0:00:01.000,0:00:07.000
(Music)

0:00:07.000,0:00:11.000
["Oedipus Rex"]

0:00:15.000,0:00:18.000
["The Lion King"]

0:00:22.000,0:00:26.000
["Titus"]

0:00:37.000,0:00:43.000
["Frida"]

0:00:54.000,0:00:58.000
["The Magic Flute"]

0:01:00.000,0:01:06.000
["Across The Universe"]

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(Applause)

0:01:20.000,0:01:22.000
Julie Taymor: Thank you. Thank you very much.

0:01:22.000,0:01:24.000
That's a few samples of the theater, opera,

0:01:24.000,0:01:27.000
and films than I have done over the last 20 years.

0:01:27.000,0:01:30.000
But what I'd like to begin with right now

0:01:30.000,0:01:32.000
is to take you back to a moment

0:01:32.000,0:01:34.000
that I went through in Indonesia

0:01:34.000,0:01:37.000
which is a seminal moment in my life

0:01:37.000,0:01:39.000
and, like all myths,

0:01:39.000,0:01:41.000
these stories need to be retold

0:01:41.000,0:01:43.000
and told, lest we forget them.

0:01:43.000,0:01:46.000
And when I'm in the turbulent times, as we know,

0:01:46.000,0:01:48.000
that I am right now, through the crucible

0:01:48.000,0:01:51.000
and the fire of transformation,

0:01:51.000,0:01:54.000
which is what all of you do, actually.

0:01:54.000,0:01:56.000
Anybody who creates knows there's that point where

0:01:56.000,0:02:02.000
it hasn't quite become the phoenix or the burnt char.

0:02:02.000,0:02:04.000
(Laughter)

0:02:04.000,0:02:07.000
And I am right there on the edge,

0:02:07.000,0:02:09.000
which I'll tell you about, another story.

0:02:09.000,0:02:11.000
I want to go back to Indonesia

0:02:11.000,0:02:14.000
where I was about 21, 22 years, a long time ago,

0:02:14.000,0:02:16.000
on a fellowship.

0:02:16.000,0:02:18.000
And I found myself after two years there

0:02:18.000,0:02:21.000
and performing and learning on the island of Bali

0:02:21.000,0:02:24.000
on the edge of a crater, Gunung Batur.

0:02:24.000,0:02:28.000
And I was in a village where there was

0:02:28.000,0:02:31.000
an initiation ceremony for the young men,

0:02:31.000,0:02:33.000
a rite of passage.

0:02:33.000,0:02:35.000
Little did I know that it was mine as well.

0:02:35.000,0:02:38.000
And as I sat in this temple square

0:02:38.000,0:02:41.000
under this gigantic [inaud] banyan tree,

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in the dark, there was no electricity, just the full moon,

0:02:45.000,0:02:47.000
down in this empty square,

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and I heard the most beautiful sounds,

0:02:50.000,0:02:52.000
like a Charles Yves concert

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as I listened to the gamelan music

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from all the different villagers that came

0:02:56.000,0:02:59.000
for this once-every-five-years ceremony.

0:02:59.000,0:03:02.000
And I thought I was alone in the dark under this tree.

0:03:02.000,0:03:05.000
And all of a sudden, out of the dark,

0:03:05.000,0:03:07.000
from the other end of the square,

0:03:07.000,0:03:10.000
I saw the glint of mirrors lit by the moon.

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And these 20 old men who I'd seen before

0:03:14.000,0:03:20.000
all of a sudden stood up in these full warrior costumes

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with the headdress and the spears,

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and no one was in the square, and I was hidden in the shadows.

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No one was there, and they came out,

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and they did this incredible dance.

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"Huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu."

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And they moved their bodies and they came forward,

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and the lights bounced off their costumes.

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And I've been in theater since I was 11 years old,

0:03:46.000,0:03:49.000
performing, creating, and I went,

0:03:49.000,0:03:51.000
"Who are they performing for

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with these elaborate costumes,

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these extraordinary headdresses?"

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And I realized that they were performing for God,

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whatever that means.

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But somehow, it didn't matter about the publicity.

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There was no money involved.

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It wasn't going to be written down. It was no news.

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And there were these incredible artists

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that felt for me like an eternity as they performed.

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The next moment,

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as soon as they finished and disappeared into the shadows,

0:04:23.000,0:04:26.000
a young man with a propane lantern came on,

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hung it up on a tree, set up a curtain.

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The village square was filled with hundreds of people.

0:04:32.000,0:04:34.000
And they put on an opera all night long.

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Human beings needed the light.

0:04:37.000,0:04:40.000
They needed the light to see.

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So what I gained and gathered from this incredible,

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seminal moment in my life as a young artist

0:04:45.000,0:04:48.000
was that you must be true

0:04:48.000,0:04:53.000
to what you believe as an artist all the way through,

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but you also have to be aware

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that the audience is out there in our lives at this time,

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and they also need the light.

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And it's this incredible balance

0:05:05.000,0:05:07.000
that I think that we walk

0:05:07.000,0:05:09.000
when we are creating something that is breaking ground,

0:05:09.000,0:05:11.000
that's trying to do something you've never seen before,

0:05:11.000,0:05:13.000
that the imaginary world

0:05:13.000,0:05:17.000
where you actually don't know where you're going to end up,

0:05:17.000,0:05:19.000
that's the fine line on the edge of a crater

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that I have walked my whole life.

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What I would like to do now is to tell you

0:05:25.000,0:05:27.000
a little bit

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about how I work. Let's take "The Lion King."

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You saw many examples of my work up there,

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but it's one that people know.

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I start with the notion of the idiograph.

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An idiograph is like a brush painting, a Japanese brush painting.

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Three strokes, you get the whole bamboo forest.

0:05:42.000,0:05:45.000
I go to the concept of "The Lion King"

0:05:45.000,0:05:48.000
and I say, "What is the essence of it?

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What is the abstraction?

0:05:50.000,0:05:52.000
If I were to reduce this entire story

0:05:52.000,0:05:55.000
into one image, what would it be?"

0:05:55.000,0:05:58.000
The circle. The circle. It's so obvious.

0:05:58.000,0:06:02.000
The circle of life. The circle of Mufasa's mask.

0:06:02.000,0:06:06.000
The circle that, when we come to Act 2 and there's a drought,

0:06:06.000,0:06:09.000
how do you express drought?

0:06:09.000,0:06:11.000
It's a circle of silk on the floor

0:06:11.000,0:06:16.000
that disappears into the hole in the stage floor.

0:06:16.000,0:06:18.000
The circle of life comes in the wheels

0:06:18.000,0:06:21.000
of the gazelles that leap.

0:06:21.000,0:06:22.000
And you see the mechanics.

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And being a theater person, what I know and love about the theater

0:06:25.000,0:06:28.000
is that when the audience comes in

0:06:28.000,0:06:30.000
and they suspend their disbelief,

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when you see men walking or women walking

0:06:32.000,0:06:34.000
with a platter of grass on their heads,

0:06:34.000,0:06:36.000
you know it's the savanna.

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You don't question that.

0:06:38.000,0:06:40.000
I love the apparent truth of theater.

0:06:40.000,0:06:43.000
I love that people are willing to fill in the blanks.

0:06:43.000,0:06:45.000
The audience is willing to say,

0:06:45.000,0:06:48.000
"Oh, I know that's not a real sun.

0:06:48.000,0:06:51.000
You too pieces of sticks.

0:06:51.000,0:06:53.000
You added silk to the bottom.

0:06:53.000,0:06:56.000
You suspended these pieces. You let it fall flat on the floor.

0:06:56.000,0:07:01.000
And as it rises with the strings, I see that it's a sun.

0:07:01.000,0:07:05.000
But the beauty of it is that it's just silk and sticks.

0:07:05.000,0:07:09.000
And in a way, that is what makes it spiritual.

0:07:09.000,0:07:12.000
That's what moves you.

0:07:12.000,0:07:15.000
It's not the actual literal sunrise that's coming.

0:07:15.000,0:07:17.000
It's the art of it.

0:07:17.000,0:07:22.000
So in the theater, as much as the story is critical

0:07:22.000,0:07:24.000
and the book and the language,

0:07:24.000,0:07:29.000
the telling of the story, how it's told,

0:07:29.000,0:07:32.000
the mechanics, the methods that you use,

0:07:32.000,0:07:35.000
is equal to the story itself.

0:07:35.000,0:07:38.000
And I'm one who loves high tech and low tech.

0:07:38.000,0:07:41.000
So I could go from --

0:07:41.000,0:07:43.000
For instance, I'll show you some "Spider-Man" later,

0:07:43.000,0:07:45.000
these incredible machines that move people along.

0:07:45.000,0:07:47.000
But the fact is, without the dancer

0:07:47.000,0:07:50.000
who knows how to use his body and swing on those wires,

0:07:50.000,0:07:52.000
it's nothing.

0:07:52.000,0:07:54.000
So now I'm going to show you

0:07:54.000,0:07:59.000
some clips from the other big project of my life this year,

0:07:59.000,0:08:01.000
"The Tempest."

0:08:01.000,0:08:04.000
It's a movie. I did "The Tempest" on a stage three times

0:08:04.000,0:08:08.000
in the theater since 1984, '86,

0:08:08.000,0:08:10.000
and I love the play.

0:08:10.000,0:08:12.000
I did it always with a male Prospero.

0:08:12.000,0:08:14.000
And all of a sudden, I thought,

0:08:14.000,0:08:16.000
"Well, who am I gonna get to get to play Prospero?

0:08:16.000,0:08:20.000
Why not Helen Mirren? She's a great actor? Why not?"

0:08:20.000,0:08:23.000
And this material really did work for a woman equally as well.

0:08:23.000,0:08:26.000
So now, let's take a look at some of the images

0:08:26.000,0:08:29.000
from "The Tempest."

0:08:29.000,0:08:33.000
(Music)

0:08:45.000,0:08:49.000
(Video) Helen Mirren: Hast thou, spirit, Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?

0:08:49.000,0:08:54.000
Ben Whishaw: I boarded the king's ship. In every cabin, I flamed amazement.

0:08:57.000,0:09:00.000
HM: At first sight, they have changed eyes.

0:09:00.000,0:09:02.000
Felicity Jones: Do you love me?

0:09:02.000,0:09:04.000
Reeve Carney: Beyond all limit.

0:09:04.000,0:09:06.000
HM: They are both in either's powers.

0:09:06.000,0:09:10.000
Russell Brand: Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

0:09:10.000,0:09:14.000
(Music)

0:09:14.000,0:09:17.000
Actor: Looking for business, governor?

0:09:17.000,0:09:20.000
Djimon Hounsou: Hast thou not dropped from heaven?

0:09:20.000,0:09:22.000
Alfred Molina: Out o' th' moon, I do assure thee.

0:09:22.000,0:09:24.000
HM: Caliban!

0:09:24.000,0:09:26.000
DH: This island is mine.

0:09:26.000,0:09:29.000
HM: For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps.

0:09:29.000,0:09:33.000
Chris Cooper: Here lies your brother no better than the earth he lies upon.

0:09:33.000,0:09:35.000
Alan Cumming: Draw thy sword.

0:09:35.000,0:09:38.000
And I, the king, shall love thee.

0:09:38.000,0:09:44.000
HM: I will plague them all, even to roaring.

0:09:46.000,0:09:50.000
BW: I have made you mad.

0:09:56.000,0:10:00.000
HM: We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

0:10:00.000,0:10:04.000
and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

0:10:04.000,0:10:10.000
(Music)

0:10:10.000,0:10:12.000
JT: Okay.

0:10:12.000,0:10:16.000
(Applause)

0:10:16.000,0:10:18.000
So I went from theater, doing "The Tempest"

0:10:18.000,0:10:20.000
on the stage in a very low-budget production

0:10:20.000,0:10:23.000
many years ago,

0:10:23.000,0:10:25.000
and I love the play, and I also think

0:10:25.000,0:10:27.000
it's Shakespeare's last play,

0:10:27.000,0:10:30.000
and it really lends itself, as you can see, to cinema.

0:10:30.000,0:10:32.000
But I'm just going to give you a little example about

0:10:32.000,0:10:35.000
how one stages it in theater

0:10:35.000,0:10:38.000
and then how one takes that same idea or story

0:10:38.000,0:10:41.000
and moves it into cinema.

0:10:41.000,0:10:45.000
The idiograph that I talked to you about before,

0:10:45.000,0:10:47.000
what is it for "The Tempest?"

0:10:47.000,0:10:50.000
What, if I were to boil it down,

0:10:50.000,0:10:52.000
would be the one image that I could

0:10:52.000,0:10:54.000
hang my hat on for this?

0:10:54.000,0:10:57.000
And it was the sand castle,

0:10:57.000,0:10:59.000
the idea of nurture versus nature,

0:10:59.000,0:11:02.000
that we build these civilizations

0:11:02.000,0:11:05.000
-- she speaks about it at the end, Helen Mirren's Prospera --

0:11:05.000,0:11:09.000
we build them, but under nature,

0:11:09.000,0:11:12.000
under the grand tempest, these cloud-capped towers,

0:11:12.000,0:11:15.000
these gorgeous palaces will fade

0:11:15.000,0:11:21.000
and there will leave not a rack behind.

0:11:21.000,0:11:23.000
So in the theater, I started the play,

0:11:23.000,0:11:26.000
it was a black sand rake, white [unclear],

0:11:26.000,0:11:29.000
and there was a little girl, Miranda, on the horizon,

0:11:29.000,0:11:31.000
building a drip castle, the sand castle.

0:11:31.000,0:11:35.000
And as she was there on the edge of that stage,

0:11:35.000,0:11:38.000
two stagehands all in black

0:11:38.000,0:11:42.000
with watering cans ran along the top

0:11:42.000,0:11:48.000
and started to pour water on the sand castle,

0:11:48.000,0:11:50.000
and the sand castle started to drip and sink,

0:11:50.000,0:11:53.000
but before it did,

0:11:53.000,0:11:56.000
the audience saw the black clad stagehands.

0:11:56.000,0:12:01.000
The medium was apparent. It was banal. We saw it.

0:12:01.000,0:12:03.000
But as they started to pour the water,

0:12:03.000,0:12:07.000
the light changed from showing you the black-clad stagehands

0:12:07.000,0:12:10.000
to focusing, this rough magic that we do in theater,

0:12:10.000,0:12:14.000
it focused right on the water itself.

0:12:14.000,0:12:17.000
And all of a sudden, the audience's perspective changes.

0:12:17.000,0:12:22.000
It becomes something magically large.

0:12:22.000,0:12:25.000
It becomes the rainstorm.

0:12:25.000,0:12:28.000
The masked actors, the puppeteers, they disappear,

0:12:28.000,0:12:31.000
and the audience makes that leap into this world,

0:12:31.000,0:12:36.000
into this imaginary world of the tempest actually happening.

0:12:36.000,0:12:38.000
Now the difference

0:12:38.000,0:12:40.000
when I went and did it in the cinema,

0:12:40.000,0:12:42.000
I started the actual movie

0:12:42.000,0:12:47.000
with a close-up of a sand castle, a black sand castle,

0:12:47.000,0:12:49.000
and what cinema can do is,

0:12:49.000,0:12:52.000
by using camera, perspective,

0:12:52.000,0:12:55.000
and also long shots and close-ups,

0:12:55.000,0:12:58.000
it started on a close-up of the sand castle,

0:12:58.000,0:13:00.000
and as it pulled away,

0:13:00.000,0:13:02.000
you saw that it was a miniature sitting in the palm

0:13:02.000,0:13:05.000
of the girl's hands.

0:13:05.000,0:13:07.000
And so I could play with the medium,

0:13:07.000,0:13:09.000
and why I move from one medium to another

0:13:09.000,0:13:11.000
is to be able to do this.

0:13:11.000,0:13:13.000
Now I'm going to take you to "Spider-Man."

0:13:13.000,0:13:17.000
(Music)

0:13:44.000,0:13:47.000
(Video) RC: ♪ Standing on the precipice,

0:13:47.000,0:13:51.000
I can soar away from this. ♪

0:13:51.000,0:13:53.000
JT: We're trying to do everything in live theater

0:13:53.000,0:13:55.000
that you can't do in two dimensions

0:13:55.000,0:13:58.000
in film and television.

0:13:58.000,0:14:02.000
RC: ♪ Rise above yourself and take control. ♪

0:14:02.000,0:14:06.000
George Tsypin: We're looking at New York from a Spider-Man point of view.

0:14:06.000,0:14:08.000
Spider-Man is not bound by gravity.

0:14:08.000,0:14:11.000
Manhattan in the show is not bound by gravity either.

0:14:11.000,0:14:15.000
RC: ♪ Be yourself and rise above it all. ♪

0:14:15.000,0:14:19.000
Ensemble: ♪ Sock. Pow.

0:14:19.000,0:14:22.000
Slam. Scratch. ♪

0:14:22.000,0:14:24.000
Danny Ezralow: I don't want you to even think there's a choreographer.

0:14:24.000,0:14:26.000
It's real what's happening.

0:14:26.000,0:14:28.000
I prefer you to see people moving,

0:14:28.000,0:14:30.000
and you're going, "Whoa, what was that?"

0:14:30.000,0:14:43.000
(Music)

0:14:43.000,0:14:45.000
JT: If I give enough movement in the sculpture,

0:14:45.000,0:14:48.000
and the actor moves their head, you feel like it's alive.

0:14:48.000,0:14:51.000
It's really comic book live. It's a comic book coming alive.

0:14:51.000,0:14:58.000
(Music)

0:14:58.000,0:15:00.000
Bono: They're mythologies.

0:15:00.000,0:15:03.000
They're modern myths, these comic book heroes.

0:15:03.000,0:15:09.000
RC: ♪ They believe. ♪

0:15:09.000,0:15:13.000
(Screams)

0:15:13.000,0:15:18.000
(Music)

0:15:31.000,0:15:33.000
(Applause)

0:15:33.000,0:15:36.000
JT: Oh. What was that?

0:15:36.000,0:15:39.000
Circus rock n' roll drama.

0:15:39.000,0:15:42.000
What the hell are we doing up there on that stage?

0:15:42.000,0:15:45.000
Well, one last story, very quickly.

0:15:45.000,0:15:47.000
After I was in that village, I crossed the lake,

0:15:47.000,0:15:50.000
and I saw that the volcano was erupting

0:15:50.000,0:15:53.000
on the other side, Gunung Batur,

0:15:53.000,0:15:56.000
and there was a dead volcano next to the live volcano.

0:15:56.000,0:15:58.000
I didn't think I'd be swallowed by the volcano,

0:15:58.000,0:16:00.000
and I am here.

0:16:00.000,0:16:03.000
But it's very easy to climb up, is it not?

0:16:03.000,0:16:05.000
You hold on to the roots,

0:16:05.000,0:16:08.000
you put your foot in the little rocks

0:16:08.000,0:16:10.000
and climb up there, and you get to the top,

0:16:10.000,0:16:13.000
and I was with a good friend who was an actor,

0:16:13.000,0:16:15.000
and we said, "Let's go up there.

0:16:15.000,0:16:17.000
Let's see if we can come close to the edge

0:16:17.000,0:16:19.000
of that live volcano."

0:16:19.000,0:16:21.000
And we climbed up and we got to the very top,

0:16:21.000,0:16:24.000
and we're on the edge, on this precipice,

0:16:24.000,0:16:27.000
Rolon disappears into the sulfur smoke

0:16:27.000,0:16:29.000
at the volcano at the other end,

0:16:29.000,0:16:31.000
and I'm up there alone

0:16:31.000,0:16:33.000
on this incredible precipice.

0:16:33.000,0:16:35.000
Did you hear the lyrics?

0:16:35.000,0:16:37.000
I'm on the precipice looking down

0:16:37.000,0:16:39.000
into a dead volcano to my left.

0:16:39.000,0:16:43.000
To my right is sheer shale. It's coming off.

0:16:43.000,0:16:47.000
I'm in thongs and sarongs. It was many years ago.

0:16:47.000,0:16:49.000
And no hiking boots.

0:16:49.000,0:16:53.000
And he's disappeared, this mad French gypsy actor,

0:16:53.000,0:16:56.000
off in the smoke, and I realize,

0:16:56.000,0:17:00.000
I can't go back the way that I've come. I can't.

0:17:00.000,0:17:05.000
So I throw away my camera. I throw away my thongs,

0:17:05.000,0:17:08.000
and I looked at the line straight in front of me,

0:17:08.000,0:17:11.000
and I got down on all fours like a cat,

0:17:11.000,0:17:14.000
and I held with my knees to either side

0:17:14.000,0:17:17.000
of this line in front of me,

0:17:17.000,0:17:20.000
for 30 yards or 30 feet, I don't know.

0:17:20.000,0:17:23.000
The wind was massively blowing,

0:17:23.000,0:17:26.000
and the only way I could get to the other side

0:17:26.000,0:17:28.000
was to look at the line straight in front of me.

0:17:28.000,0:17:31.000
I know you've all been there.

0:17:31.000,0:17:33.000
I'm in the crucible right now.

0:17:33.000,0:17:35.000
It's my trial by fire.

0:17:35.000,0:17:37.000
It's my company's trials by fire.

0:17:37.000,0:17:40.000
We have survived because our theme song is "Rise Above."

0:17:40.000,0:17:44.000
Boy falls from the sky, rise above.

0:17:44.000,0:17:46.000
It's right there in the palm of both of our hands,

0:17:46.000,0:17:48.000
of all of my company's hands.

0:17:48.000,0:17:51.000
I have beautiful collaborators, and we as creators

0:17:51.000,0:17:54.000
only get there all together.

0:17:54.000,0:17:56.000
I know you understand that.

0:17:56.000,0:17:58.000
And you just stay going forward,

0:17:58.000,0:18:01.000
and then you see this extraordinary thing

0:18:01.000,0:18:03.000
in front of your eyes.

0:18:03.000,0:18:05.000
Thank you.

0:18:05.000,0:18:09.000
(Applause)