THE BEATLES MUSIC CROSSES ONTO FILM

The Fab Four’s tunes are used as a backdrop to tell the story for the musical film Across The Universe.

The juke box musical has hit the big screen with Across The Universe, this time using the Beatles music as the backdrop to tell the story of a young Liverpool man who comes to America in search of his father during the height of the Vietnam War.

Jim Sturgess is Jude, who finds his Lucy played by Evan Rachel Wood also starring in King of California, when he stumbles upon her in New York’s Greenwich Village. The native Brit who shot some of his scenes at the famed Cavern Club in Liverpool where the Fab Four got their start talks about his favorite songs.

“It changed from day to day depending on which one we were doing. Yeah, for the eight months one day I would love one song and a few months later I couldn’t stand to hear it and I loved another song and then I got back to it again. But Strawberry Fields was always great and I always loved that song and then I Am The Walrus but I don’t get to sing that one. That was Bono’s song. He got the best one.”

Bono makes a cameo appearance in the film as Dr. Robert, a rock star wannabe who caters to every woman in the room. Bono says The Beatles songs could be a soundtrack to what is happening in the world today as it was in the 60s.

“These Beatles songs, these songs were the zeitgeist of a particular era in the 60s, a time of change, renaissance of popular culture and popular uprising really. Equality was on the move and there was a war happening; people didn’t understand the war. Why are we fighting? Why are our sons and daughters coming home in body bags? Well it’s not exactly the same but it’s analogous to what’s going on today. This is a time of change, the start of the 21st century.”

Across The Universe directed by Julie Taymor boasts a large ensemble cast including Salma Hayek, and Eddie Izzard with a limited opening Friday, September 14th, opening wide September 21st.