Happy Sad Confused - Julie Taymor

Episode Date: July 18, 2018

It's been 11 years since "Across the Universe" was released in theaters and today it remains no less miraculous than it was then. Featuring over 30 iconic Beatles songs in an array of show-stopping spectacular sequences, the movie musical immediately earned a small but devoted cult following. Now it's getting another shot on the big screen. On July 29, 31, and August 1, the film will screen in over 450 theaters (more info at FathomEvents.com).  Joining Josh to detail how the film came to be, why it's more resonant than ever, and why it never got the release it deserved, is visionary filmmaker Julie Taymor. Listen to her today and you'll see her passion for this project hasn't waned, if anything it's grown.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. Today on Happy, Sad, Confused, Visionary Filmmaker Julie Tameur brings across the universe back to the big screen. Hey, guys, I'm Josh Harowitz. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Hi, guys, I'm Josh. This is my podcast. Thanks for tuning in.

Do people tune into podcasts? I don't know. Thanks for clicking play. This week's guest, Julie Tameor, and, you know, I use the term visionary carefully. I think she is a true visionary, both as a director for the stage and the big screen. She's, of course, very well-known for creating the theatrical experience that is and was the Lion King. I think still the most profitable, most successful theater enterprise ever, still going strong. And some of her films, all of her films, are wholly unique.

truly artistically challenging, provocative, and fascinating, and none more so than across the universe, which came out 11 years ago and had kind of a storied past. For those that don't know or just to refresh your memory, across the universe was this amazing blend of, I think, 33, maybe 34 Beatles songs, and like the big Beatles songs, the ones that everybody knows. And somehow Sony and Tame Moore got the rights of the songs, convinced the powers that be to let them use all this Beatles music and create this narrative of the 60s starring Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgis and had cameos from Bono and Eddie Isard and Joe Cocker. And it was just an amazing and it remains an amazing theatrical experience and very much ahead of its time. You know, this was before, came out before, I believe, Moulin Rouge, and, of course, recent films like, you know, Le Miz and Lalland. So it's really cool that 11 years later, this is a story and a film that's getting a bit of a re-release.

If you go to Fathom Events, I believe it's fathom Events.com, check out all the information. This across the universe is going to be screened. I believe it's on three different days. at July 29th, July 31st, and August 1st. It's going to be in over 400 theaters nationwide. You can see it on the big screen, and this is certainly a film that demands this to be seen on the big screen. It's a true spectacle. The music is gorgeous. The visuals are astounding, and you get to see, I mean, you know, this was the film that really, I think, helped launch Evan Rachel Wood to New Heights. It was Jim Sturge's first film. And it's just a, you know, I always enjoy it when a

film like this that didn't get maybe it's due at the time, gets a second chance. So that's what this conversation today is all about. The unfortunate note is you might notice in the running time of the podcast you're listening to today, that this is one of the shorter, happy, say, I confused podcast ever. So this was a bit out of my control, and long story short, our conversation was just getting going. It was honestly in its infancy. We were just getting into the background of the film. And I had an old family emergency. Don't worry. Everything's fine. Totally on me. I had to run out of there. I got an urgent call. Everything's fine. Rest easy. But suffice to say, I had to lead the conversation with Julie Tamor.

And Julie couldn't have been nicer about it. Couldn't have been more understanding. Look, these things happen. So she was very cool about it. And I'm very appreciative that she was willing to roll with it and understood that sometimes life intervenes. The good news is that this is still a pretty substantive chat about across the universe. Like, we really, she really, you know, is very passionate about this film and has a lot of really interesting things to say about how it was made and the production history and the release strategy that was very kind of like controversial at the time. She wasn't really pleased with it. So there's a lot of good stuff in here, even though it's way too short for my taste.

And frankly, there was so much more I wanted to talk to Julie Tamer about her other feature films, her other theatrical work. You know, she's one of the more interesting, you know, voices and visualists, I think, in film today. And she's actually working on a Gloria Steinem film, I believe, right now. So I didn't get to all of that stuff. So this is across-the-universe-centric, way too short, but at least do you get this, huh? It's still free. So we'll get Julie Taymore back and do more of a career conversation at a later date.

So in exchange for that, for this abbreviated conversation, I'll give you a quick lit of debrief on what's going on in Josh Harowitz's life and more importantly, career. You don't care about my life, but you want to hear about the movies and the interviews and stuff. And there's a lot that's been going on. I just came back from a trip to Paris. You can hate me now, yes. I went to Paris for the world premiere of Mission Impossible Fallout, the sixth Mission Impossible movie, that is awesome. I think, you know, I've talked about this series and my love of this series.

The last one was fantastic. Christopher McQuarr directed that one, and he returns. He's the first filmmaker to return for a Second Mission Impossible film. He directed both of these, and this one has so many jaw-dropping stunts, set pieces galore, an amazing supporting performance by Henry Cavill. I mean that, too. I mean, this is probably the best use of Henry Cavill in a film. Really will open up, I think, some new doors for him.

He's great. Tom Cruise is great. Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby's added to the mix. I love this movie. One of my favorites of the year. Everything I hoped it would be and more. So that comes out next week. Mission Impossible Fall Out.

There's my earlier review of that. My interviews with everybody, I got a chance to sit down with Tom Cruise, which is a rarity. He does not do many sit down. interviews. I got a chance to sit down with him. We had a lot of fun. There's some fun stuff coming from that. I did the math. I thought about it over the years. This was my, I think, 10th interview with Tom Cruise, which is, like, I mean, I can't even believe it. And he's, I mean, this guy's a movie star. This guy is the template for movie star. And I love talking to him. I love talking to this entire cast. It was a dream come true to go to Paris to talk to him on the

carpet in front of the Eiffel Tower. The shots on the carpet were iconic. You had basically two giant icons. Iful Tower, Tom Cruise. They knew what they were doing. So yes, a lot of cool content, a lot of cool interviews. Check out. I'll tweet out all the stuff, but if you check into, I think, MTV's YouTube page, that stuff will start to populate in the next week, a week and a half. And if that weren't enough, as I record this on my iPhone, it may sound a little won't wonky today. Apologies. I am packing up for my next big adventure. Comic-Con. Comic-Con, San Diego. Here I come. I think this is my 11th Comic-Con, something like that, in a row. I haven't missed one. I love Comic-Con. It kills me every year because they work me to the bone, but I'm not

complaining. I live for this stuff, and I am set to sit down by my last count with 27 groups of people talking about the biggest movies and TV shows in the Comic-Con universe. So, so many of my favorites, your favorites, I'll be talking to. Again, I'm going to flood the zone. MTV's going to flood the zone. There's a lot of content. Way more Josh Horowitz than you could ever imagine or want is about to come at you. But, you know, all the big franchise movies, comic movies, sci-fi.

It's all coming at you. I'm psyched. I'm not going to see any panels because I basically am seated in the MTV set where we just bring in cast after cast and I try to stay coherent. So hopefully all will go well. Hopefully you guys will be as entertained by the conversations as I am. I hope I'm entertained too. I hope I don't get bored. I won't.

It's going to be great. So lots to come at you. Look out for Mission Impossible stuff. Look out for 25, 35, 3,000 interviews, who knows, from Comic-Con. If you can't be there, live vicariously through me, my social media, MTV, social media, and it'll feel like you were there. And if you're in San Diego, if you're in Comic-Con, look out for me. I'll be there.

I'll be wandering around aimlessly, grabbing food when I can, when they give me five minutes to myself. Don't be afraid to say, hey. Say you listen to Happy Sag Infused. say you spread the good word like a good listener. You better have. And yeah, it's always good to see you folks out there. So please say hi if you see me. And yes, spread the good word of happy second, fused, rate, review, and subscribe on iTunes. And I guess without any further ado, enjoy this conversation. Abbreviated, again, apologies, Julie Tymour, and go to Fathom Events, F-A-T-H-O-M-Events.com. And all the information on where you can see across the universe, July 29th, July 31st, and August 1st are there. Check it out if you can. It's a film well worth checking out one more time.

And without any further ado, here's Julie. I'm so privileged to have Julie Tameur in my office. Thanks so much for coming in today. Welcome. Thank you. So congratulations. on many fronts. I mean, you know, the goal, I think, one of the goals of any artist is a longevity of a career and art that speaks to people in the moment and also has

longevity. And here we are. The reason you're in here today is the re-release of across the universe, 10 plus years after the fact. So this must be a source of great pride that there's this interest. There is. I'm very, I mean, it's a good, it's good timing. It's the 10th anniversary. What is it since we've made the film? But it's also the 50th anniversary of 1968, which was, they call it Summer of Love, but it also had some pretty heinous events happening. Right.

So I want to talk about many, there's many aspects of this film that are worthy of discussion. First, I mean, just from like, I mean, I remember when this came out, and it was just such a audacious idea, audacious project, and just the fact that it came into existence, it seems like a

miracle, considering Gazentite, no worries, considering the source material using, what, 33, 34, Beatle songs. Can we just get into sort of logistically, like, where did this crazy, amazing idea come from, and how do you even begin to procure the rights to something like that that these guys feel is so close to them? Well, first of all, it wasn't my project. I didn't start it. So, Revolution with a producer, Matt Gross, and a couple of other people got the rights with this,

concept of making a movie musical, and they hired Dick Clements and Ila Frenet, the screenwriters, the English Brits, you know, the comedians, who also did, what was that fabulous movie they did, rock and roll, Irish movie. Oh, oh, the commitments? Yeah, they did that. Anyway, they came up with a very, very basic concept, like one paragraph. It was called All You Need is Love. That was the original title to be.

and it was with about three young white people one from Liverpool who was looking for his dad in America and then a brother and sister who ended up being Lucy and Max Jude coming over and it took place during the time of the Beatles which is the same as the movie as now

which the songs were during what seven years 1960 what one or two for seven years and I read that treatment I actually had been asked by Peter Gelb who ran Sony classical in New York if I wanted to make a musical using the Beatles music for Broadway. So I had already had my brain wrapped around this idea. I was going to do it with Salman Rushdie because I know he's a big rock and roller

and I really wanted to do it and I was very excited. Our whole take was very different. It wasn't the 60s. It was a whole different idea of moving backwards, probably more. absurdist and crazy, but at any rate, Peter moved out of Sony, went to the Metropolitan Opera, and then I got a call from Joe Roth and his company Revolution to see if I would be interested in directing this, and of course I was. I mean, I was just totally thrilled to be asked. So I joined forces with the two writers and came up with a different concept. I mean, not completely

different, but I basically chose the songs. They had Penny Lane and Eleanor Rigby and all these songs that really would have been much harder to fit into a story because across the universe is about those characters, those six young people and their names, people laugh at this idea. They either get it, love it, or think it's ridiculous, which is her name is Lucy, his name is Max, Jude, Sadie, Jojo, and Prudence. But I swear, I have to come back with this. If West Side Story, if Tony was singing a song to the girl and the song is Maria, let's hope her real name isn't Esther. Right.

Thematically it works, yes. Esther or Esther or Esther, Esther, Esther. I mean, you have what is so great about these Beatles songs as they did. Jojo was a, you know, sexy Sadie. Now, we didn't put every one of the songs in, but for those people who grew up with these songs, there is resonance to hear Sadie. You know she's sexy Sadie. You know she did certain things that weren't great.

And Prudence, dear Prudence, why don't you come out and play? Now, for us, we take it literally that Prudence is in the closet, literally in the closet, but also figuratively, emotionally, sexually, and in that period, she, that character, doesn't know she's gay. She doesn't know she's gay. She has these feelings for men and women, and she has to, this is a coming of age, for many of them, for all the young people. So I basically grew up with the Beatles. I'm the little girl in the movie who's the blonde girl who opens the door and looks at her older brother and sister. That older brother and sister modeled very loosely after my brother and sister.

And my family and the hell that my family went through during the Vietnam War and the psychedelic and the LSD. And my sister was a radical Lori and was in SDS. and she didn't drop bombs, Molotov cocktails, but her husband did. He was seriously a radical. She was more of a mover, more of an activist like Lucy. She would have been that. And my brother was a college dropout, and he enlisted into the war early, but was rejected, thank God. But he thought he'd just go to the war, and one of the lines in the movie is,

he thought he would go into the army and play chess and box. You know, I mean, it was before people knew how bad Vietnam was going to be. Right. And he was a musician. So I lived through that time watching what was going on. I also was in the Bread and Puppet Theater. So I had marched in one of these giant Vietnamese ladies against the war later as I was getting older, like 14 or 15. And so I worked with these two older Brits and made it more American, but also I found,

felt at the time we were going to be committed to just Beatles, you know, John, Paul, George, and Lennon's music, John, Paul, George, and Ringo's music, because Ringo did actually get credited for one song. But I felt the reason I added Sadie and Jojo to the equation was because these musicians were very inspired by African American music, as were the Rolling Stones and almost all the bands, the white bands of that. period were totally inspired and influenced in some places too far, went too far, and actually stole stuff. But anyway, I felt that the other two great musicians of that era, Jimmy Hendricks and Janice Joplin, that I could represent them and that feeling in how I cast the other characters. So Martin Luther is not an actor. He was a great singer and guitar player. He plays, you know, It's live. Most of 95% of it is sung live and performed live. But he came in as Jojo. We auditioned him and he clearly could act. And the same with Dana Fuchs, who has a band, the Dana Fuchs band, and had played Janice Joplin off Broadway. But I just, I saw her at a small club here and I really thought I got to have that voice. So when you start taking, oh, darling, and you put it with that voice, the raw, raspy, or Or helter-skelter, and she also, why don't we do it in the road?

You know, it takes it out of the sweet white boy thing. And, I mean, the brilliance of the Beatles is that they sang these songs as 15-year-old girls. This is what I always feel is that the reason you see these girls screaming in the, you know, background and in the foreground is they wrote songs like, I want to hold your hand, hold me tight, all my loving. no, there isn't a young white male band today that would sing a song like that. They're singing from the sentiment of a 15-year-old girl who's falling in love for the first time. And that's why it connects.

And it connects. And I didn't appreciate those early Beatles until I really delved into this musical. And then Elliot Goldenthal was my other half, who did the score, and he did about 80% of the arrangements. We just so fell in love and admired these songs, how brilliant. they are. So those songs moving from those into the psychedelic era, you know, into the crazy stuff that Bono sings, I Am the Walrus, and that period, and then into revolution and number nine, a day in a life, you watch this band grow up and we condensed their seven years into two or three in the story. And you see this innocence that's almost 1950s of this suburban.

urban girl and her high school sweetheart who goes to enlists in the war and dies. And you watch her become radical. And you see, okay, this is a 16-year-old girl that as she sees what's happening to her friends and her culture and her country, she becomes an activist. And I feel that is what's happening now. When you look at those Parkland school kids and you see that it had to happen to them personally to activate them. It's a shame, but that's just the way it is. That because we had a draft in the 60s, there was an anti-war movement. There is no draft now, so it takes real commitment to get people real, they have to have it pushed in their face. They have to see the black kids on the streets getting shot. They have to see this monster up there selling out

our country to this dictator and these other dictators and realize They're young. This is their country and their future. And I believe that Sony supports putting out this movie and fathom this summer because it's pre it's pre the midterms. But also we're very inspired by the young people now who are rising up and saying, we have to protest. We have to do more than that. We have to vote. As you and I were talking, there's absolutely no power. And even the voting is scary if the Russians are controlling our voting.

you know if they're putting this stuff out and we just how do we battle this right so i you know i'm curious like have you noticed in the last few years has this is this a film that's constantly come back around that you're noticing that you know a film many films most films don't have much of a shelf life they come and go and people don't talk about them but this one seems to you know i think i think i always admire the products they go for it they go for broke and all of your projects do you know for good or better better or worse no but i mean i mean what's the Why bother devoting two or three years of your life if you're not going to really just go out there? And I think the best projects do kind of turn people on and off, and this one did.

Do you feel like this one has just been a persistent kind of grower in terms of finding new audiences in the last 10 years? I don't know. For sure, I don't know. I know that we had a big battle about final cut, about the cut years ago, and you win and you lose. We won the cut. We lost the release strategy, right. We didn't, weren't released. We had a Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical

and Comedy and Musical. There were no Golden Globes that year because of the Iraq War. Oh my gosh. So we ended up selling tons of DVDs. Right. So it was a smash hit the weekend that they started to sell, but it means a lot of people didn't see it in the movie theater. That's why, you know, you're helping,

but we're encouraging people to go with their families and their friends and see it because a big musical like this. And it's 10 times. as big as La La Land. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. It is the grand mommy to high school music. Those musicals came after. And we did it live before Moulin Rouge. In fact, I told the director of Moulin Rouge how to shoot live, you know, how to have the actors singing live, because he thought that you had to pre-record and have it dubbed. And 95% of, the only

reason we wouldn't do it live is if there were airplanes overhead, it was too noisy, or in the case of the character Max, he could sing live, but he would get nervous. But everybody else was absolutely live. And so I think that it's a cult film, really, when they say that people, I hear that I saw it 15, 20 times. So if people loved it, like a good album, they would play it over and over again. Then there is, because of the marketing, which we didn't like the poster, I really disliked that, intensely disliked the poster that was put out with the strawberry and the two. It was like a teeny bopper film. And so everybody, my age and older, never even would have looked at that movie because it looked like just early Beatles.

You know what I mean? It looked just like a cute little teeny bopper love story. The point of this film is it's cross-generational. It's across the world. That was a thing. I said, I can't do a movie called All You Need a. is love. And it was a battle. I said, you can't call it all you need is love. You can end with all you need is love. But in order to earn a title like all you need is love, you have to put the

audience and the characters through hell. You have to put them through an experience so that when you sing those words, you've earned that place. And Jude has lost the girl. And he's singing all you need is love, and after they've fallen apart and see that they are at odds in their worldview, they still know that there is a thread that connects them. And it's, so it has a bittersweetness to it. Right. And that was a battle that, you know, when you fight these battles, especially if you're a female director 10 years ago or whatever, I don't know if it's changed yet, but you become a difficult, quote, difficult person, and then people think that you're, you know, it's, it's, we all believed everybody who worked.

in that film loved it and loved working on it and was so excited. And we had phenomenal. The poster that you can see now on the fathom site, the underwater, that was the poster we wanted. That was the poster in Great Britain. But somebody said, oh, it's too psychedelic at the time. And they wanted this cutesy-wutsi thing. Well, the Beatles have the cutesy-wootsie. And it's in there. The little girls with, it won't be long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's got its moment, which is the right moment and the right sentiment. But that's the girl who's going to go out and say, I'd lie down in front of a tank on the streets

if it would bring Max home. And that's the evolution, not a simple love story. You know, I've read all the good and bad reviews. But one thing I, when people say it's a simple story, no, it's a love story, but they don't fall in love right away. she goes through that loss of a boyfriend and they struggle together and then they're not, he's about himself.

He's about, I'm an artist, I want to live my life. Also, he's an illegal alien, so he can't really become part of the movement. And she really has decided that the politics of the day take precedence over the personal. Right. And I think that's a big dilemma in America.

I think that America is always, I think that the two sides of the coin, the altruist and the narcissist or the selfish, that we are the ones who are supposed to represent democracy and represent freedom, represent all that as the best of human beings. And you can make as much money as you want, you can be your own person, the me, me, me generation, you know, I'm not having, you know, it's really two sides that are fighting each other all the time. know, are we a model? What is America represents? Right. You know, America for Americans? Well, who is American, for God's sakes? Who owns this? Weren't the Mexicans here? Wasn't California, Mexico? Wasn't Texas, Mexico? I always die when you see these immigrants from Mexico that they are trespassing. Are you kidding me? What about the Native American? So we know all of that, but we keep forgetting it. edition of Happy, Sad, Confused.

Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressured to do this by Josh. I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times. And I'm Paul Shear, an actor, writer and director. You might know me from the League, Veep, or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters. We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives.

Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't. He's too old. Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dude 2 is overrated. It is. Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspool, a podcast where you talk about good movies, critical hits. Fan favorites, must-season, and Casey Mistoms. We're talking Parasite the Home Alone From Greece to the Dark Night

We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks We've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look And we've talked about horror movies Some that you've never even heard of like Ganges and Hess So if you love movies like we do Come along on our cinematic adventure Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast And don't forget to hit the follow button

RELAWRILLILEEN SULLIVAN