Turn Off the Jukebox
-
Artist:
-
Album:
-
Track:
Somebody decided that it would be a masterstroke to cross-breed the heavy-handed late-‘60s “rock” musical “Hair,” which attempted to co-opt and sanitize the counter-culture of the day (those free-spirited hippies and their psychedelic hymnal) for Broadway consumption, with the catalogue of the most successful recording artists of the 20th century, The Beatles - and capture the results on film. Well, it exists; I saw it, and allow me to say here and now: Bad idea.For the moment, let’s set aside its obvious origin in the minds of greedy producers, arrogant moviemakers, and music-publishing bean-counters eager to repurpose the most valuable, marketable collection of songs since Noel Coward tickled the ivories in a martini haze and warbled to an equally inebriated saloon full of swells. It sounds like nothing more than the cinematic equivalent of a jukebox musical such as “Mamma Mia” and “Movin’ Out,” doesn’t it?Ah, the jukebox musical – a theatrical banality that pillages and exploits songs by time-tested hit-makers and shoehorns them into what passes for a plot while in fact being a simplistic framework for a parade of familiar, cockle-warming tunes. And that’s about the size of “Across the Universe,” directed by mistress of stage spectacle Julie Taymor whose realization of Disney’s animated feature “The Lion King” as a piece for theater won six 1998 Tony Awards including best director and best musical, plus a lot of other fancy trophies.But how great could expectations be for “The Lion King,” with its Mouse-House cartoon source, and its M.O.R. anthems and balladry written by that old show-biz panderer Elton John and “Jesus Christ Superstar” lyricist Tim Rice? “Mamma Mia” skipped through the frothy songbook of Swedish pop stars ABBA and “Movin’ Out” took on the cocktail-lounge-y pop-rock confessionals of suburban New York singer-composer Billy Joel, both in the context of generational sagas that dumb down the complexity and turbulence of Western society in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Sad to say, “Across the Universe” has the temerity to try the same thing with the closest thing to sanctified music in the rock era – that of the Beatles.I recognize the commercial expedience of “Across the Universe,” which calls to mind the recent use of re-edited John Lennon-Paul McCartney and George Harrison tunes as the score for the Las Vegas-based Cirque de Soleil show “Love.” That don’t make it right.Commencing in the ‘60s heyday of the Fab Four, “Across the Universe” introduces various characters named after people in Beatles songs, including British working-class boy Jude (Jim Sturgess), a would-be artist who takes off for the U.S. in search of his estranged father; middle-class American girl Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), whose boyfriend enlists and ships out to Nam, leaving her bereft and, eventually, radicalized; Lucy’s brother Maxwell (Joe Anderson), who decides to drop out of Princeton and relocate with Jude to a crowded Greenwich Village apartment overseen by sexy Sadie (Dana Fuchs), a hard-livin’, hard-lovin’ singer; passionate black guitarist Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy); adorable, sensitive Midwestern dyke Prudence (T.V. Carpio), etc.Everybody in the main cast sings pretty well, and the material ranges from the group’s “lovable mop-top” days (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”) to the mind-expanded “Lonely Hearts Club Band” period (“With a Little Help from My Friends”) to the bittersweet end (“Because”). Dialogue is shamelessly cribbed from familiar lyrics, and Taymor references Beatle iconography - album cover art, photographs, biographical notes, and memorable live action (“A Hard Day’s Night,” “Let It Be”) and animated (“Yellow Submarine”) film vignettes.To be fair, the computer-generated effects that give “Across the Universe” a fantastical sheen are truly special. The actors completely commit to the script, and there are notable guest vocalists including Bono on “I Am the Walrus,” Joe Cocker doing “Come Together,” and Eddie Izzard talk-singing his way through “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.”All that considered, the cumulative effect is still craven, and the whole deal is probably five years too late if you could find any justification for it at all. “Across the Universe” is not as bad as that abominable mid-‘70s “Sgt. Pepper” movie with the BeeGees. Nonetheless, we’ve seen it all before, and didn’t need to see it again. The Beatles’ canon is foolproof pop, but that means there's always gonna be some fool trying to piggyback on it for profit.One more thing. Evan Rachel Wood is certainly a babe…
Comments (32)
Can you cite any footage that was in the 1968 release but isn't in the current restored version? Because i remember the '68 version fairly well, and i can't recall anything - certainly nothing of significance.
There's material that was *shot*, but apparently never made it into any released version - as when the Sheriff and his men beat up Harmonica, and, possibly Frank and Jill's "love" scene and Cheyenne's assaault on the train, but the Very Extensive commentary on thr restored version doesn't mention anything that was in the '68 but isn't now.
Using As Time Goes By in *Casablanca* - or any other existing song as incidental music (and, even though it's used as a plot point, it is "incidental" music - its use fits Hitchcock's definition of the McGuffin - something important to the chatacters that the plot turns on that is otherwise of no intrinsic interest to the viewer) in a film is not the same as building the entire film around a group of pre-existing songs. (Make 'Em Laugh is an "original", granted, but steals its tune from Be a Clown)
What other musicals of any significance are based on pre-existing songs in that manner?
(*Trivia Question*: As Time Goes By was used in a film prior to *Casablanca*. Right off hand, i don't know the film's title - but who *sang* it then? {The answer can be found in the liner notes on one of Harry Nilsson's albums, incidentally...}.)