When Julie Taymor was asked to direct the film “Across the Universe” two decades ago, she looked at the script, and knew she wanted to create a movie that was larger than a love story.
Now the culmination of that initial vision is scheduled to be shown on the Island, along with two other films. Taymor and her partner in life and work, Elliot Goldenthal, have a home on Martha’s Vineyard, and some of their work was crafted here. The pair are showing three of their highly-acclaimed films this summer; “Frida” was already shown, “Across the Universe” will screen on July 22, and “The Glorias” is on August 11. The couple’s work is in high demand, and the showings are sold out with a waitlist.
The Times sat down with Taymor and Goldenthal to get a preview into their world, the artistic choices they made in their films, the accompanying music, their connection to the Island, and how all those elements are woven together.
The script for “Across the Universe” was set in the 1960s at the start of the Vietnam War, when 2.2 million American men were drafted; many Americans back home protested the conflict. There was a fog that blanketed the era, as a generation questioned what they were being asked to fight for.
It was a moment of social change and political unrest. And many Americans who might have otherwise followed a traditional path, mainly young, white college students, demanded answers from their government instead. At the same time, a wealth of musicians, artists, and creatives rose from the tumult and passion, and created some of the most celebrated works of the 20th century.
The Beatles, in many ways, helped define the era as they experimented with psychedelic sound and visuals during the decade as a response to the changing attitudes of their audience. “Across the Universe” features 34 Beatles songs that were covered by actors in the film, with the music used as a narrative tool to tell the story of war, protest, and personal triumph. In those years, the Beatles weren’t just writing love songs anymore.
So Taymor changed the title she was originally given for the film (“All You Need Is Love”) to its working name, which references the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe,” featured on the 1970 album “Let it Be.” Taymor collaborated with Goldenthal, and together they made sure that vital distinction in the direction of their music came through in the movie.
“When the studio came to me and said, ‘We’d like you to direct this,’ I went, Well, first of all, I’m not going to call it ‘All You Need Is Love,’ because I don’t believe in that sentiment,” Taymor said. “But I do think it’s earned by the end of the film. You have to go through hell in order to say: ‘All you need is love.’”
“There was a lot of rage, and then there was a lot of confusion … young men who gave up life and limb and came back broken people. And they had to ask themselves, ‘For what?’” Goldenthal said of the era.
Those artistic choices by Taymor and Goldenthal are a few of many they made over a long career in the industry. The pair has collaborated for nearly all their projects. Many of those works have earned them international and national recognition, and nominations for the Academy Awards, Tony Awards, and Golden Globes. Goldenthal was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for music, four Oscars, and received a Lifetime Achievement at the World Soundtrack Awards; Taymor made history as the first woman to receive a Tony Award for best director of a musical for her Broadway adaption of “The Lion King;” the pair won an Academy Award for best original score for one of their compositions in “Frida.”
“We’ve been working for 40 years together, every project,” Taymor said of Goldenthal.
Throughout those four decades, Taymor and Goldenthal have found community and respite on Martha’s Vineyard, and eventually, they even created some of their works here. Taymor wrote the script for “The Glorias,” a 2020 film based on Gloria Steinem’s autobiography, “My Life On the Road,” at the couple’s home in Chilmark. And Goldenthal recorded the composition for “The Glorias” in their home studio.
Several of their ideas have come to fruition on the Island, a place known for attracting a wide variety of artists, musicians, and creatives. A few of the actors who played in their films have also found refuge here, including Martin Luther McCoy, who played Jo-Jo in “Across the Universe,” a character based on rock musician Jimi Hendrix. McCoy’s been coming to the Vineyard since the 1990s.
“There’s been an enduring movement in the African-American and Wampanoag communities coming off the Island, going back a long way: an interdependency, support systems and networks, that show up in wide-netting ways. Not just education, not just fun, not just the water, not just people getting away from their hectic real world to relax,” McCoy said of the Vineyard. “This community has been allowed to, and has taken ownership of, its potential to blossom. And the blossoming is evident.”
Jo-Jo, McCoy’s character in “Across the Universe,” sings an acoustic, stripped-down cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” originally from the “White Album” (1968) by the Beatles. As he sings the song live in the film, which Taymor said all actors did, in order to have the emotion come through, the film scene tackles the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; a speech by King resounds through the music.
“It’s an interesting position to be in, to be named after somebody, and to be in a movie dealing with his assassination,” McCoy, whose first and middle name are “Martin Luther,” said of the moment. “You can’t AI that. It’s different when it happens for real, in an authentic space.”
On Monday, “Frida” was shown at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, and during a discussion with Taymor and Goldenthal that followed the film, the pair discussed their creative decisions in the film, many of which were by necessity because of the low budget.
But from a Day of the Dead sequence with skeleton marionettes in “Frida” to a multimedia, psychedelic performance of “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” by the Beatles in “Across the Universe,” Taymor is known for surrealist scenes that bring the watcher face-to-face with the character’s inner reality. Goldenthal’s awardwinning film scores create the soundscapes to match.
Just as the Island is often considered a microcosm of the world, regarding real-life issues like housing, affordability, and environmental concerns existing among the arts, music, agriculture, and community events, Taymor and Goldenthal said they illustrate each character as a smaller version of their environment, and a maker of change within that system. It’s that tightrope balancing act, the inner life versus world that holds it, that the pair focuses on through their films.
“I like to go inside and outside,” Taymor said at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse of her directing style.
“The inspiration is Julie’s work,” Goldenthal said at the Playhouse regarding “Frida” and his collaboration with Taymor. “It’s a reactive process.”
That motif was elevated perhaps the most in their film “The Glorias,” which Taymor directed, produced, and co-wrote with Sarah Ruhl.
“The Glorias” is about the life and impact of women’s rights activist and journalist Gloria Steinem.
Since Steinem’s childhood was defined by transience and as an adult, and she was often on the road, advocating for women at abortion rallies and protests, Taymor chose the visual motif of a Greyhound bus to illustrate her inner life. “The bus was instrumental in gluing the pieces together,” Taymor said in an interview with The Times.
“The road is messy in the way that real life is messy,” Steinem wrote in her 2015 autobiography, “My Life on the Road,” on which “The Glorias,” released in 2020, is based.
Taymor read Steinem’s autobiography, and asked Steinem to take on the project. She said she was reminded of the values she had been raised with. “My mother was a big political person in Boston. I knew about the movement. I was in the arts my whole life,” she said.
Four actors play Steinem in the film: Ryan Kiera Armstrong as a child, Lulu Wilson as a teenager, and two adult actors, Alicia Vikander and Julianne Moore. They all ride that Greyhound bus, often with the past and future versions who play Steinem in conversation with each other. In the bus scenes, the color gradient is pulled into black-and-white, with the actors’ expressions often tender and deep in thought. Tears are shed. Monologues sweep the audience through the trauma Steinem experienced. As the film progresses, color eventually seeps into the bus and the actors’ expressions.
“Gloria says in the book, and in the film, that people think the safest place is at home. But for women, that’s the most dangerous place to be,” Taymor said.
A few other choices by Taymor and Goldenthal were intentionally bold, they explained in interviews. The through-line that spanned many of their productions was a resounding message of social justice, human rights, and war.
“If you look at these three films, especially ‘The Glorias’ and ‘Across the Universe,’ it is a lot about the protest: what motivated these kids to get out there and involved in their futures,” Taymor said.
The theme of movement comes up in a much different way in “Frida,” the first film that Taymor directed. It was a semibiographical look into Frida Kahlo’s life, and was intentionally about more than her artwork. While Kahlo is widely regarded one of the most influential artists in history, it was the reason she painted at all that stuck with Goldenthal.
“The big challenge for me with ‘Frida’: was finding a motive, or a glue, that could take me through the whole picture: a music metaphor,” said Goldenthal.
Kahlo was born in 1907, and throughout her nearly five decades of life, she encountered physical traumas, became involved in the Communist movement in Mexico, expressed her sexuality freely with both men and women, and challenged gender norms of her time through her fashion. But her classic suit and tie, full unibrow that swept across her face, and the piercing reds and blue hues in her paintings are ways the world saw Kahlo, not necessarily the way Kahlo saw herself.
“The one constant in her life was being alone in a bed, dealing with her life, while the world around her was turbulent. She wanted to be part of everything. So I thought, What instrument can she crawl into bed and cuddle with? A guitar. So acoustic guitar and Mexican music became the foundation,” Goldenthal said.
The final song in the film, titled “Burn It Blue,” featured music by Goldenthal and lyrics by Taymor. The Mexican-inspired plucked acoustic guitar and serene voice in the song became the culmination of many of the themes Taymor and Goldenthal brought to the film. He and Taymor won a best original song nomination at the Academy Awards for the composition.
“Frida was a devout Communist at a time of real abuse of capitalism in Mexico, hardship for farm workers, and a politically turbulent period in the U.S. as well,” Goldenthal continued.
The relevance of their films haven’t changed much, Goldenthal and Taymor said. Wealth disparities, violence, human rights violations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests, and people questioning the actions of their government remain.
“Lucy’s trajectory in ‘Across the Universe,’ from a life destined to be a ‘trad wife’ into a politically active woman; Frida’s deeply political life; and ‘The Glorias,’” Goldenthal said. “The Glorias” speaks for itself, he said, in its outward message of women’s rights.
“There’s this incredible internal fight, which is, how do we relate? How do we keep our love going?” Taymor said.
“Across the Universe” will be at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center on Wednesday, July 22, at 7:30 pm, and “The Glorias” is on Tuesday, August 11, at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse at 7:30 pm. Both showings will be followed by talks by Taymor and Goldenthal, and McCoy will be joining them at “Across the Universe.” McCoy will also be performing a concert at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse on Wednesday, July 29, at 8 pm.
