out there. Right now we don't have the draft, and it's a different group of people going to fight Iraq. If they got the draft going again, there would be an uproar. Bush knows this and so does everyone else. Most people need something personal before they get active. Americans, as individuals, haven't changed except that things are less personal these days. I do think our media have changed. Big conglomerates own everything, and there is less independent thought and art being created. I don't think I'm saying anything very crazy here - I'm saying what many agree is true.
Street: Were you trying to tell a personal story in this film?
Taymor: Well not my story, personally. But it is a story that I personally invested in. And anything that you personally invest in is important to tell well. The characters Lucy and Max are loosely based on my older brother and sister. My siblings were radicals and dropouts. I also watched my parents in this decade and how they reacted to the turbulent times such as the war and the drugs. It's also about the ideas, values and stories that you want to tell. As a director to spend years getting immersed in a story, which means you have to love it. And as an artist you get chipped at constantly, so you need to stay with it completely or not at all. You have to be careful not to get narcissistic, but you have to have a clear vision and hang on strongly to that vision.
Street: Have you gotten any feedback from Ringo or Paul?
Taymor: Ringo was the first to see an early cut. He said he really liked it. I sat next to Paul in a private screening, and it was the most nerve-racking, difficult screening I've had to do. But at the end of it, I asked him if there was anything he didn't like, and he said, "What's not to like?" Yoko liked it as well. On that front, we've been very pleased with the response. It was a big burden to take on this music, and I constantly wondered if we were doing justice to it.
Street: How did you hold the songs true to the brilliance of the originals?
Taymor: The arrangements are incredible. The artists working on the score -- like Elliot Goldenthal - stripped down the songs and started with the characters and the scene. The songs are also relevant, and they speak for all times. Songs like "Strawberry Fields" and "I Am the Walrus" are still more outrageous than most songs today, which strike me as so fucking-excuse me-bland. When the actress Dana Fuchs starts singing "Why Don't We Do it in the Road," it is so great. We've lost so much with this commercial stuff these days. But people will recognize and hang onto these songs in the movie. It's not old-fashioned or quaint by any means. Also, Joe Cocker sings the greatest rendition of "Come Together" I've ever heard.
Street: The images in the film were so beautiful, artistic and creative. What inspired these images?
Taymor: In the '60s I saw the puppetry in the protests, the crying Vietnamese ladies in giant theatrical images that moved people on the streets. This was very inspiring to me. I saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. My sister was one of the screaming girls. She then became a very radical, protesting and passionately active person. This made a big impression on me as a little girl. The Vietnam War, Kent State, the Weathermen - they were all on TV for me.
Street: I Want You (She's So Heavy) is a very powerful song in the movie. Can you talk about that scene?
Taymor: My favorite image from that segment is the one of soldiers carrying the Statue of Liberty through the jungle. That moment, one of young boys stripped in underwear and combat boots trudging through the jungle, is immensely meaningful to me. Same with "Strawberry Fields." I had some great artists working with me like my editor Fran‡oise Bonnot, and Bruno Delbonnel, who helped make those scenes so beautiful.
Street: Visually it looks really cool. How important was that to you?
Taymor: It's important for the visuals to match the brilliance of the music. Usually on stage, we have extravagant dancing or stunningly simple solos. I figured we should jump on where The Beatles started, who, during their time, were making some of the first music videos. It's largely about the texture of the music, the times and the epic nature of the setting. The first thing to do was hang onto the lead characters and then look at the experience of the movie that we were trying to make. We wanted to celebrate the magic of expression.
