Choreography and Mood in Across the Universe

­­­­­­                Across the Universe tells the tale of Jude, a young man from Liverpool, who sails to the U.S. in search of his biological father, whom he has never met. Jude meets Max Carrigan and befriends him, and then falls in love with Max’s sister Lucy. While involved in a political protest, Jude is sent to prison, along with many others, but he cannot be released because of his illegal citizenship status. Lucy informs Jude’s father of the current events, and he comes to bail his son out from prison. However, because his status has been discovered, Jude is sent back to Liverpool. While home, Jude deduces from newspaper articles that Lucy has been killed in a homemade bomb. However, when when he learns from Max that she is still alive, he returns to the U.S. and to Lucy.

                The use of masks and puppetry in the film is strange, but it gives the musical the authentic feel of the 1960s, the time period in which it is set. Although the viewer is surprised at the use of artificial and computer-generated images in a non-animated movie, the choreography gives the film the atmosphere of the 60s, a time in which radicalism and drugs were the rule, not the exception. In the film, the most outlandish choreography directly correlates with the drug influence on the Beatles’ music. For example, in the beginning of the film, the early, clean songs of the Beatles are prevalent, and there is rare graphic design; it is only introduced later on.  However, as the musical progresses and the songs played are the ones in which the Beatles were most heavily influenced by substances, the use of masks and puppets increases. Strawberry Fields Forever, a song written by the Beatles in which they were heavily under the influence, is depicted extremely graphically and violently in the musical, and it gives the viewer the dizzying feeling which drugs induce. I am the Walrus, another bizarre song by the Beatles, was written by John Lennon while he was on drugs, and in the musical it is portrayed by sensational colors, lights, and the characters’ trippy actions. Because the 60s was a new era of experimentation, Julie Taymor, the director, created the film so that it gives the viewer the feeling of “being high”, which was reflected in the Beatles’ later music and which so prominent during the time.

Isms of the 1950s

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a science fiction film of the 1950s, revolves around the idea of alien infiltration. When people seem different in the town of Santa Mira, California, general suspicion is aroused. Dr. Miles Bennell, the local doctor, tries to figure out the mystery, and eventually he does. Pods from space are spreading on Earth and overtake people’s bodies, turning them into non-thinking, non-feeling, barely human clones of themselves. As more people are being overtaken, the mission to clone people grows stronger with each person that is cloned, until only Miles and his girlfriend Becky are left. They find themselves in a cave, having fled, and when Miles leaves Becky for an instant, she has been cloned, and he finds himself alone in the world. Finally, he makes it to the police, and they take action to stop the invasion.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a science fiction film, is about the fascination of the American public with ideas of conformity, communism, and control. In a post WWII era, Americans were terrified at the prospect that they couldn’t guarantee control over their lives, just like Europeans couldn’t guarantee control over theirs. Soldiers had come back from the front lines, and they had seen graphic and horrific images of starved human skeletons. The Nazis had used mass-control and conformity to carry out their Hellish work, and people were intrigued and terrified. “Science fiction films presented indirect expressions of anxiety about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust or a Communist invasion of America. These fears were expressed in various guises, such as aliens using mind control, monstrous mutants unleashed by radioactive fallout, radiation’s terrible effects on human life, and scientists obsessed with dangerous experiments” (O’Donnell 169). The film is a reflection of these fears. It is not necessarily a fear of one specific ism, such as McCarthyism or communism, as many have claimed. America had changed drastically in the previous years, partially due to events abroad, and soldiers had brought back moral questions and dilemmas with them. The film is a culmination of these newfound American fears, as many aspects of the film reflect these new isms and the ways in which the world was changing. 

Reinstituting Morality

In an unfair and judgmental world, widowed Cary Scott falls in love with her gardener, Ron Kirby. The problem is that Cary is wealthy, and is expected to marry a carbon-copy of her former husband. Even Cary’s best friend Sarah notes disapproval when she hears of the affair, since Ron is an earthy loner, whom Sarah believes is no match for her friend. But the more Cary learns about Ron’s life and philosophies, the more she is determined to commit to a relationship with him. However, when Cary’s children protest and threaten to abandon her, and she suffers potential social isolation, she breaks off the relationship. Only when she hears of Ron’s life-threatening accident does she realize her mistake and rush to his bedside, ready to commit to a relationship with him.

The underlying theme of the film, and of its melodrama genre, is the aspect of the social tension and corruption which hinders the couple’s relationship, and their attempt to reinstitute morality into a corrupt society. Thomas Schatz writes that melodrama is categorized by lovers being victimized by unfair social circumstances, which appropriately describes All That Heaven Allows. These unfair circumstances, although trying, allow the protagonists to rectify immoral societal values and norms. When word gets out, via Mona Plash, that Cary is dating a younger, handsome, middle-class man, the gossip spreads like wildfire. Cary is criticized behind her back and is the subject of many posh country club discussions. Even her own children turn on her, and Cary is literally alone, besides for Ron. She hasn’t done anything wrong; she is only letting herself fall in love, and yet she is ostracized from the community. When she defies social norms by rushing to Ron’s side after his accident, Cary proves that although she may be criticized, she is doing what is right and what she believes in. Steven Lipkin quotes Peter Brooks, who writes that the melodrama attempts to “resituate morality in a desacralized world (296)”. Truly, this is what the film is, at its essence: Cary and Ron prove to society that they will do the right thing, even if it’s not socially acceptable in an unethical culture.