“All You Need Is Love” Across the Universe: Julie Taymor & The Beatles By Jen Johans |
| Upon their arrival, Max and Jude are thrilled to meet their sexy new landlord, Dana Fuchs’ Sadie in a role created by Taymor especially for the singer who’d starred in Love, Janis on Broadway (IMDb). However, the youthful innocence on display early on ends abruptly when Lucy learns that Daniel is dead and simultaneously we cut to the Detroit riots. There in a stirring rendition of “Let It Be” first sung by a child who becomes a victim himself which grows into a heartbreaking gospel chorus, we witness Lucy grieve on the east coast along with the mourners in Michigan. We also meet Martin Luther McCoy’s Jo-Jo as he leaves Detroit for New York City and catch our first glimpse of both the era's darkness to come and Taymor’s film from the “Let It Be” and “Come Together" sequences as Jo-Jo begins his own quest east. While incidentally, John Lennon first wrote "Come Together" to be the official gubernatorial campaign song for Timothy Leary before his campaign fell apart due to his activities with drugs, to Generation X, it was an even more recognizable song due to its cover by Aerosmith, who’d performed it in the film version of Sgt. Pepper (Harry, 170). In Universe, the song is performed by Joe Cocker, who also appears in a series of cameos as a bum, pimp (below), etc. Cocker is perhaps best known to Beatles fan for his cover of “With a Little Help From My Friends,” and in lending a little help to Universe, he helps bridge the tonal transition that moves Taymor’s film out of the first act and into the next. It’s also the number that serves to link Jo-Jo with Sadie, Max and Jude and also ends with the introduction of Prudence to the group as she comes in “through the bathroom window,” to quote another Beatles lyric. Later, preferring to spend the summer with her brother Max in New York rather than visit Europe with her wealthy parents, Lucy leaves her suburban existence, ironically trying to reassure her worried mom that, “the big bad city’s not gonna get me.” Taymor makes this line instantly ironic when she cues a passionate performance by Sadie singing “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” as Lucy meets everyone at the Café Huh? which is a reference to Greenwich Village’s famous Café Wha? No longer dressed in knee socks, neatly pressed blouses and skirts, we see a much different looking, casual and more subdued Lucy, still trying to come to grips with Daniel’s death. Picking up on her mood, Jude impulsively leaves his date to go for a walk with Lucy wherein she confesses that a military order has arrived by mail for Max and she can barely bring herself to give it to him. Helping her out, Jude and the others sit at a diner with Max all swapping stories of possible ways to get out of the draft, ranging from swallowing cotton balls to make a shadow on an x-ray to eating beets so that his urine will resemble blood, but Jo-Jo, who has already served tells him that even if he burns his letter, he still has to report. While Max continues to joke about the situation with the rest, over the following days Lucy finds a shoulder to lean on in the form of Jude as they grow closer together and eventually become lovers. Just as inevitably as they fall into one another’s arms, the day arrives when Max needs to report to headquarters to get checked over by Uncle Sam. In the film’s most politically charged, masterfully audacious and impressive sequence set to “I Want You/She’s So Heavy,” that seems to have been envisioned by several wholly original revelations by Taymor, relating the lyrics to the military process and war. Additionally, she reveals in the DVD how she began imaging it piece by piece, sometimes coming up with a new idea each day. The lyrics “I Want You” which double as Uncle Sam’s famous tagline come to life via animation as the poster shouts at Max upon his entrance and as Taymor noted on the DVD, he gets evaluated and stripped via rough treatment as his individual identity is quickly taken away in favor of being part of the "army of one." As you watch the clip which follows the photos, note the way that every element falls into place, for example when the cubicles drop down from the ceiling in perfect unison and everything cuts smoothly from one actor to the next in military precision. And in its boldest moment, as the lyrics turn to “She’s So Heavy,” Taymor produces a brilliantly unexpected twist in showing the men all carrying the heavy Statue of Liberty upon their backs while stripped down to their boxer shorts, taking on the country’s heavy demands on their innocent, young shoulders as if—she reveals on the DVD-- they’re slaves in ancient Egypt. Moving from the impending doom of Max’s future to the power of love and compassion, the characters intervene when they realize that Prudence has locked herself in the closet and proceed to lure her out with “Dear Prudence,” which John Lennon had written for Mia Farrow’s reclusive, introverted sister when he “was asked to contact her and make sure she came out more often and mixed with people,” after she became too caught up in studying under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Harry, 189). While it’s usage in Universe is certainly an ironic twist given her orientation, it’s a sweet scene that shows the love the roommates living under Sadie’ s roof have for one another, which epitomizes the spirit of peace and love of the 60’s flower children. |
| Text Only (c) Jen Johans. filmintuition.com |
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| Note: When originally posted in 2008, the embedded videos we found online were all in working order. However, due to Sony Pictures copyright violation, a majority of the clips have now been removed from YouTube. We've chosen to leave all of the original videos throughout the piece to give you a reference point of where to follow along when you watch the film on your own to best appreciate the essay. |
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