Film
JULY 21–31
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley (Photo: Provided)
Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” asks the musical question “Is It Good to Be the King?” By Br yan VanC ampe n
I
t’s a paradox. Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” (Warner Bros.-Bazmark Films-The Jackal Group, 2022, 159 min.) is a worthy epic bio-pic about the corrupt and complex relationship between Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) and his manager Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). If you’re going to do a cradle-to-grave Elvis saga—a subgenre that I’m not crazy about—that relationship makes the most dramatic sense. Why didn’t Elvis ever tour the rest of the world? Because Parker was worried about his citizenship status. What if Presley had severed ties with the Colonel and concentrated on making better movies? “Viva Las Vegas” (1964) is probably his best film and it shot for six weeks. Parker made sure that the follow-up, “Roustabout” (1964), was shot on the cheap in 18 days. Every time the King tried to sever ties with Parker, he wound up chastened, cowed and doing what he was told. And yet it’s weird; in Luhrmann’s operatic, florid vision, Presley’s music rarely feels authentic. There are only three or four moments where the music cues actually sound like Presley. Most of the King’s classics have been slathered with contemporary rhythms, vocals and counter-melodies. I get it. Luhrmann is showing us how influential Presley’s music has been, and I sure wouldn’t argue that point. But it’s as if Luhrmann doesn’t trust the power of “Heartbreak Hotel”, among more than a dozen tunes you’ll hear over the course of “Elvis”’s 159 minutes, to convince you why Presley was one in a million. At the end of the day, Elvis Presley was, like Frank Sinatra, an interpretive artist.
The guy who never wrote an original song inspired a generational wave of guys like Lennon & McCartney and Jagger & Richards to take the guitar and piano chords they’d learned and write their own songs. (I love me some Elvis, but I believe that the real king of rock n’ roll was Chuck Berry.) It’s pointless to complain about Luhrmann’s lack of obligation to the past. He’s a post-modern artist, as a much a party planner and DJ as he is a filmmaker. This is the guy who put Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” into “Moulin Rouge” (2001). If you must have verisimilitude with your impression of Elvis Presley, by all means, listen to the man’s music, check out any number of documentaries, and several biographies in the music section of your local bookstore or library. If you prefer the “Print the legend” version of the King, Baz Luhrmann’s vision of “Elvis” is for you. Luhrmann has that theatrical, epic sweep that can tell a man’s life story in one go. It’s too early to play favorites, but Butler does a great job finding an essential part of Presley’s nature; like Gary Busey’s title performance in “The Buddy Holly Story” (1978), Butler isn’t doing an impression but an incarnation. (For the record, my favorite fictional takes on the King are Kurt Russell in John Carpenter’s 1979 “Elvis” TV movie, and Val Kilmer in Tony Scott’s 1993 pulp masterpiece “True Romance.”) The rest of the film feels meticulously researched, right down to James Burton’s paisley Telecaster. Luhrmann stages epic shots sweeping through Las Vegas, even Contin u ed on Page 19
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