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Career Dive: Julie Taymor
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Release Date
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June 2, 2021
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Running Time
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28:09
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(After the Channel Awesome logo, we are shown the Career Dive title, with the title literally diving into a pool of water before floating to the surface. Then cut to NC.)
NC: If you were to ask me who are some of the current living directors who are changing the way we look at film and what it can do, I'd probably throw out names like...
(Cut to a montage of shots of the following...)
NC (vo): ...Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, David Lynch, and Julie Taymor.
NC: If you were to also ask me, "Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery?", I would say, "I hope so," because...
(Cut to clips on NC's show of Julie Taymor (played by Tamara).)
NC (vo): ...we've made fun of her quite a few times on the show!
NC: But as easy as it is to satirize someone who goes big and takes chances, it's also rather easy to admire them as well.
(Cut to a shot of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.)
NC (vo): We all like to give praise when a risk pays off...
(Cut to a shot of the infamous movie version of Cats.)
NC (vo): ...and potshots when it doesn't.
(A montage of the works of Julie Taymor is shown now.)
NC (vo): But the fact is, there's directors who take risks all the time when most would lean towards being safe and marketable. Whether it falls under a success, failure, or somewhere in between, Julie Taymor puts her all into every risk she takes. There's never anything she works on that you could say her heart wasn't in it. This has resulted in some of the craziest, imaginative, visually big and small productions in theater, opera, and film.
NC: If it works, it changes the way you look at the art form. If it doesn't work, (looks up in thought briefly) it still might change the way you look at the art form.
NC (vo): There's always something of value in a Taymor production, and it's always something only she and her bizarre way of seeing the world could create. Like before, I'm going to focus more on her career than her personal life, and while I will talk about her stage work, I mainly want to talk about her work in film, because honestly, I don't think it gets enough credit.
NC: With that said, let's get a little background at where this wonderful weirdo came from.
(An image of a weird-looking baby doll is shown, looking absolutely nothing like Taymor. A message is added reading, "Sorry, Couldn't Find a Child Picture of Her".)
NC (vo): Born in 1952, in Newton, Massachusetts...
(An image of a play Taymor starred in as a child is shown.)
NC (vo): ...by age ten, she joined the Boston Children's Theater, no doubt getting the stage bug very early in life.
(Then cut to a clip of a map of the Earth.)
NC (vo): Growing up included a lot of traveling, like to (Shots of the following are superimposed...) India, Sri Lanka, and Paris...
(Clips of Taymor's early performances are shown.)
NC (vo): ...each place discovering something new about herself and a new artistic way to express it. This included miming, dancing, mask work, experimental film, and various forms of puppetry. After graduating from college with a major in mythology and folklore...
NC: (looks around shiftily) I guess there is money to be made in that.
NC (vo): ...she developed a mask-and-dance company in Indonesia. She included not only a wide range of talent, but also a wide range of people from different cultures, like Japanese, French, German, American, just to name a few. There, she'd meet composer Elliot Goldenthal... (A shot of the Batman Forever soundtrack album is superimposed, whose music was composed by Goldenthal.) Yes, that Elliot Goldenthal. ...which began both an artistic and romantic relationship.
(Cut to a still shot of Taymor and Goldenthal together.)
NC (vo): The two have worked on several projects together and are still an item even to this day.
NC: Moving back to New York in the '80s, she would bring everything she learned in theater to her stage work.
NC (vo): Forming a style you could identify very quickly. It often had a lot of creepy and distorted masks, puppets, or sometimes both, combining puppetry and masks to create some unbelievably unique performances. In fact, Taymor, not surprisingly, won a Jim Henson Foundation grant – twice! – directing a surreal tragicomedy called Liberties Taken, and another production called Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass. Look at this stuff! This is imagery that leaps off the stage and stays with you for a long time. She would direct not just experimental plays, but also operas and Shakespeare, always giving her surreal, personal touch. Some of these did so well that she would not only go back and update them years later, (Posters for Titus and Tempest are shown.) but they would make their way to cinematic version, but we'll get to that in a bit.
NC: Even before her big screen debut, though, she did do work on a TV movie called...
(Cut to the title and then footage of the movie in question...)
NC (vo): ...Fool's Fire. Based on Edgar Allan Poe's story "Hop-Frog", this has all the makings of a Taymor production: weird puppets, distorted scenery, and a story about rooting for the underdog. A dwarf jester, played by Michael J. Anderson, is mocked and abused by a selfish king and his followers. But when the king abuses a dwarf the jester falls in love with, played by Mireille Mossé, they both plan a way to get revenge and send them back to their Muppety seamstress.
NC: As you can tell, even with this crummy render I have of the film, the visuals...
NC (vo): ...are still amazing. It's pretty cool that the dwarfs are the only human beings in the production while everyone mocking them is a creepy-looking monster. In fact, Anderson and Mossé said this was the first production they were portrayed as normal and everyone else around them was a strange creature. I will admit, this film might have been a little better as a short. Granted, it's only an hour long, but it feels like a twenty-minute story dragged out to sixty. There's a lot of scenes that feel kind of filler-ish. Still, this was Taymor's showing that her visual storytelling could work both on stage and on film, even her next cinematic outing wouldn't be for another seven years.
NC: However, she had a pretty good reason for that.
NC (vo): With her name creating more and more buzz, she was approached by a company she honestly thought she would never be able to jell with: (The Walt Disney Pictures logo pops up.) Disney.
(Cut to the poster for The Lion King.)
NC (vo): Their film Lion King had become a smash hit.
(Cut to the poster for Beauty and the Beast: The Broadway Musical.)
NC (vo): And with their first stage outing going phenomenally well...
(Cut to another image of The Lion King.)
NC (vo): ...it only made sense to try it with what was the biggest animated film at the time.
(Cut to footage of Taymor on the creation of the Lion King Broadway show.)
NC (vo): Taymor had an idea to combine African culture with puppeteers that didn't hide themselves on stage. They would be half-actor and half-puppet.
NC: While this was by no means the first to introduce this idea, it wasn't a mainstream concept.
NC (vo): In fact, if you see a stage show today using this method, and it has a big budget behind it, you probably have this musical to thank for that. Disney execs looked at the idea, spent a good chunk of time scratching their heads, but ultimately said, "Yeah, okay." Not knowing if the Broadway crowd would get behind this, wondering if the children would be shouting, (mocking child voice) "I can see the puppeteers!", both Disney and Taymor, again, were taking a big risk.
NC: Fortunately, not only did it pay off, it's still paying off.
NC (vo): Lion King got rave reviews, was adored by the public, and became Broadway's highest-grossing musical ever. It became a staple of stage shows...
(A shot of a whole collage of posters for Broadway shows is displayed, with the camera zooming on the poster for The Lion King.)
NC (vo): You don't do a Broadway collage and not include Lion King in there.
(Cut back to The Lion King.)
NC (vo): ...has been seen by over one hundred million people, and even got Taymor a Tony for Best Director, the first one ever given to a woman. It was one of the biggest gambles to ever pay off in entertainment history. So, what do you do after you create a Disney worldwide phenomenon?
NC: (shrugs) Let's do a movie about body parts being hacked off.
(Cut to the title for Titus, followed by footage of the movie.)
NC (vo): Titus, based on Shakespeare's most violent play and (A shot of the other version of Titus is superimposed.) not the hilarious FOX sitcom, once again utilized a style that had been seen in theaters, but not that often in cinema. When a lot of people think of a Shakespeare play, they think of people (A shot of Hamlet is superimposed briefly.) with puffy sleeves and tights against a stone castle like (A shot of Prince Edward from Enchanted is shown next.) the prince from Enchanted.
NC: But all the ones I've seen had very imaginative settings.
NC (vo): Many of them take place either in modern times or no particular time at all. If Hamlet wants to wear jeans, fine. If he wants to wear a royal golden crown, fine. It's more about what matches the character and mood, rather than what's historically accurate. Titus, for me anyway, is the first film I saw that incorporated this. The costumes aren't just random, they match each character's persona. The locations don't feel like a place down the street, they help give a more epic feel.
(Cut to a scene from Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.)
NC (vo): And unlike Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, where I don't think half these actors actually know what they're saying...
Benvolio Montague (Dash Mihok): I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword. (begins to put his gun (or "sword") away) Or manage it to part these men with me.
(Cut back to Titus.)
NC: (vo): ...these actors were given months to prepare. So every word uttered feels authentic and real.
Aaron (Harry Lennix): (as he walks through a hallway with torches) Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts! I will be bright, and shine in pearl and gold to wait upon this new-made empress!
NC (vo): This would also be the start of what I like to call "Fuck you, I'm Julie Taymor" moments: trippy parts that pop out of nowhere, almost screeching the film to a halt, like another mini-movie suddenly played in the middle of the one you're watching.
NC: Taymor call these "penny arcade nightmares", but... (looks up in thought for a moment) eh, I think "Fuck you, I'm Julie Taymor moments" sound better.
NC (vo): Now, make no mistake: I don't mean this as a bad thing – for the most part; we'll get to those. Because, for the most part, they still serve visually what the characters are going through, becoming abstract and trying to find a different way to visually get across an idea, rather than just telling you. For my money, I love the hell out of this movie. It's violent, disturbing, bloody as hell...
NC: ...yet somehow, cultural!
NC (vo): Can it be pretentious? Yes. Do I always know what's going on in Taymor's head to justify all this? Not really. But she creates a world and characters that suck you in and keep surprising you.
(A clip is shown of the reanimated Terracotta Army marching weirdly.)
NC (vo): Look at this opening. Why are they marching like that? I have no damn clue. It's just fucking awesome. I'm sure Taymor has a long, detailed reason why every decision in this was made, but bottom line: it doesn't bother me because it doesn't take me out of the story. If anything, it draws me in more. Yes, it's odd, but it's also epic, and so much of that is because of the acting, the art direction, and those "fuck you, I'm Julie Taymor" moments that have me questioning more what's going on in a character's head.
NC: This film apparently didn't have that big a budget, but you'd never know...
NC (vo): ...by looking at it. Its clever choices, resourcefulness, and dedicated passion makes it, in my humble opinion, one of the coolest Shakespeare movies ever. I know it's not for everyone, but it's worth checking out, because if you like it, you'll really like it.
NC: Though Titus is my personal favorite of her films, if you were to ask me objectively which one is her best, that'd be her next movie, Frida.
(Cut to footage of Frida.)
NC (vo): The biopic about world-renowned artist Frida Kahlo could not have gotten a more appropriate director. Though I love the artist's work, I feel I have a much better understanding of it because of this film. So much of Taymor's artistry blends the real world and the surreal world, and this movie brilliantly showed how and why Frida painted what she painted. I like how the story is told straightforward until the accident that would change her life forever. Almost instantly, she sees everything in a different way, again utilizing those "Fuck you, I'm Julie Taymor" moments in perfect fashion. She almost never verbalizes what she's seeing; it's shown to us through imagery that perfectly tells us what she's feeling and why she needs to paint. Before this film, I never saw this bathroom painting before, but now, every time I see it, I can't help but think back to what she was going through at this point in the movie.
NC: It's almost like a visual companion to this woman's life (A clip of the movie is shown off to the side.) along with the visual companion to the woman's life.
NC (vo): Salma Hayek is...good, but...I don't know. I get much more bitterness out of the writings and paintings of Kahlo, and the way Hayek plays it comes across as a bit of an act.
(A montage of scenes from the movie showing Hayek as Kahlo is shown. First, we see her being brought on her bed into the art gallery.)
Kahlo: Shut up, panzon. Who died?
(Cut to another scene, showing a man on a balcony above Kahlo.)
Man: Okay, come on up here.
Kahlo: No, you come down.
(Cut to another scene.)
Kahlo: (to an elderly couple) I think this house is cursed and that you are the Antichrist.
NC (vo): She's not bad; I just see more of a performance than a woman torn apart. It's nothing super distracting, I just never fully bought it.
NC: Aside from that, though, this is one of the best films you could ever see about an artist.
NC (vo): It does so well visually blending this woman's life and artwork, while also showing the verbal wit and charm she had as well. Another weird experience, but what else would you expect from an artist like Frida Kahlo?
(The scene then fades to black, and we go to a commercial break. Upon return from the break, the video resumes with Julie Taymor's next movie, Across the Universe.)
NC (vo): Her next film would be Across the Universe, which...
NC: (looks around shiftily) Do we like this now? (takes out his phone to look up this movie on the Rotten Tomatoes app) People's opinions of this movie have been all over the map through the years.
(He brings up Across the Universe on the Rotten Tomatoes app. It shows that Across the Universe got a score of 53% on the Tomatometer, but a score of 82% on the Audience Score.)
NC (vo): Oh, okay.
NC: (shrugs) I guess we like it now.
NC (vo): This is an...interesting experiment, to say the least. It's a love story set in the '60s that uses Beatles songs to get across the emotions and ideas many young people were feeling at the time. While most of you know I'm not a big fan of jukebox musicals, this one once again really thinks outside the box. While many of the songs have the same outlook, other songs like "I Want You" has a totally different meaning, connecting to the U.S. Army drafting young men to Vietnam. That's an angle I wouldn't have considered!
Soldiers: (singing) I want you so bad, / It's driving me mad...
NC: So I'm very half-and-half on this movie, and I mean that literally. I like half this movie.
NC (vo): I think the characters are relatable and charming, and the music mixed with the trippy visuals really helps give an idea of what the attitude was like around this time. Then, it starts getting lost to its own trippiness, which I know is part of the idea. The teens discover drugs, get really lost in their passion, pain, and need for love, and...we just kind of stay there for the rest of the movie. Nothing really seems to push forward that much, as even the "Fuck you, I'm Julie Taymor" moments start to wear out their welcome, as the story pretty much vanishes, and we're just watching these kids bitch and moan.
NC: (holds up hands defensively) But I will acknowledge, that's a huge part of the '60s.
NC (vo): People did get lost, both mentally and physically. I guess I just kinda got bored with it after a while. And for me to get bored with visuals as crazy as this is really saying something. But I'll admit, that's more just my personal take. I can see both halves resonating with a lot of people. I just only connected with the first half. With that said, the visuals are still cool, the acting is decent, and...it's the Beatles; what more do you have to say? I can't promise you'll like it, but it's probably worth checking out just to see if it'll make a strong connection with you as it did for many others.
NC: (sighs and folds hands together) We next jump to 2010, where one of the biggest, if not the biggest, blow that could ever happen to this director occurred.
(He hangs his head as we then cut to footage of...)
NC (vo): ...The Tempest. I mean, come on, this is a low-budget stage show on the screen; we expected a lot more!
(As we cut back to NC, the title for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is shown in the corner. NC looks at it.)
NC: Oh, and this little musical. But I think people want to hear about The Tempest first! (nods)
(A brief clip is shown of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.)
NC (vo): Okay, we'll get to this in a second...
(Cut to footage of The Tempest.)
NC (vo): ...but I do want to bring up this flick real quick, as...yeah, this just wasn't Taymor's year. I guess it doesn't help that Tempest is not one of my personal favorite Shakespearean plays. You're talking to a guy whose favorite version of the story is probably (The poster for the following is inserted...) Forbidden Planet. But man, this film doesn't help that. It follows the story fine, with a few changes and even a gender reversal of one of the leads.
NC: But I never thought I would say this about a Julie Taymor production: this needed to be weirder.
NC (vo): It has good actors and an occasional "Fuck you, I'm Julie Taymor" moment, but we're mostly just watching people on an island, and...that's it. One of them is Russell Brand; that sure doesn't help anything! Almost nothing about this feels cinematic or even that visually pleasing. It's almost like Spider-Man was weighing so heavy on her, she forgot to do anything interesting with this idea, which is strange, because she's directed many stage versions of it that have gotten a lot of praise in the past before.
NC: So, why am I bringing it up? (points to camera) Because of this scene...
(Said scene is a drunken Stephano (Alfred Molina) trying to sing and climb on a rock, but not having much success in his stupor. He stumbles a bit.)
Stephano: Yeah... (stops) Oh, fuck! (laughs)
(The scene freezes.)
NC (vo; laughing): What was that? (replays the scene) Was that a blooper they left in, or did they actually write in a Shakespeare play, he trips and says, "Oh, fuck"?
Stephano: Oh, fuck! (laughs)
NC (vo): Either reason is amazing, and I just wanted to give it some attention.
NC: Okay, let's talk about Spider-Man.
(Footage of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is shown.)
NC (vo): There's been so many stories about this epic failure that I'm not even sure how to sum it up. (The cover of "Song of Spiderman", the book on the play, is displayed briefly.) I will say, I did read the book "Song of Spiderman" by the show's writer, which made me understand the troubles a little more.
(Cut to a clip of an episode of Saturday Night Live, showing Julie Taymor (played by Kristen Wiig) playing with a lion puppet.)
NC (vo): Most people think Taymor being fired from the production was due to wanting to go too big, causing major injuries from insane stunts.
Taymor: No one said this was gonna be easy. It's like I say to my actors: "LOOK OUT! GET OUT OF THERE!"
(Cut to an earlier episode of NC's own show, showing Tamara as Taymor (as seen in NC's review of Cool World).)
NC (vo): This is a narrative we took a few shots at as well.
Taymor: Having Bono do Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark killed!
NC: Literally. It literally killed.
Taymor: Hey, you can't make an omelet without breaking some heads, yo.
Ralph Bakshi (Rob): It's true.
(Cut back to Spider-Man.)
NC (vo): After reading the book, though, I can say it doesn't seem like those were the main reasons.
(Cut very briefly again to Kristen Wiig as Taymor.)
NC (vo): But they didn't help.
(Cut to a shot of the earlier Lion King Broadway play.)
NC (vo): To paraphrase, with Lion King breaking almost every record known to man, there was a push to do something even bigger.
(Cut again to Spider-Man.)
NC (vo): A Lion King with stunts, if you will.
Taymor: We're trying to do everything in live theater that you can't do in two dimensions, in film and television.
NC (vo): Bono and The Edge were interested in doing a Spider-Man musical, so it was decided, with Taymor helming it, this would be the ultimate Broadway spectacle, with more money and effects than anything ever seen on stage before. Everyone agreed to push the envelope, but it was also agreed it wouldn't be released until Taymor was satisfied with her vision. This led to a record-breaking 182 previews, with Taymor still not feeling like she got it right. Bono, the writer, and the producers all agreed, but they were getting impatient with so many delays. And it wasn't just them; critics got so tired of waiting, they started reviewing the previews, which, big shock, weren't that favorable, partly because it wasn't technically done. The biggest problem, the creators agreed, was the first half seemed to win the crowd over, with cheers and roars at the amazing stunts and swinging into the audience. But the second half left people very underwhelmed. They concluded that the action of the first half should be in the second half and the stakes should be made a lot higher, with Spider-Man's foes being real instead of illusions, as was originally written. Everybody agreed to this. Everybody...except Taymor. She thought it went against the idea and themes of the show. And that apparently was it for them. There were delays, injuries, a buttload of money being spent, and what seemed like a good solution not being taken advantage of. Taymor was kicked off the production, and it was reworked officially to open in 2011. You can see bits of it on YouTube, and...I guess, like many people, I'm kind of mixed on the final product. The stunts are pretty cool, and once again, visually, it's amazing to look at, but to say it takes some bizarre liberties is an understatement. And...yeah, sometimes, it's just...lame.
(A filmed clip of the play is shown, showing the Green Goblin.)
Green Goblin: Norman Osborn: new and improved! Just ten minutes a day, with one of them shake-weight thingies. (laughs)
(NC stares in awkward silence, only twitching the corners of his mouth slightly.)
NC (vo): Regardless, Taymor's firing made big news. She went from being Francis Ford Coppola after (The poster for the following is inserted...) Godfather to Francis Ford Coppola after (The poster for the following is inserted next...) Apocalypse Now, except without the finished version of Apocalypse Now even being released! What was supposed to be her biggest production became one of her toughest low points.
(A few more snippets of the Spider-Man play is shown before we abruptly cut to black.)
NC (vo): And it would be decades before she'd ever work again–
(But he fully finishes, however, we immediately are shown footage of Taymor's next production, a version of yet another Shakespeare production, A Midsummer Night's Dream.)
NC (vo): Actually, she got directing again pretty fast. She did another revision of Midsummer Night's Dream, which there is a recorded version of, and...
NC: (shrugs) It's definitely a return to form.
NC (vo): Though the visuals do almost overshadow the performers, it still has a crazy and distinct flair that, once again, is all Taymor.
NC: After directing a few more productions, she would go on to direct yet another film in 2020: The Glorias.
(The title for The Glorias is shown, followed by footage of that film.)
NC (vo): Her second biopic, this time about Gloria Steinem.
NC: And I'll just say it: I didn't know who this was.
NC (vo): I heard the name before, but I wasn't exactly clear about what she'd done in the past, so it was kind of neat seeing a biography on a person I literally knew nothing about. The story about a journalist-turned-activist during the women's movement in the '70s is described on Rotten Tomatoes...
(Cut to a shot of the Rotten Tomatoes page on this movie, which shows that it got a score of 67% on the Tomatometer and a score of 64% on the Audience Score. The camera then zooms in on the critic consensus of the movie.)
NC (vo): ...as being (reads critic consensus) "uneven yet engaging".
NC: (shrugs) I think that's fair. (nods)
NC (vo): I guess it helps I didn't know her story, so most of what happened legit surprised. And I did find myself getting pretty interested in it. Yes, it can be preachy and sound byte-y, but it's about a writer/protester; it's kind of impossible not to be. It still has enough about the actual person's life and her accomplishments, both big and small, as well as her failures, both big and small. I think Taymor learned the same lesson [George] Clooney did in Good Night and Good Luck, that you shouldn't have actors play the opposing side, because it might come across as too one-sided or cartoony, so just show the actual footage of the things the opposition said back then. Honestly, that makes his point more than any actor ever could. There are less of those "Fuck you, I'm Julie Taymor" moments than you would expect, and they are still pretty hit-and-miss. There's one scene where the movement's losing momentum, and she's running on a road towards her goal that's a treadmill to nowhere. That's pretty effective. The framing device for the film is all the versions of Gloria at different ages on a bus, thinking about the journey, where they're going, and when they'll eventually get there. Again, pretty clever. But then there's scenes like this, where a reporter asks an inappropriate question...
(Suddenly, to the tune of "William Tell Overture: Storm", the scene goes red and a tornado picks up the reporter. As he is swept into the tornado and carried off, the many faces of Steinem looking at him.)
NC (vo; laughing): What the fuck is this? Even as a Julie Taymor fan, what the fuck is this? And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know she has a deep meaning for it, but it just knocks me too much out of the moment to care. Despite scenes like that, and a few characters who probably should have gotten a bit more attention – she has a husband for like a minute – I mostly enjoyed this.
(Cut to a shot of Taymor herself making a cameo in this movie.)
NC (vo): I even liked that Julie gave herself a cameo at the end. I can't explain why; there's just something comfortably confident about it.
(Cut to another shot of Taymor.)
NC (vo): And as of now, there's nothing official yet as to what Julie Taymor is gonna do next, whether it's a movie, stage show, or something else.
NC: But whatever it is, you can rest assured, it's gonna be weird as shit.
(Footage of Taymor's work is shown one more time as NC gives his final thoughts.)
NC (vo): Julie Taymor is clearly a divisive director. Hell, some of her stuff I don't even know if I like half the time. But she always asks you to work a little harder than your average run-of-the-mill entertainment, and I do respect that. Can she get lost in her art to the point where I can't even recognize what it is sometimes? Honestly, I'd expect nothing less from a director like this. Sometimes, getting lost can be a good thing; sometimes, it can be a bad thing. But I like that someone took a risk asking me to tag along for the ride. Through a distinct style, a mix of cultures, and a passion to explore whatever the hell she wants to explore, we're given ideas and imagery that can be talked about in a variety of ways. Is Julie Taymor genius gone crazy, or crazy gone genius? I don't really care. Her works shows me things I've never seen and gets me thinking about stuff I've never thought about. Whether you get into her work or not, there will always be something strange, puzzling, and fascinatingly intriguing to explore every time.
NC: I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to. (gets up and leaves)
Channel Awesome Tagline – Stephano: Yeah... Oh, fuck! (laughs)
(The credits roll.)