by Allan Fish
(USA 2007 131m) DVD1/2
Strawberry jam
p Matthew Gross, Jennifer Todd, Suzanne Todd d Julie Taymor w Dick Clement, Ian le Frenais ph Bruno Delbonnel ed Françoise Bonnot m Elliot Goldenthal m/ly John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison md Elliot Goldenthal, T-Bone Burnett art Peter Rogness cos Albert Wolsky spc/tit Kyle Cooper
Evan Rachel Wood (Lucy), Jim Sturgess (Jude), Joe Anderson (Max Carrigan), Dana Fuchs (Sadie), Martin Luther (Jojo), T.V.Caprio (Prudence), Joe Cocker, Bono, Salma Hayek, Harry Lennix, Eddie Izzard,
It’s a commonly perceived opinion that whether one loves or loathes Julie Taymor’s phantasmagoria of love n’ the Fab Four depends on whether you grew up with the music and knew it with any degree of not just depth but feeling. The Beatles had broken up several years before I was even born, so that rules that one out. The approach of having characters burst into famous song was hardly a new one – it was mastered by the likes of Dennis Potter. Nearer to the mark, however (in that the actors actually sing rather than mime or undercut) is Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, another love story set in the past and splitting audiences right down the proverbial spinal column bonemarrow.
Set in the sixties, the film tells the tale of Scouse dockworker Jude who sets off to America to find the GI father who left his mother pregnant during the war. While over there he befriends Princeton student Max, about to drop out, whose sister Lucy has just waved her beloved Daniel off to the Vietnam War. When Daniel is killed in combat, Lucy sets off to join Max and Jude and their Bohemian lifestyle in New York, from whence nothing will ever be the same.
Undoubtedly this is one hell of a mixture, a real fruit salad of diverse ingredients, directed by the mastermind of the hit show of Disney’s The Lion King, whose Titus had already shown her to be a visually bold, fearless filmmaker. Chuck in a script from the great duo who wrote such beloved British TV institutions as Porridge, Auf Wiedersehen Pet and The Likely Lads, a location that literally echoes to the spirit of Boys from the Blackstuff and a host of young hopefuls and cameos from such diverse figures as Bono, Eddie Izzard and Salma Hayek (in a true homage to Potter’s The Singing Detective). Oh, and yes, a choice selection of arguably the greatest back catalogue of pop songs ever written. What is remarkable is not that the film is faultless, but that it’s such a joyous experience and does both the old songs and the spirit proud. Some American audiences may say the depiction of the Vietnamese conflict was reduced to predictable montages and demonstration scenes left over from Nixon and Forrest Gump. Some British audiences may decry the using the music in a largely – but not wholly – American setting at all, while others may have found the choice of songs predictable (the hero and heroine’s names should give you two of them). In this way the choice of title seems to give away the intention. The eponymous song isn’t even played in its entirety and isn’t the highlight of the piece – the finale to ‘All You Need is Love’ is, appropriately fading out, like the Beatles did in real life, with a farewell performance on a roof – but it most perfectly embodies a film soaked in the psychedelia of the period, which you’ll either love or loathe. The question remains, to Taymor and indeed both the film’s supporters and detractors, whether the songs themselves are universal or whether love is. That the songs are universal is undoubted, as their continuing popularity and that of devotees such as Oasis proves, which leads us to love. On one level it’s a labour of love on behalf of its creators, gorgeously shot, directed and acted, with special mention to the lovely Wood and the ingratiating Sturgess. And for those who still don’t quite get it, maybe they’re just the sort of people Sapphire was talking about in Almost Famous, when she said “they don’t even know what it is to be a fan. Y’know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts.” Music hurts, love hurts; ergo music equals love. Maybe Shakespeare’s Orsino was right after all?
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I love this phantasmogoric celebration of Beatle sensibilities in the flower child era, and the love story is appealing too. Not every single artistic decision made by Taymour works, but I’d say the ratio is maybe 5 to 1. Jim Sturgess is particularly effective, and my favorite song of all is the title song, which frankly is the greatets song John Lennon ever wrote.
But BECAUSE and HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN were well-done here, and I liked I AM THE WALRUS and STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER more than some others did.
This is a wonderful film that I only discovered a few weeks back. What’s amazing is the power it has over kids that no nothing of THE BEATLES. The music and lyrics prove timeless and I found all of Sam’s five (count em, all five!) Kids singing along with the characters on screen. Ill agree that some of the segues into the musical numbers, at times, can be a little clunky, but Taymor packs enough spirit, gusto and artistry into the production that the few flaws are barely noticeable. The young and game cast are all up for the challenge of delivering performances within the music. I can’t remember a musical that so made me smile since I first saw SINGIN IN THE RAIN at 12 years old. I like other musicals better, but few can make me grin like this one. Its proof that THE BEATLES transcend time and generations. The Greatest Pop/Rock group of all time! (Yea, I just said it. Listen to the music again, really listen, and you’ll know that’s not an over-statement).
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE John Lennon’s BEST song? I wouldn’t go that far. STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER, LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS, WATCHING THE WHEELS, STRANGE DAYS…. These could all contend for the spot. However, while I’m not saying Schmulee’s wrong, and I know how passionate he is for UNIVERSE, there are two both the critics and musicologists call out over and over again. IMAGINE from his solo days and the monumental capper from the Fab Four’s greatest album SGT. PEPPERS LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, it most certainly would have to be A DAY IN THE LIFE. The transition from day to day routine to the dreams we all have of escape from the harshness of a corporate world is bold, original, metaphorical and existentially stunning. When the BEACH BOYS heard DAY in 1967 they knew their PET SOUNDS was crushed. They were right, its John’s masterpiece.
Well Dennis, as that is my personal favorite, so I would definitely go that far. In interviews Lennon himself identified it as the best song he wever wrote as well. STRAWBERRY FIELDS is a great song but now seems culturally dated, while the soaring universal lyricism of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is as timely as ever.
Across the Universe, for me, is easily one of the decade’s worst films. A grandiose musical that really fails on almost every level. The film was far too long, featured very sub-par acting, and gave us some of the worst rendition of my personal favorite Beatles songs (watching Bono do I am the Walrus was painful). The film’s overly visual look, the love story, and 60s protest backdrop just didn’t fit with the music. Rather than actually making a movie about the music, its just a really dull romance that uses music Beatles to attract audiences. The movie was also released around the same time as Todd Haynes’ anti-biopic of Bob Dylan and he didn’t just make a random film that used the appeal of Bob Dylan to sell it. Instead, he made a film that’s not only a celebration of the musician and his work but a visual criticism and fascinating exploration of the man. With Across the Universe, you don’t have that interesting dimension. The movie uses the music but doesn’t even try to interestingly interpret it. I won’t deny that some of the set pieces were fun to look at, but there’s no substance. Its shocking to see a film like this ahead of A History of Violence and Sideways. But nonetheless you offer us a wonderful essay so i guess I can’t complain too much.
Anu, again you bless this site with a terrific comment.
An interesting choice and there should be some fun to be had here!T
However, two serious questions on this review please.
Why do you seem to think that people only react with love/hate reactions to this film – something that you seem to imply thrice over here? For example, I liked it and was impressed by the (debut?) performance of Jim Sturgess (convinced that there are some excellent performances to come from him!). However, it would never be a film that I would die in a ditch over in either respect.
It’s a commonly perceived opinion that whether one loves or loathes Julie Taymor’s phantasmagoria of love n’ the Fab Four depends on whether you grew up with the music and knew it with any degree of not just depth but feeling.
I notice that you phrase this observation in a neutral fashion. However, do you not think that it diminishes the work if your reaction to it can be so heavily influenced by your attitude to the music itself? Could many women not make the same argument for why all George Clooney films are works of great art? Or could a South African rugby fan not declare “Invictus” to be a masterpiece in similar fashion? Yes, my examples are a little facetious, but my underlying point is that truly great art should not need any such crutches!
Wow, interesting selection, especially in light of the also-rans appearing at 250-101. I don’t normally like musicals or 1960s nostalgia, but I have a soft spot for “Across the Universe”. It’s just an exhilarating experience from beginning to end. One of those films that wouldn’t make it into my own Top 100, despite the fact that I own the Blu-ray and have viewed it several times. I wouldn’t call it a guilty pleasure (it’s not a BAD film, just not great), but it’s in the same neighborhood as a guilty pleasure. 🙂
Andrew, I must say you sized this up here magnificently as always.
I don’t viciously hate this movie like I used to, but I get it, adore the Beatles and still will live happily never watching it a third time. You’re right to compare it to Moulin Rouge, in that it’s gaudy, facile and gussied-up to disguise how hollow it is. I’ve never been so bored by some of the music that has meant most to me.
Jake: I know the critics were severely split on this film, and what you say here has many agreeing with you.
SAM-No doubt, I know of your love for the song and of Lennon’s personal attitude towards it (although, subsequently, in interviews just prior to his death his feelings about his work varied from day to day, blaming a lot of his extreme behavior to his heroin use). I love the song as well and hold it in the number 1 position myself. However, when the musicologists, the experts on the subject of music, get down to brass tax on LENNON’s canon its almost always IMAGINE and DAY IN THE LIFE. DAY, particularly, is understandible. Its complexity, poetry, orchestral landscape and seque into the psychedelic is flawless. Its also notable for its grand contribution from engineer extraordinair GEORGE MARTIN (the 5th Beatle) and the vocals of PAUL McCARTNEY playing the business man falling into the dream. Honestly, while I love ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, DAY IN THE LIFE is too epic in scope and John’s versatility to argue against with the pros. I have my favorites (UNIVERSE) but his BEST is DAY.
Dennis, to say definitely that A DAY IN THE LIFE and IMAGINE are Lennon’s best songs is truly presumptuous and wrought out of personal taste alone. Most musicologists scoff at the sentimentality of IMAGINE, and Lennon himself never liked the song himself. I like it myself, but few Lennon mavens would dare to rank it among his best. Similarly A DAY IN THE LIFE has always een a problematic composition for many, who thought it’s violent segue unsatisfactory. Again, I like the song a lot, but Lennon’s WHITE ALBUM, REVOLVER and ABBEY ROAD stuff is now seen as his most accomplished writing. This all comes down to personal taste, and I’m afraid you are as guilty as I am when I resort to bringing in critical opions, which I am always shot down with. In this instance what you pose isn’t remotely true I’m afraid.
But fair enough.
This is to date the only film I’ve seen at the Byrd Theater in Richmond, so I guess it means something to me because of that. It’s a beautiful theater, but it was also a pretty bad movie, and I know if I ever saw it in a different environment I’d dislike it even more. My problem with it is it’s so blatantly superficial; I remember at one point a character climbs in through the bathroom window, and then in case we didn’t get it someone says “she climbed in through the bathroom window.” Duh. Saying seeing it reminded one of seeing Singin’ In The Rain sounds to me like saying seeing Wild Wild West reminded one of seeing The Searchers.
Or, I don’t know, Doniphon, seeing Miami Vice and mistaking it for cinema.
🙂
Yes, ATU is a guilty pleasure, but that’s why it’s at 99, not at 3…
Touche.
Oh yes 🙂
DONIPHON-I said that ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is the musical that made me smile the same way SINGIN IN THE RAIN does. Big difference. I like this film, I’m aware you do not, but you don’t see me shooting you down for your opinion. Taymor, I believe. Is aware of some of the films campiness and runs with that ball. This isn’t Opera and its not WEST SIDE STORY. This film is a lark; something to entertain and get the viewer to sing along. I’m sure SINGIN IN THE RAIN, when concocted in the 50’sn was only hoping for as much. That SITR is a classic is a testament to its charm and invention. I believe the same true with ACROSS. Let us disagree politely.
To be fair, Dennis, there are 103 films from 2000-2009 that I have in my book that were eligible for this list, and rather than leave absolute guilty pleasures out, I sprikled them round the 80-100 mark to give the list a touch of character. There are guilty pleasures throughout my book, but in previous decades they haven’t shone through as my total was less at 50, so no room.
Across the Universe is a guilty pleasure, one of those films I perhaps raised above its real level because of the fun it gave, and there has to be room for a few of them in my book.
ALLAN-I couldn’t agree with you more. Pleasure is the over-riding motive to going to the movies. That some of us take it upon ourselves to also derive pleasure from analyzing films for pleasure is another point. I hark back to a comment thread between you and BOB CLARK discussing the difference between BEST and FAVORITE and how, sometimes, the two fuse together. ACROSS THE UNIVERSE might be a guilty pleasure for them. To some its something more. For me, its something that makes me feel good. If I were counting down 100 I assure you it would place somewhere in there as well. The M. O. of film is escapism. I see nothing wrong in listing a piece of escapism as one of the best of the decade.
I agree with others in the dislike of this film, I can’t really be that harsh as I don’t know how great of a film Allan thinks is at #99 (as he said earlier it’s why it’s at 99 and not 3). I was quite excited to see this (as I am a huge admirer of the directors TITUS), but found it trite, cliche, and rather obvious. To me it seemed like something someone would make that WASN’T a huge fan of the beatles rather then the other way around, as the songs selected are all pretty much the best know ‘hits’. Nowhere is there a lesser know song (but still a great one) sprinkled in for a little more personal touch. I’m not a great Beatles fan (I believe this has come up before) but I think I could come up with a film that uses things like ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ or ‘And Your Bord Can Sing’ and it would be the better for it. Oh well.
This film amounts to little more then a baby-boomer nostalgia trip that the younger generations have to put up with every few years.
And it places over the three Cronenberg’s from this decade… Urgh! Just kidding, different strokes for different folks is all one can say.
Sadly no love for Cronenberg on these countdowns
The only film of his that for me approaches greatness is Crash. Dead Ringers, Spider, Eastern Promises, all very fine films, but not really approaching greatness.
But everyone has their directors who they don’t warm to. Cronenberg is just one of mine.
I’m an old-school Cronenberg nut myself. With the exception of the tepid Stephen King adaptation “Dead Zone”, everything from “Stereo” to “The Fly” is pure sci-fi/body-horror gold. After that, “Crash” is certainly a high point, but “Naked Lunch” also packs a powerful punch. There’s also “eXistenZ”, which is fun, but mostly a trifle compared to classics like “Scanners” or “Videodrome”. His work from this past decade is all very attractive, but a bit too mainstream for me.
I like his whole career, but from the earlies nineties to now he’s been fantastic. I like his MADAME BUTTERFLY, NAKED LUNCH, CRASH, SPIDER, HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, and specifically EASTERN PROMISES. Too ‘mainstream’ or not his most recent stuff best articulates his philosophy IMHO.
That and yes I love all the early stuff as well (though some of it is just ok, like DEAD ZONE which Bob already points out).
A befuddling pick (at least until I saw Allan’s admission that it’s more or less a “guilty pleasure”) but not a boring one (the pick that is, not the movie, though I liked it well enough – strong marks for ambition, not so much for execution). I celebrate it for that; as Allan noted, picks like this give the list “character” (and the more variety the better, as we apparently won’t be seeing many docs or avant-garde flicks!).
The movie’s depiction of the sixties goes too far towards mythologization – a little dose of that is great, heightens the flavor, but the chronology and generalization of Across the Universe’s depiction is so over-the-top it kind of flattens the appeal, at least to me.
I’m part of the same generation as Jamie, but I LOVE a good boomer nostalgia trip, partly because I wish I’d experienced that era firsthand, partly because the unbridled cultural narcissism of the boomers makes for rich sociological analysis. Right now I’m working on a lengthy piece which will view Field of Dreams through the prism of its 60s nostalgia, the way it tries to tie together the youthful past of middle-aged boomers with their sense of responsibility and prosperity – and nostalgia for an earlier era than the 60s – in post-Reagan America.
Though Taymour’s roughly the right age, born in ’52, the film’s distance from the 60s (40 years has a very different impact than 20-25 years) and its decision not to use the original music, but to re-configure it both show through and don’t really capture the sense of “being there” in the way earlier films directly (Forrest Gump) and indirectly (Field of Dreams) were able to. There was something still in the air in the late 80s/early 90s but the freshness is gone, I think. There was a certain moment when there was just the right distance from the 60s to still capture a certain magic (wrong word, but you get the picture) without getting totally lost in the haze – to see the years relatively clearly but also with a sense of its spirit. Or so it seems to me, who of course did not live through the 60s but has been able to piece together some sense of that time through correspondences between direct artifacts and indirect ones.
“partly because I wish I’d experienced that era firsthand,”
This is exactly the idea that I hate; older generations inadvertently (or in the case of the Brokaw book/video series ‘The Greatest Generation’ it’s intentional) making the younger generation feel inferior or inadequate. On a personal level I reject it–why should I ever want to live anywhere else but now? Damn the phony waxing I won’t be made to feel any larger sense of self-loathing because I didn’t contribute to some generations old war stories. Most of the time anyway it’s just cultural wanting (like “I wish I could have seen the Who live in ’68”, etc.), which again is holding onto the past a little to much for me to feel comfortable.
We could start to get into FIGHT CLUB territory here, but on a serious level I think all the baby boomer stuff is also very damaging to a culture as a whole. Young people become more secluded, more apathetic because their entire lives they’ve been judged by people who have self-appointed themselves as great(est). Whoopie-doo the sixties! I still see the unresolved problems from those decades (and all others) just as much as others will see 40 years after my generations ‘golden age’.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get MM to believe me when I say I’m not an anarchist….
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And as far as guilty pleasures go, I’m all for that. In this it becomes extremely personal. I judge ‘guilty pleasures’ in cinema usually as very over-the-top exercises. In working on my own list for the ’00s currently, things like INSIDE (French Horror one), CALVAIRE, DEATH TO SMOOCHY, THE BLACK DAHLIA, BRUNO, FREDDY GOT FINGERED, SPEED RACER, BORAT and DEATH PROOF would be ones I’d pick. So that’s where I come from on a ‘guilty pleasure’, quite a bit different then ACROSS THE UNIVERSE wouldn’t ya say?
rereading your post I now realize half of what you said is (somewhat agreeing with me), you just find it interesting to think about… I do not.
I dunno, you sound kind of bitter for someone who just doesn’t care! 😉 Seriously, though, there are many factors to my fascination with the sixties but there’s a simple core to it, too. When I look at a photo, see some footage, hear some music, come close to an artifact from the era – I just feel more alive. Rationalizations for this come second, the experience comes first. Much as I’ve come to like many distinctly post-60s phenomena, like punk rock, there’s a part of me that knows it’s not “mine” in the way 60s culture is. I share a sensibility with the cultural products of that era which I don’t with much of what’s “supposed” to relate to my generation. Like Fight Club – an entertaining enough movie, but totally empty and nihilistic – as if it takes for granted that people view the world with the taste of chalk in their mouth and a film over their eyes. Sure, I’ve felt that way at times but it’s hardly defined my outlook and I’d rather seek out moments of expansiveness and curiosity in art. That’s something I get from 60s works.
Also, I can’t come close to sharing your seeming scorn for the past (I know you like classic movies and music but from what you’ve written here, it would be in SPITE of their past-ness). The past to me is alive and yet different, rich with associations. It shouldn’t strip one of the ability to enjoy the present, but nor should it be dismissed as if it’s completely inaccessible and has nothing to offer. You paint interest in the past or nostalgia as entirely negative phenomena (“I won’t be made to feel…because I didn’t…”), missing the positive exuberance it can evoke.
But as you say, you’re just not interested. Fair enough – and God knows it’s a common response, people have been saying “Fuck the overrated 60s” since at least 1970. But I can never shake the sense that people who take this attitude aren’t really engaging with what they’re writing off. Heck, I’m just as guilty as others I guess – on another thread (you’re there too) I’m knocking digital because it didn’t “work” for me which makes the tacit assumption that I understand other responses and that there isn’t something I’m not “getting.” A much longer discussion to be had here but I’ve already got too many frying pans on the stove right now so I’ll try and step back.
One last question though: how old are your parents, and what were they doing in the 60s? I know the fact that my dad was a college student and my mother a teenager at the time, and that both had the old records and snapshots of a bygone age (as well as mysterious connections to things I was experiencing for the first time, like Yellow Submarine when I was about 4 or 5) probably shaped some of my interest.
I do think that this kind of relationship between what is viewed as historical myth and what is viewed as historical fact is very interesting. I’m a young guy and I certainly wasn’t around for the sixties, and to a large extent I identify with what Jamie is saying here. I mean this mythic image of the sixties, that is very much perpetuated by Across The Universe, is pretty ridiculous, and unfortunately the image kind of dominates public discourse and how we talk about the time period, especially discussions of the successes of “peaceful” movements and resistance. A lot of it is, frankly, sentimentalization of very complex social and political conflict, and the idea that the establishment was changed by peace and harmony and all that is, when examined, complete nonsense of course (Martin Luther King would never have been taken seriously in the United States if the government wasn’t too aware of the violent alternatives–Malcolm X and the Black Panthers). It’s why movies like Across The Universe come across as so blatantly hypocritical; it openly chastises the use of bombs and violent tactics without recognizing that if the threat of violence by other revolutionary groups was not there, peaceful organizations would never have accomplished anything.
Completely understood that you saw my post as ‘bitter’, but I’m not at all. It’s just I feel we should live in the time we live in. Certainly the past is important to remember, but at a point the stuff like the Brokaw is funny to me. All these people working so hard to remind everyone else something they should only feel. I love much of the art of the 60’s, but then I also love paintings from the 50’s, underground rock from the late 70’s and early 80’s, literature pre-WW2, turn of the century poetry, I could go on and one. Loving something from a certain era is different then being unable (or unwilling) to let it go.
Perhaps I feel this way because your last question: My parents were graduating HS at the end of the 60’s. My dad was drafted into the army (a life event he despised), so the sixties (like all eras) is the same to me, some people had it great, some didn’t and some moved on. Generally the ones that want to keep living it didn’t have a hose turned on them in Selma, or had to take two weeks to get home from the Army because the Oil shortages made cross country travel so difficult.
Their ages have shaped the music I like, the Who was always a staple for example. But hell, even Pete Townshend has said “he f*cking hated it” when speaking of the sixties. So I can love that music, but I have no need to want to go there, it’s impossible anyway, so what’s the point?
I guess at a certain point we share much in common but also are quite opposite: I ‘have the taste of chalk in my mouth’ (great saying btw, I’ve never heard it) virtually everyday, it’s more different for me that days I don’t.
Tonight’s really a Wonders in the Dark night, isn’t it (lol)? I think I’ve got five or six intense ongoing discussions right now…
Re: Jamie on the 60s (I’ll tackle Doniphon in a second), I definitely agree that attachment to one era should not make one blind to another – not least to the possibilities of the present (though this just-past decade has the misfortune of being one of the most culturally rancid in recent American history).
I hear you on the real-world sensibility too. My dad did not go to ‘Nam, and his cross-country trip was self-induced not forced, but he’s always complaining about boomers and writing the hippies off as narcissistic opportunists. He can’t stand listening to most classic rock now – and goes nuts when buddies play nothing else. It comes down, in part, to how one defines “the sixties.” To me they are a mixture of joy and darkness, of heaven and hell, good and bad trips etc – all the extremes that are present in every era but seldom present in such dramatic forms as they were then. In part I’m thankful I didn’t live through the sixties – knowing myself, I know I probably would have left on one trip or another, drug-induced or otherwise, and never come back. Better to view it from a safe distance, probably…
But at any rate people often forget how rich and at times contradictory 60s culture was. Look at somebody like Frank Zappa, shitting all over the countercultural icons of the epoch but that doesn’t make him LESS a part of the 60s (Clapton doing vocals on Wer’e Only in It For the Money). That’s why some of the anti-60s attitudes taken after the fact strike me as a bit shallow; most of the sharpest critiques of the counterculture came from within that very counterculture – Zappa may have made fun of the hippies, but he was definitely a freak himself.
Point being the mythologization is only interesting in conjunction with the actuality; by itself (as is the case in Across the Universe) it collapses under its own weightlessness.
Also didn’t Townshend say that about Woodstock? (“What did Woodstock change?” “Well, it changed me – I bloody hated it!”) And he may hate the 60s, but damn did the snot-nosed punk of ’65 make it just that much cooler! (See what I mean?)
Joel, you got that right when you say it’s a WitD night!!! Amazing activity!!! Great stuff!!!
Right, MovieMan on the Zappa stuff. I think I am like this… I like much of the counter-culture stuff from the 60’s, but nowhere does that connection make me leap and make a statement like ‘I wish I was around then…’. The 60’s had Townshend, the 70’s Strummer and Weller, the 80’s Westerberg, and the 90’s Jarvis Cocker. I adore all these people more then anyone could imagine, I just know my only reality is Chicago Illinois 2010.
Besides if all the things I like are reacting counter to the mainstream why would I ever want to live in a fake ‘mainstream’ view of the past. Townshend’s song on TOMMY, ‘Sensation’ is about his feelings on the 60’s. I take Townshend’s opinion pretty seriously, so I’ll take his advice on this one at the expense of Brokaw and look back in anger with him.
Doniphon,
I think disparagers of “the 60s” are often as guilty, or more so, of generalizing than the celebrants. The notion of the “hippie”, for example, is a very streamlined version of the vast community of outsiders that existed at the time: the radicals, the hipsters, the individualist types, the communatarians, all these different strands within a vibrant counterculture. And the timeline gets so skewed too, as in Across the Universe. So much of what has become the 60s cliche didn’t happen until the very end of the decade; much of what anti-60s people are rejecting is actually the early 70s when everything became kind of pat and trite, losing the freshness. What most excites me is digging in to a primary source where there isn’t all this thinking and musing about what the sixties “meant” – it’s just there to experience.
Now as to your other points, we have some disagreements here – and they’re in part related to the timeline issues I just described. For example, to see King balanced out by X and the Panthers doesn’t quite work for me. Malcolm X was controversial and certainly contemporaneous with King (and no doubt scared some whites into King’s territory) but he was also rather marginal until his death made him a martyr. And the Panthers weren’t founded until after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts were passed in ’64 and ’65 (I believe they were established in ’66).
Hence I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss the power of nonviolence to effect social change in the civil rights movement. It was not so much the fear of “dangerous” blacks that turned the tide in the early 60s (there wasn’t much of this on display) as it was the sight of dignified marchers mowed down by firehoses, attacked by police dogs. It was the articulate speeches, the appeals King made to the public conscience, that seem to have done the trick. When violence came later, what did it really achieve? And I say this not as a pacifist, but as someone trying to look at the situation pragmatically. Without assigning blame (as Langston Hughes said, what happens to a dream deferred) I think we can recognize that the more militant postures did not accomplish meaningful social changes. The riots and revolutionary rhetoric tended to alienate the white public, and fostered resentments on top of resentments. So if we’re talking about the efficacy of violent vs. nonviolent action in this particular situation (and it’s not the same everywhere or every time, of course) I’d say it was not the former that accomplished things.
As for Across the Universe’s chastisement – do we really believe that spoiled, narcissistic fools like the Weather Underground had any positive effect on the antiwar movement? Had their bomb succeeded, had they launched a successful attack on the NCO dance at a military base are we to believe that a shocked and frightened government would have crawled back in its shell and abandoned Vietnam? That the public would have wrung its hands and escalated its push for withdrawal? Putting aside that this was not what the WU wanted to achieve – they were revolutionists, not reformists – what we probably would have seen was an increased bellicosity on the part of the government and higher loathing for the antiwar movement amongst the more moderate majority of society (even without terrorist attacks, the antiwar radicals were just as unpopular with the public as the war itself, ironically enough). Naive as it is about many things, I don’t think Across the Universe’s condemnation of the Weatherclones is unwarranted or unwise. I hear your larger point but while there’s a case to be made that the far-left flank made the more moderate left seem reasonable, the “better option”, the extremes of bomb-throwing and physical violence proved themselves to be fairly counterproductive in this particular time and place.
Oh man, this is fantastic. You’re probably right that there are some generalizations on my part, I was just trying to compress some basic ideas. Just to be clear though, the last thing I was trying to do was glorify in any way Hoffman or the Weathermen or radical far-left groups. But anyway, I’ll get to that in a minute.
Agreed on the chronology of the sixties…we are probably talking about ’65-’75 more than ’60-’70, and you’re right to point out that King was not a part of that. I do disagree with your argument that X was marginal, or at least the way you argue it. It does not matter if he was as high-profile as King or if his general views were even well-known; he existed as a symbol of black militancy for the general (white) American public. Anxieties about that kind of thing obviously go way, way back, and the fact is that X was a visual manifestation of that, it was no longer an abstraction, and that put a great deal of pressure on the status quo and in some sense did force people terrified of black militancy to embrace Martin Luther King. That’s what I mean regarding the relationship between historical myth and historical fact; for the purpose of the discussion here, it doesn’t matter what Malcolm X stood for so much as what people saw him as, which was as a boogey man, a role that to a limited extent he seemed to enjoy and embrace. There was something dangerous about him, and he was very intelligent and he knew how to exploit this image, and so yes, I do think it’s fair to say this directly influenced the peaceful civil rights movement.
And I wasn’t specific enough; the presence of the Panthers did also influence the mainstreaming of various youth movements. Like you yourself said, it’s the far-left groups that made the more moderate left seem reasonable. You are arguing this general narrative that I think is quite pervasive; if I’m understanding right, that there was a peaceful movement that caused social change, but that it became corrupted by violent elements and fell apart. I don’t think that’s completely incorrect, but I just don’t think it can be so easily delineated. Without an awareness of the threat of militant and revolutionary activity on the part of the more “establishment” and “conservative” portions of the American population, very little would have been accomplished.
At one point you said: “So if we’re talking about the efficacy of violent vs. nonviolent action in this particular situation (and it’s not the same everywhere or every time, of course) I’d say it was not the former that accomplished things.” If this violent v. nonviolent duality is going to be established, then that sounds like a very sensible conclusion. However, I don’t think this way of looking at it takes the complexity of the viewpoints and the time into account. That is, built into nonviolent action was the potentiality of violence, and it was only because that potentiality was there, as personified by X and the Panthers and the WU, that nonviolent protest was able to accomplish anything. This might seem kind of moot or inconsequential, but I don’t think it is. To ignore the relationship between nonviolent and violent groups, as is done in this and many films, is to ignore how peaceful protest was effective to begin with. Across The Universe clearly takes a moral position, condemning revolutionary and terroristic behavior, and my point is in doing this it compromises itself, because without the potentiality of these behaviors there would have never been the peace movement it is glorifying. It wants to have it both ways.
Doniphon, some good points. The point about the “built-in” potential for violence within violent movements is well-taken. In this sense, and in the sense that violence and non-violence DID co-exist in the late 60s, and came out of the same fabric, I think one could say Across the Universe is “having it both ways” (though of course one could take this so far as to say that without Vietnam or racial violence, there would have not been the foundation for radicalism in a response, which is true but kind of misses the point) but not so much in the sense that condemning the violent movements is underlying the foundation for peaceful ones. I think in order not to be hypocritical a nonviolent
As for Hoffman, I wouldn’t put him in the same category as WUO. He was a provocateur, to be sure, but not a bomb-thrower and in his mix of outrageousness, playfulness, and idealism he kind of sums up the best part of the sixties spirit to me. Since the late 60s the hard student left has shrivelled up into a caricature of itself, losing the sense of exuberance it had in the 60s but NOT losing the things it should lose from that era, like a certain self-righteous air and a devotion to forms of protest and agitation that do nothing to affect public opinion (see the run-up to the Iraq War).
I am with Anubhav and the others on this – I just couldn’t get myself to like ATU. It’s an interesting concept but the execution was umm..piss poor.
I have to say that I hate this movie…a lot; however, I like what you said above, Allan, when you mentioned that you wanted to sprinkle in personal favorites and guilty pleasures in the 80 – 100 spots. And honestly this is your list so it really doesn’t matter if I think think is one of the 50 worst films of the decade. I can’t begrudge you for your choice here, even if I scratch my head at the inclusion of this film over some of your “nearlies”.
But I’m also the guy who put Miami Vice at #2 for the decade, hehe.