Editing Across the Universe

The 2007 motion picture Across the Universe, directed by Julie Taymor, depicts the story of young adults grappling with love, death and family during the turbulent times of the Vietnam War. With characters like Jude, Prudence, Lucy and Sadie, the movie features the actors performing covers of the hit songs of the Beatles to develop the story musically. The movie’s linear structure often breaks for musical, or instrumental montages.

One brilliantly edited montage comes as Lucy discovers her boyfriend has died in battle in Vietnam. The montage does much to progress the story. It shows the shift of Lucy, from a happy-go-lucky high school senior, to a saddened woman who has lost a loved one. Simultaneously it introduces a new character, Martin Luther, who loses his younger brother in the violence during the Detroit Race riots. The montage’s soundtrack is the pure voice of his younger brother singing an acapella rendition of ‘Let It Be,’ shifting into a gospel version as the choir leader at the funeral performs to the bereaving family. In addition to progressing the story, the montage encapsulates one of the movie’s themes—the instability of the country in the 1960s. The cutting back and forth from the funeral of the fallen Vietnam soldier and young black Detroit boy highlight the fact that regardless of race or age, many were suffering loss during the volatile political climate of the decade.

The montage begins as Lucy and her sister bike by her boyfriends house, sees the soldiers approach the house and give his mother a letter. A shot of the fallen bikes on the pavement cuts to a slow motion shot of the soldiers leaving the porch as the two girls run to comfort the mother. The muted scene takes on a somber tinge as we see the letter and dog tag fall to the porch’s floor, showing the audience that he has indeed died in battle. As the audience sees the dog tag fall, the boy begins with the lyrics, “When I find myself in times of struggle...,” and a cut to the a fence begins the musical montage. It’s understood because of the song and unrelated footage, that we are entering a new location. In an inductive manner, a shot of two black men grabbing the fence to jump over it cuts to a larger shot of them running in a derelict alleyway. To establish the chaos of the riots, the filming is done in an unsteady, documentary-esque style, panning across to see the National Guard, and zooming into burning cars and tanks. A shot of burning police car establishes the location as ‘Detroit,’ within ten seconds. Amidst people running around on the street a shot of burning building pans down to abandoned and burnt car, where we see our frightened singer crouching by the fender in a near fetal position. That dramatic shot takes on stronger meaning when it cuts directly to an army soldier shooting at a fleeing vandal. After returning to the frightened boy for a shot, the piano kicks in and we see a hearse process into a cemetery. A cut to a line of mourners with black umbrellas entering into a church, establishes the fact that there are two funerals while keeping the color and motion of the previous hearse procession. In a parallel editing style, the audience goes back and forth between the two funerals and sees the older brother—Martin’s grief against that of Lucy’s, the folding of the flag and the open casket of the young boy.

The montage is a tear jerker, introduces a new character, shows plot development, highlights motifs of the film and features a powerful rendition of the Beatle’s song, “Let It Be.”