Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis delivers an epic story about show and business
When Baz Luhrmann set out to make Elvis, there were specific things he didn’t want to do in his latest film. For one, the Australian director behind such blockbusters as Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby, made sure this was not going to be a “biopic” about Elvis Presley, also known as the King of Rock ‘N Roll, contrary perhaps to expectations ahead of the film’s global theatrical release. (Starring Austin Butler in the title role, the rated-PG Elvis premieres today in Philippine cinemas or two days ahead of the US debut.)
“Well, I didn't want to do a few things. One, a biopic — this is not a biopic. Two, I didn’t want it to feel nostalgic. And three, I just wanted to tell this epic story. The epic story really is about America in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s and about these two great gestures, which are the sell and the show, the showman and the snowman,” Baz said in an international Q&A.
This explains why the film features several iconic Black-American artists and their music, and other influences from the era and the area that Elvis grew up in, which made him not just a music icon but also a “spiritual person to the end.”
“You can’t tell that story if you don’t deal with the issue of race, particularly if you’re doing music. Now, I think Elvis was at the center of culture for the good, the bad and the ugly in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. This young man, for a time, is living as a kid with his mother in one of the few white-designated houses in a black community,” Baz said.
As part of his preparation for the film, the director stayed in Memphis, where Elvis lived and recorded music. There, he eventually met someone who personally knew the late musician.
“(He was) an African-American older man, Sam Bell, who just passed last year, but who, along with some other young boys, hung out with Elvis when they were about 13. They would run down to the juke joints and they would go to the Pentecostal joints. I think it's incredibly important to understand how much Elvis loved gospel above all other music. He gravitated toward it, he would stay up after doing two shows in Vegas and sing gospel. It’s what made him a very spiritual person to the end,” Baz said.
“So, because Elvis was absorbing music — gospel, country, and so on — he’s a product of all of these mixtures of music. Ergo, you have to have that music in the movie, you have to have (musicians like) Big Boy Crudup (played by Gary Clark Jr.) and Big Mama Thornton (Shonka Dukureh). As to Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Yola), do I actually know that he saw her? No, but I know that they were fans, I know Elvis’s mother, Gladys, played that music all the time. But most definitely his friendship with B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) was genuine and B.B. says some extraordinary things about what he and Elvis felt together about music,” he added.
But apart from exploring the “great life” of Elvis against the backdrop of the great music from the ‘50s to the ‘70s, the film is also as much about the complicated if not controversial relationship between Elvis and his manager Colonel Tom Parker (played by Tom Hanks).
“It’s an intimate journey of this guy called Elvis and this guy called Colonel Tom Parker. That's the real thing,” Baz said in a separate global presscon that was recorded live from Elvis’ Graceland estate in Memphis for select press from Asia and Latin America.
“That's about, you know, show and business, about management and control and exploitation, and also about creativity in the soul and truth. I think a lot of that's going on in the world today just seemed like a really wonderful way to take a great life and great music and explore bigger ideas.”
He decided to tell the decades-long, eventful life of Elvis through the lens of the colonel to “make it more than you can just tell us, he's born, he does this, it's an extraordinary story.”
He continued, “But when you have a two-hander between the self and the soul, between (Elvis and) the character that actually most people might think of as the villain. And in his story, debates, he argues, 'I'm not the bad guy.' And it gives you tremendous dramatic tension in the whole story. It allows you to go to places you otherwise wouldn't go in and reveal things that you wouldn't be able to reveal otherwise.
“And I think it helps us explore a larger idea, which is, why did Elvis so come from such humble beginnings, the shame of his father, the poverty, the loss of his mother, this big hole in his heart is so so high, it was the sun and like Icarus, then tragically fall. No, why did that happen? And everyone says, ‘Oh, you think it was me? The evil manager who was just exploiting for money, but what he argues through the movie is hey, you know what, all I did was my job.
“You know, there's a story, not in the movie, but when Elvis dies, the colonel hears the news, and the first thing he does is pick up the phone and he says, print more records. And we all as an audience get, ‘What a cold-hearted man’ and the colonel would say, ‘But yeah, you wanted the records, like, I was just doing what you wanted.’ Like as soon as an icon dies, we all want to rush out in here is music. So, I was keeping him alive for you. Now we all go, ‘Oh, come on, you will make money.’ So, therefore it's a complicated relationship — the relationship between art and commerce. It's one of the most extraordinary stories of the American era.”
Meanwhile, as Baz stressed he didn’t want Elvis to be a nostalgia film, instead, he wants it to spark reflections about the characters and the times they were in — and then, have viewers ask themselves: “Have we come further? Have we grown more?... There's a big debate out there about how we grow, how has it been an evolution? Where are we now? Are we going backwards?”
Baz is also happy that the Presley family, led by Elvis' wife Priscilla Presley, has accepted the film and praised it for its contribution to the Elvis legacy. “Really, I mean, an unexpected level of just embracing,” as the filmmaker proudly put it. The movie was also on the receiving end of one of the longest standing ovations at the recently-held Cannes Film Festival in France.
In response to a question from The STAR about their entire filming experience under Baz, the cast praised and gave credit to the director, describing him as never "dictatorial,” who is always collaborative and open to ideas, and whose attention to detail is second to none.
But Baz was also quick to point out, “I want to say something about every actor in this room here and every actor actually there was in this film. Like sure, I mean, we do a robust process of rehearsal and exploration. Sure, we do exercises. But I encourage them and they do bring something in themselves, like, you know, living like the scene.”
He wasn't threatened by the suggestions and ideas from the cast because “I can't be threatened, it's very simple. Because I know the story, we're serving a story. Honestly, the way you tell the story, there’s a million ways like everyone brings something to that… Everybody brings something to that play… That, for me, is the greatest joy, that they are not empty vessels, that everyone’s bringing something to the play.”
From Warner Bros., Elvis opens in Philippine cinemas nationwide today.
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