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.