Filmmaker Julie Taymor had her work cut out for her directing and co-writing the recent film musical "Across the Universe," which opens nationwide this Friday. Taymor's task of reinterpreting the music of the Beatles was not a light one.
"I was in the room when Paul McCartney saw it," she said. "It was the most nerve-racking thing I've ever done."
Writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais first presented Taymor with the story.
"The music came first," she said. "The idea was to create a musical with the music of the Beatles."
When Taymor became involved in the project, "Across the Universe" was a simple love story between main characters Jude and Lucy. She added three more characters - Sadie, JoJo and Prudence - and fleshed out Lucy's character. She made the story more serious, using her childhood as inspiration.
"I was Julia [Max and Lucy's younger sister in the movie], and my brother and sister were Max and Lucy," Taymor said. "I saw what my parents went through with them, not understanding."
Taymor's sister was active in Students for a Democratic Society, the real-life version of the movie's Students for a Democratic Republic. Her brother was a college dropout, like Max, and she even borrowed some dialogue from him.
"The part at the dinner table where Max says, 'Do, do, do! It's not what you do, it's who you are,' that came from an actual conversation my brother had with my dad," she said.
Taymor's past is further drawn into the movie with the stunning visual displays that she's become known for. As director, costume designer and co-mask and puppet designer, Taymor brought her vision most notably to "The Lion King" on Broadway. She has a strong history in elaborate puppetry and brought this into several parts of the movie.
Aside from her own history, Taymor worked hard to incorporate the history of the 1960s into "Across the Universe."
"It used to be cool to be smart," she said of the era. "Music is the voice of young people; it's how they speak. Now, there's almost nothing to rebel against. They can do anything. There used to be something to fight for."
Indeed, Taymor does use music as "the voice of young people" in "Across the Universe."
"I wanted the songs to feel like dialogue, inner thoughts and hallucinations," she said.
The idea was to make songs a natural part of the movie. With this in mind, as much singing was done live as possible in the movie.
"I wanted you to hear the transition of speaking to singing," she said.
Taymor listened to every Beatles song, over 200 in all, and covers of the songs by different artists before choosing the 33 that ended up in the movie. "The songs suggested the story," she said, "I was listening to a woman's cover of 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' and when she got to 'I want to be your man,' it clicked. There was Prudence. There was her character."
Taymor's inspiration was varied.
"I was walking down a beach in Mexico listening to 'She's So Heavy,'" Taymor said. "And I thought about the slaves carrying the stone for the pyramids. It's so heavy. It's a heavy thing to say we have the right to invade a country. Liberty is heavy. It's a heavy thing. That's where the idea of Max carrying the Statue of Liberty through Vietnam came from."
Regardless of inspiration, her passion is evident.
"I wanted ["Across the Universe"] to be like the Beatles' songs: unbelievably entertaining, fully emotional and substantive," Taymor said.
