Across the Universe (2007, directed by Julie Taymor)
Let's get this out of the way right now. In the Talkbacks below there are inevitably going to be a few people saying "Oh, the Beatles weren't that great... they sucked", etc. etc. These people are of course entitled to their opinion, no matter how incorrect it is.
The simple facts are that the Beatles are the single most important band of the last 60 years, and their catalogue the single greatest collection of music of the pop/rock era. You can take a calculated stand and dislike them for whatever reasons you choose, but you cannot deny their spot at the top of the pyramid.
How much you're willing to accept those facts will determine how much you like Across the Universe. The plot is a threadbare series of 60s cliches; the characters are fairly two-dimensional as a result of having to conform to those cliches; and the performances, while good, are limited by those characters. But much as it appears to be, the film is not about the 60s, or about the characters. This is a movie about the Beatles' place in the collective unconscious, and the ways in which their music defined both their era and the eras that followed.
The songs chosen for the movie cover the entirety of the band's career, from the early rock 'n' roll cover days through to Let It Be. But the songs themselves are not necessarily used in ways you expect. Some are given extra meaning: Revolution, for instance, becomes far more of a direct polemic than you might have thought. More impressively, some songs are re-contextualized completely. A Day in the Life becomes an instrumental Hendrix-esque blues riff. I Want To Hold Your Hand becomes a sad expression of unrequited (and interracial, and lesbian...) love. And Let It Be becomes a gospel number.
The movie has more going for it than just who wrote its soundtrack though. Taymor's visuals are of course stunning, veering at times into territory Ken Russell wishes he could have visualized on the most creative day of his life. The cameos are hit and miss (Eddie Izzard's version of Mr. Kite might have been worse than George Burns', while Bono karaokes his way through a performance of I Am the Walrus, which at least was better than his acting as the plot's Ken Kesey stand-in) but the hits, particularly Joe Cocker ripping through Come Together, are home runs. The cast is solid both in vocal and acting talent, and Evan Rachel Wood especially is beyond luminous, becoming the perfect blonde American girl-next-door. There are also plenty of in-jokes, from Prudence's first entrance into the apartment (which sadly gets 'spoiled' a few seconds later in dialogue) to a bit of spray-paint on the wall when Jude storms into the faux-SDS' headquarters to sing Revolution at them (umm, yeah, did I mention that pretty much all the main characters have their names taken from Beatles songs? Jude, Lucy, Prudence, Sadie, Jo-Jo... you get the idea. Yes, it's cheesy, but in a good way.)
If you love the Beatles, you'll be able to gloss over the movie's faults and enjoy it for what it is, a celebration of their music and their impact. If you've foolishly and arbitrarily decided you hate them, well, too bad for you. There's nothing for you here.
* * * * *
Lou Reed's Berlin (2007, directed by Julian Schnabel)
Concert movies are a tricky beastie. So much of the quality of the film is out of the director's hands (moreso than usual) and depends on the onstage performance that it's easy to fall into one of two traps. Either the director does too little, just pointing a couple of cameras at the band and trying to make a film appear in editing, or they do too much in an egotistical effort to impress their own artistic stamp on top of someone else's art.
Amazingly, in Lou Reed's Berlin, Julian Schnabel manages to fall into both traps at the same time.
In the thirty-odd years since Berlin was released to a listening public that at the time mostly wanted nothing to do with it, Reed's collection of bleak character sketches has developed a reputation as a lost classic of sorts, and it's been a group of songs he's rarely revisited in concert. The concerts on film here, featuring pretty much the entire album, are therefore more than just a curiosity. Rather than letting the lyrics of some of the hidden gems of one of rock's great storytellers speak for themselves, however, Schnabel felt compelled to commission short films (some of them by his own daughter) to dramatize the songs. The shorts aren't just redundant, they actually blunt the stark imagery of Reed's lyrics. And when Schnabel isn't hiding a landmark concert behind his own ego and nepotism, he seems to have little idea how to shoot a concert effectively. His camera is more confused than restless, wandering around the stage and around the musicians' bodies like a lost, perverted roadie.
Towards the end of the concert Schnabel does achieve one worthwhile moment. Lou is singing The Rock Minuet, a more recent track from the Ecstasy album (maybe as dark a song as anything in his whole catalogue) and his image grows hazy and dreamlike. Rather than dissolving into another indulgent short, though, Schnabel summons another figure to take Reed's place: a young, blonde Lou, thick black shades likely hiding bloodshot eyes, from another concert held a long time ago. The younger Reed disappears and the older, weathered singer snaps back into focus, just as the artist he was and the disillusionment he probably felt at Berlin's failure to find an audience has faded away. He is here, now, singing a song about how impotent you can feel when you're trapped by your own past, and that young blonde hellraiser is just a phantom haunting the stage.
Musically the movie is fine. Reed sounds like he's doing more than going through the motions, and his backing band (which includes a somewhat awkwardly arranged horn section and a girl's choir that creates some goosebumps) is as tight or as ragged as each song demands, with Steve Hunter (the original session guitarist on the studio album) returning to Reed's side. But those are reasons to buy the live album, not watch the film.
And aside from that one brief moment I mentioned above, I can't think of a single damn reason to actually watch this thing, as opposed to just listen to it.
