Modern Musicals
Because I haven’t been feeling 100% lately I’ve been watching a lot of movies. Since Friday I’ve actually watched three: Once, Juno and Across the Universe. While I was watching Across the Universe this afternoon, I was thinking that both Once and Across the Universe are modern musicals. They’re both entertaining movies with a majority of their dialogue presented through song. But whereas what I’ll call old-school musicals do so in a sing-songy fashion, where the dialogue is written in verse, Once and Across the Universe do so by using actual songs to tell the story.
Once is a very simple story about a guy and a girl who develop a non-sexual relationship through their musical talents in an effort to get their lives back on track. Because the two main characters are musicians trying to follow their dreams, a majority of the film is devoted to the two singing. The music for once was written by the two actors, who are actually musicians, in order to complement and represent the script. It’s passionate and hopeful music that help to turn the simple story into a very deep and beautiful one.
In contrast, Across the Universe takes established music, in this case the entire Beetles catalog, and uses it to tell a story. It seemed as if the screenwriter had a very simple concept where a guy falls in love with a girl in the 60′s and went and found songs to make it work. The main characters were aptly named Lucy (in the Sky with Diamonds) and (Hey) Jude. Here, the concept works wonderfully at times and at times feels a bit awkward. Sure, it was interesting seeing Bono sing I am the Walrus, and the song was used as a way to show Jude and Lucy’s trip through the 60′s drug culture, but it felt really out of place. On the other hand (warning, spoilers), the presentation of All You Need is Love at the end of the film fit perfectly with the story line and closed the movie in a very nice way.
Both of these movies approach the musical genre (which I would assume both would fall into for lack of a better term) in such a new and interesting way that it makes the genre worth watching. Granted, this idea isn’t exactly original. Movies like Moulin Rouge have used established songs to tell the story in the past, but it seems both Once and Across the Universe are reinventing the idea.