For today's Female Filmmakers series we need to look at one of the titans in the industry. She has directed skintastic nudity and she also has some fascinating lore behind her because she directed one of Broadway's biggest flops. Have you guessed yet? We are talking about the one and only Julie Taymor.
Julie was born in Massachusetts to intellectual parents. Her mom was a professor and an activist and her father was a gynecologist. So where did her interest in art come from? When she was a kid, she joined Boston Children's Theatre and took on an intense interest in theater. By the time she was a tween, she would take multiple trips to Boston every weekend to take theater workshops.
Interestingly, her parents sent her to India and Sri Lanka as a teen with something called Experiment in International Living. She then went to school in Paris to study mime where she started to watch foreign films. She did all of that during her teen years, so she took a lot of interesting inspiration with her to Oberlin College where she studied mythology. What a wild mix of an education she had!
After graduation, she won a fellowship that took her to Asia to study mask theater and dance as well as puppetry - all of which we would later see in her work! She started writing and directing in theater in the 1970s with her debut show Way of Snow. It was her play Tirai that put her on the map which she remounted at LaMaMa in 1980 to critical acclaim.
She got very into directing Shakespeare and became famous for her fantastic visuals and her use of masks and puppets. She later became known for directing spectacles like The Lion King! If you know anything about the Broadway musical adaptation of The Lion King, then you know that there are some innovative puppets in that musical. That's all Taymor!
But what about her movies? Let's talk about those!
In 1999 she directed her first feature film Titus which was an adaptation of Titus Andronicus. Sure, scholars love to dismiss Titus Andronicus as one of Shakespeare's worst plays, but Taymor's adaptation proves that the story is as lively and relevant as it ever was. The film starred the lovely and talented Jessica Lange as Tamora, Titus' hostage and the Queen of the Goths.
The plot follows General Titus who goes back to Rome after victory in battle with Tamora and her sons as his hostages. There is drama aplenty and there is also nudity from the gorgeous Jessica Lange! This was a great debut film that gave audiences a refresher on one of Shakespeare's lesser-known works. It really is a fine adaptation, but this film had nothing on her next big movie.
She then directed Frida which was nominated for six Academy Awards and brought us Salma Hayek's breasts in close-up action. This film was a huge passion project for Salma who put her trust in Taymor's artistic vision to essentially show us Frida's mind from the inside out. That trust was put into good hands because this is a beautifully shot film and Salma is gorgeous as the unibrow-ed artist.
It is clear that Taymor was inspired by Frida's work and mixed her own visual aesthetic to tell Frida's story. Plus, we can't ever forget the lesbian sex scene with Salma Hayek and Karine Plantadit!
In 2008, she directed the jukebox musical Across the Universe which attempted to use songs from The Beatles to create a love story set in the 1960s between Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess. There were plenty of cameos and revamped editions of old classic songs that made a new generation fall in love with The Beatles...and with Taymor's beautiful cinematography. This movie, while simple in terms of plot, may be her most beautifully made film.
And then came Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark in 2010. Where to even begin with this musical? What could go wrong did go wrong in this ultimately doomed production. She once again took on all aspects of production from co-authoring the script to designing masks worn by actors in the show. She directed the show with music by Bono and the Edge based on the Marvel superhero with some Greek myth spliced in. She does love to add some of the classics!
As soon as rehearsals began, several actors were injured performing stunts on the show. The show's opening night kept getting pushed back due to these issues and when the show finally did open, critics slammed the show. Some critics even reviewed the show in an unfinished state out of pure spite for the delayed openings which, in hindsight, feels awfully petty. Just let the artistry take its time!
After the show's terrible reviews, the production was suspended for a month to improve it. Taymor was fired and replaced by a creative consultant. The show was technically in previews for a long time - which is sort of when the show is on training wheels before it is officially ready to be "done" and open to the public - that it set the record for the longest Broadway show to be in previews with a whopping 182 performances.
After the show opened, reviews were slightly better and there was a lot of praise for the innovative special effects in the show which is a testament to Taymor's visionary approach to theater and film.
That show was a setback to her career. It took a few years before Taymor returned to her roots of directing Shakespeare. She eventually directed the film The Glorias in 2020 which did not have any nudity in it. The film instead showed us the life of feminist activist Gloria Steinem - who did briefly work as a Playboy bunny! Alicia Vikander plays young Gloria and she looks fine as hell doing it.
So what will Taymor do next? It is a shame that the Spider-Man musical briefly blackballed her from the industry. She's been quiet ever since the pandemic, but I have no doubt that she will someday make a triumphant return to the screen when the muse strikes her. Let's just hope that that muse is also naked.
