Personally, I l-o-v-e musicals. And this is a good one. Although while I may consider Moulin Rouge! or Mamma Mia! (I just realized that they both have exclamation mark in their official titles, whatever) “a musical movie”, I can put Across The Universe in a category, let’s say, “musical video art”. Is this something that decreases the value of the work? To me, no, not at all. Especially in the “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” scenes at its peak, the movie brilliantly used the digital art form. And at this day, who can seperate digital arts from cinema anyway, right?

The soundtrack album is an essential part of a musical. As a huge admirer of the Beatles songs used in this movie, it was not disturbing at all to hear them in totally different forms. Maybe a die-heart Beatles fan can argue with me on this. Actors and performers did a really good job at singing such classic songs. They did not overproduce or oversing but performed very natural. Lyrics were quite perfectly coherent in the story. It must not be so hard to build a story out of a catalogue of 200+ songs of the legendary Beatles, though the director Julie Taymor thinks that this is a “challenge”. Her introductory writing inside the soundtrack’s inlay card is below.

Imagine: creating an original movie musical using the Beatles’ songs as its score and inspiration for the story. The challenge: from a catalogue of two hundred songs, which ones to choose and how to musically arrange them to bring a fresh perspective appropriate to the specifics of the story? It was a challenge and a privilege my collaborators and I enthusiastically embraced. We decided on 30 songs to tell a star-crossed love story set smack in the midst of the turbulent sixties. With minimal dialogue, the idea was to have the songs forward the action and the emotions, as if the lyrics were original thoughts emanating directly from the hearts and minds of the characters. From blues to soul, rock ‘n roll to British music hall, folk rock to circus to the ragas of India, the influence and inspiration on the Beatles music was immense. By putting the songs into the mouths of six very different principal characters we were able to tap a wide range of sounds and styles.

In rearranging each song to fit the specific context of the film we had to make difficult choices about what elements, such as guitar licks and vocal harmonies, to retain or to let go. Whether we chose to use those familiar instrumental phrases or not, they still have a presence, like some friendly ghosts in the room. Many of the arrangements were altered in tempo, harmonies and instrumentation, dictated by the dramatic-content of the film. We were blessed with and extraordinary cast of actors with great, natural voices and we were honored with the participation of Joe Cocker, Bono, Eddie Izzard and Salma Hayek, who brought tremendous personality to this film. I also want to thank all the musicians and especially the music producers, Elliot, T Bone and Teese for their enormous creative contributions to this thrilling ride.

-Julie Taymor