I’ve only seen Frida and Across The Universe. Frida was a pretty solid flick, but Across The Universe was god awful, a sin against man.
Unfortunately, there are so few women directors and fewer that make it to respected status so i often feel the need to champion her because she is extremely thoughtful about her work and vision – maybe stuck in ‘too’ thoughtful mode because she isn’t as prolific because of it. What definitely stands out about what i don’t like however is her casting decisions and they show a weak link in the work itself. i’m not all that hopefull for her Tempest rendition – i didn’t like when Greenaway did it and I certainly don’t want her to be the female Branagh :) Titus remains powerful though and no one wanted to tackle the content so it speaks volumes of her ability.
I find Titus too uneven to really enjoy, although it has some great moments.
I found it impossible to reconcile the person who made Titus with the person who made Frida (which is a workaday biopic) or Beyond the Universe (which I bailed on, as Sadie started caterwauling in best American Idol fashion). The latter film wasn’t just bad, I think: it really did seem to indicate that as a film director Taymor is reaching for devices, and struggling to make memorable images (cinema’s history is filled with great theater people moving into film; but not everyone makes the transition)—but how does this make her any different from, say, a vapid music-vid hack and image-monger like Floria Sigismondi?
Frida was an amzing film. Titus i did not like at all. But the visuals are great. Tempest looks fantastic. So i am looking forward to seeing more of her work.
Titus was glorious, an almost perfect film. Frida was visually stunning, but ultimately vapid. I’d love to see the full cut of Across the Universe, I think that it would actually be able to turn into a decent film if it were given the breathing room (and by cutting out, dare I say it, Eddie Izzard’s animation and replacing it with a decent visual to his hilarious performance).
She is an amazing visionary, but unfortunately has become more and more involved with her own navel than adapting something brilliantly—in cinema, anyway. Her opera Grendel is fabulous and should be filmed in order to replace the cinematic cancer that is Beowulf. No matter what it is, however, I will continue to be excited by her films, at least for a few more (as long as they don’t continue to suffer).
Across the Universe was maybe the worst movie I’ve ever seen. A complete bastardization of the music and a laughable screenplay. I’m not wild about Evan Rachael Wood and I hated the British guy.
Titus, on the other hand, I have on DVD, and probably takes itself too seriously. An incredibly disturbing movie (and play), and I agree with Harold Bloom that it would be best directed as a farce by Mel Brooks. That being said, there is some stunning cinematography and acting, if the screenplay (“by” Julie Taymor) is a little obvious and rips off Fellini too much.
I’ve only seen Titus. She did a good job of opening up the play. But Titus is big and barnstorming, with lots of blood and guts. The Tempest is very minimal and ethereal — I hope she doesn’t bring the same approach. Derek Jarman’s Tempest is the one to beat.
The only problem with ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is that vapid script that tries, like FORREST GUMP, to cram in way too much history without being able to do justice to any of it.
Titus was bold and gory. I wasn’t familiar with this play, so I’m in no position to quibble about its accuracy or intention. I liked it.
I got distracted watching Frida, and watched it three times before I felt I had actually seen it. It was creative, the mixed media sections were impressive, but my attention kept wandering.
I didn’t bother with Across the Universe. I’m not a 60s buff, and it looked too hokey in trailers, like being trapped in the Beatles’ minds while they were hallucinating and vomitting all over the place from too much mescaline, or maybe trapped in the minds of the animators of Head or The Yellow Submarine.
But, Fool’s Fire is a good short Taymor created for American Playhouse. It is an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Hopfrog.
Fool’s Fire/Hopfrog is a crass, brutal story about little people and revenge. The plot concerns Hopfrog, the nickname of a peasant dwarf, forced by war and necessity to serve as a court jester to a tyrannical king. When Hopfrog meets his little girlfriend, long presumed dead, who is now an ill-treated chanteuse at the king’s pleasure, the little man’s rage boils over. He suffered innumerable injustices without complaint; but seeing his babycakes brutalized, brings out the murderous impulses of the downtrodden. Hopfrog hatches a complicated plan involving masks, chandeliers, and orangutans to wreak massive vengeance. If nothing in that last sentence touched your heart, how about knowing that Hopfrog is played by Michael J. Anderson of Twin Peaks fame? The little man dancing in front of red velvet curtains and on jaggy black and white tile, talking backwards about garmonboza? He is Hopfrog: dancing, making puns, and exacting revenge. Little people, furious anger.
The story’s rudeness makes Mark Twain look like the paragon of enlightened delicacy. The narrative is based on the Bal des Ardents , an incident under Charles the VI of France, where several noblemen were accidentally burned to death at a party for inadvertently wearing flammable costumes. The Taymor short is slightly long at 50 minutes, and it is necessarily gentler than the short story.
SuperStringTheory: The Greenaway Tempest is so avant-garde art film-y that I’m not really partial to it either, but I doubt Taymor’s will be in the same vein at all. I like the Branagh comparison though, that is a rut she doesn’t want to get herself into.
Witkacy- She is really concerned with style/aesthetic, but I don’t see her films as vapid. In general, there seems to be a lot of underlying theory and symbolism, though since Titus is an interpretation I don’t think she can reasonably take credit for Shakespeare. But she seems pretty on point to me, with lots of allusions and good visual representations of things the text implies (like Chiron and Demetrius’ detachment and lack of emotion)
I’m really interested in Fool’s Fire now, I’ll check that out!
Ashley A.
So I’ve noticed recently, not on this board in particular, but in talking to people etc. that there is a LOT of polarity on Julie Taymor as a director. I personally am tremendously partial to her aesthetic, despite some overarching idealism/metaphysicality (of the kind I think Theodor Adorno would have criticized tremendously, especially her use of ritual/tribal aesthetic which is what he criticized in Stravinsky’s music).
Titus, I adore, though I heard from a professor Anthony Hopkins was really upset during the filming by her interpretation/vision and Hated the film. With a capital H. Frida was lovely, and filmed really well. I have seen her staging of the Lion King (in person) and Oedipus Rex (on DVD) and while musicals and opera aren’t my thing usually I think she did a wonderful job. Across the Universe? Ok, everyone gets one bad film. It was pretty and all, but… meh.
I’m really excited about her version of The Tempest. I wish she’d do Twelfth Night, my favorite Shakespeare play. I think she really manages to ‘get’ the post-modern (especially in reference to psychoanalytical theory, Lacan and maybe Freud too). While that’s not exactly my thing (I’m more of a Critical Theory, Walter Benjamin person myself) I think she makes REALLY relevant interpretations of things. She does a wonderful job making the aesthetic aesthetic into a kind of timelessness that borrows from everywhere… I think I’m thinking of Titus in particular here, which is what I’m most familiar with. I have to watch Frida again.
Anyone have any thoughts on her? I’d love to get some opinions. I know she doesn’t exactly have a huge body of work, but I really wonder what people think of her- or IF anyone think of her, even.