So, at last, Elvis.
What is it?
A Biopic? Yes of course; but not just a Biopic.
Is this a Requiem: yes, but not just a Requiem.
Is this a Requiem Mass? Yes, but not just a Requiem Mass. It is one where the Deceased is also the Celebrant.
Baz Luhrmann may be the liturgist, but Elvis himself is the High Priest officiating.
Elvis never wanted to be the King of Rock and Roll. That crown, he was sure, belonged to BB King. But right from the start of this movie we are reminded that the Blues and Gospel and Country came together in Elvis’s art. American Country music often seems to be its own religion, but the Blues and Gospel are both profoundly spiritual. The Blues pays attention to the joys and sorrows of love and sex, but still gives thanks to God for both, and Gospel can also produce ecstatic states of mind and body. Ecstasy literally means be ‘out of our bodies’ and Elvis’s music did that too, to the great dismay of many. When he played to a younger ‘squealing teenage’ audience in the 1950’s this dismayed many of the men who saw their girls ‘getting off’ on his antics, and the camera here knows exactly where his sexual centre of gravity was. Elvis’s Los Vegas shows may well have brought a more middle aged - and more conservative - audience close to ecstasy too. And of course, his early music and performances alarmed the socially conservative and racially prejudiced powers who feared the ‘Negro’ element there would dissolve their apartheid attitudes and corrupt the young.
I wonder who other than Baz Luhrmann could have made this movie? The opening credits remind us of The Great Gatsby. The choreography is as integral as in Strictly Ballroom. The love of musicals - and this is certainly a musical - is as clear as in Moulin Rouge. The exploration of character – in this case two characters – is as forensic as in The Great Gatsby, and that, it occurs to me now, also has an unreliable narrator at its heart. And the editing is as ruthless and necessary as in his ‘Romeo and Juliette’.
And who else could/would combine the sleaze and kitschy bad taste of Showbiz – and it really is a story of show BIZ – with the profound tragedy of this life? Luhrmann does not judge. He celebrates.
And of course, what he celebrates most is the Elvis’s voice. How wise to use the original sound recordings, and how unobtrusively he blends in the singing voice of Austin Butler. I confess I do not remember him from Tarentino’s Once Upon a time…in Hollywood, or Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die, but here he does for Elvis what Taron Edgerton did for Elton. It is a triumph of casting and performance. I wonder if Luhrmann had to wait until he found the actor with the right body, face and eyes before making Elvis. Madonna once said that ‘Elvis is back and he is a woman’, but that was long ago, when she came across the young KD Lang, and I think that although she was talking about the voice there was something about K D's face that also fitted.
And then of course we come to Colonel Tom Parker, our unreliable narrator, impersonated or recreated by Tom Hanks. I know far too little to judge the accuracy of his performance, but I guess the facts must be close to the truth. What I do admire is Hank’s refusal to make his character in any way likeable or sympathetic. It seems that Parker somehow won the trust of the whole Presley family, but here Hanks never tries to win ours. I do not know if he has an Oscar due after more than 25 years since he won two in a row for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, and he has turned in some very fine performances since then. This century has given us Cast Away, Road to Perdition, Catch Me If You Can, Charlie Wilson’s War, Cloud Atlas, Captain Phillips, Bridge of Spies, The Post and A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, with many nominations but no more Oscars.
Among a large cast of actors who I did not know it was interesting to see Dacre Montgomery from Stranger Things as Steve Binder.
The Production and Costume design are by Luhrmann’s wife and creative partner Catherine Martin, who has performed those roles ever since their Romeo and Juliette. Ironically, she won two Oscars for Moulin Rouge and two more for The Great Gatsby, whereas Baz has none. I suppose they share the same mantlepiece. She might win another couple for Elvis, and maybe it is Baz’s turn.
Is the movie long? It takes only 2 hours and 40 minutes to tell his story, and sometimes feels a little rushed. And at the end we are reminded – if we have ever forgotten – how shockingly, obscenely, young Elvis was when he died at 42. It is also rated as 12A, and is therefore less explicit about much of the darkness in his life, especially in his later years. We also see little of his Hollywood offerings, but apart from Flaming Star I doubt if much is really lost.
I enjoyed Elvis, and I am old enough to feel the tragedy of his life. This movie seems to be an act of love; but then so many good movies are - and some not so good ones too. Making a movie can be hard labour gladly done for love. Sometimes love of the subject, be it a person, a book or just a tale that needs to be told, or for the love of the art, craft or technical skills necessary to make a movie happen. I make a point of staying in my seat to watch all of the credits, an utterly unseen and useless acknowledgement of the love and effort required by the hundreds of people who made the film.
I am glad that together they made Elvis and made it so well.
