Return of the King: Elvis Presley brought alive in a lively concert film | Movie-review News
EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert review: While director Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 feature Elvis buried its subject in frenzied editing, split screens and so much chaos, his concert documentary, EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert, on the king of rock ‘n’ roll, does the opposite: it finally lets Elvis breathe.
Conjured mainly from 59 hours’ worth of unseen footage unearthed by Luhrmann’s researchers from a working salt mine in Kansas, where Warner Bros use the underground vaults, 650 feet below ground, to store and preserve valuable film reels, costumes, and props, this vibrantly coloured documentary comes with considerable restraint. And therein lies its triumph.
Nearly five decades after his death at 42, Elvis cuts through decades of noise and myth surrounding him. It is as if Luhrmann is screaming ‘Elvis Lives’ – a rebuttal to the posters with the famous slogan ‘Elvis is Dead’, once born out of the meteoric rise of The Beatles in the 1960s. Luhrrmann simply pans the camera on his Las Vegas residencies in the ’60s, besides a few other concerts, and there he is: the devastatingly handsome Elvis with the playful curl of his lip and sweat glistening on his face, strutting and crooning on stage in those iconic colourful jumpsuits with winged collars and theatrical capes. And no, he doesn’t miss a note. Elvis comes alive in the only way that ever mattered: on stage, under the spotlight, clutching that microphone, crooning those hits such as I’ll be falling in love with you, Jailhouse rock, You ain’t nothing but a hound dog and Suspicious minds, among others. Steeped in gospel, from a growl to a whisper, there is the stretch of the notes and him moving, shaking and jolting the famed left leg that had a life of its own, attuned to the beat, dancing away. And no, he still doesn’t miss a note.
Watch EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert trailer:
Luhrmann has restored the footage wonderfully and presented Elvis with much panache. In fact, through this film, being screened in IMAX halls with surround sound, he gives Elvis the world tour he never got due to his exploitative manager, Colonel Tom Parker, in the driver’s seat. Parker was an illegal Dutch immigrant and was worried that if he left America, he wouldn’t be able to enter back again. He never accepted other invitations.
The motion picture by Luhrmann in 2022, starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks, left me with the question: what fascinated Luhrmann about Elvis’ music? Mainly because in that hectic film everything felt like one Instagram reel after another, without much of a deep dive into what Elvis thought and felt or his Republican leanings (He had spoken to Richard Nixon about The Beatles, who were ruling the game then, being anti-American and promoting drugs).
But EPIC delivers what it promises: it captures the charisma of Elvis; even the electricity of his gyrations, considered scandalous back then. Elvis, of course, never saw his moves as profane. To a question if he has scandalised the public, he says, “I haven’t. Because I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong.” Then there is all the hysteria: women screaming, tossing their undergarments at him, reaching to touch him, kiss him, him kissing them back, the primal frenzy is there in all its glory.
The film still doesn’t delve into much of his politics, except highlighting that he chose not to speak on political matters and would always say that he was just an entertainer.
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It is amid the rich music that Luhrmann builds the narrative of Elvis’s life, about a white boy born poor in Tupelo in 1935 and growing up amid Black kids and Black music that drifted across racial lines. Growing up with gospel and blues in Memphis, inspired by BB King, this is the music that shaped his sound. For many white kids, this was also their first encounter with the sound otherwise available on what were called “race records”. He took it and made it more.
The film whitewashes over most of his personal life. His marriage to Pricilla isn’t there, his passionate affair with actor and singer Ann-Margret, who was one of the few people to attend his funeral, is missed. His relationship with Parker, who steered his career for better or for worse, is barely examined. But what the film thoroughly understands and shows us – through concerts, rehearsals, conversations with the press — is the music of Elvis and the man who built a home inside it. At a time when AI can create almost anything musically, one sees Elvis Presley, this raw, brilliant musician in this concert film, as a reminder of what we’ve lost. And how there would never be another Elvis.
EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert director: Baz Luhrmann
EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert rating: 3.5 stars
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