Director: Baz Luhrmann
The truth and mythos of Elvis Presley are often intricately entangled. “I can’t stand still,” he says of himself in interview footage. But stand still he did, from 1969 to 1977, locked into a Las Vegas residency of over 600 shows. Picking apart truth from legend is not the intention of Baz Luhrmann’s ‘concert film’, which instead simply tries to project the inherent stage magnetism of Elvis The Performer. Say what you will about the Australian filmmaker’s divisive biopic starring Austin Butler three years ago, it’s evident he’s still in thrall of The King, though his maximalist tendencies almost work against him as much in the documentary form as they do in his narrative features.
A little frustratingly, Luhrmann decides to preface the unearthed archival footage that fans are braying for with a laborious 20 minute prologue, in case anybody watching doesn’t know who this guy with the sideburns is. It’s fairly elemental stuff, but it does paint a narrative to explain Presley’s return to stage performance, framing it as an artistic rebirth after a run of contracted Hollywood puff pieces. An opportunity to get back to his audience and the energy of live music. It’s a section in which Luhrmann’s gaudier tendencies get their airing, from incredibly tacky titles to intense editing preferences. Once we get to the meat of the piece, surely things will settle down and we can get a taste of what those concerts must have been like?
Well, yes and no. The footage has been carefully remastered, and it’s heartening that no AI has been used in the process to enhance what’s captured on the varying film stocks. But Luhrmann’s ADHD tendencies are hard to supress. Rather than presenting a concert as an unfiltered historical document, Luhrmann flits between shows and rehearsals. Costumes and arrangements jumble. Songs are cut short or start halfway through. It’s a collage of the heady time period, something that is also reflected in the contemporary selections that Presley chooses to fold into his covers routine (The Beatles get a particularly good showing).
As such this is more a conventional documentary than it is a ‘concern film’. Some of the editorialising is comically on the nose (Colonel Tom Parker appearing to the tune of “The Devil In Disguise”; Priscilla to the tune of “You Were Always On My Mind”) but mostly the interruptions feel like exactly that, particularly as this is a legend that has been so thoroughly documented previously.
Fortunately, the captured, remastered performance elements are stunning. You can see every bead of sweat, every flick of hair. As importantly, you can still feel the tactile nature of the film stock. Time remains in the frame. The involvement of the audience is made paramount, and sometimes it feels like one needs a score card to capture which side is exploiting the other more. Presley never passes up a chance to kiss a fan, and many a fan risks it all to try and drag him bodily from the stage.
Luhrmann’s tic of comparing and contrasting does yield some merits. Switching from rehearsal to performance belies how much more energised the on-stage arrangements are. How Elvis in front of an audience is more frenzied, wired, and lewd. While plenty of his off-stage outfits were famously excessive, once we’re into the white suit, the collar and tassels, another man is born, one riding the wave of his propulsive backing band. Luhrmann’s truncation of songs is a tad frustrating. He slices off the main portion of “Suspicious Minds” for christsakes. But even he can’t interrupt the tenacious, cathartic extended outro. Presley dives around the stage, scares a backing singer, the song becomes a breathless wreck. It’s audacious showmanship.
This is, of course, a blinkered celebration. Just as further interview footage finds Presley reticent to comment politically (Col. Tom Parker looms watchfully in the background), so Luhrmann’s film isn’t inclined to wade into the more problematic aspects of The King’s legacy. There are and will be plenty of documentaries and dramas that delve into those waters. EPiC is about the music and the performer. To hear him tell it, he’s a man reborn every night on that stage. Regardless of the leash that keeps him there, there’s almost no place he would rather have been (except maybe Europe or Japan). That Presley never performed outside of North America makes him a particularly potent symbol. A specific kind of icon. An Australian looking in from outside, it’s clear Luhrmann finds that set of circumstances and what they created endlessly fascinating. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t his last word on the subject. For now it’s a film that often works in spite of its director, and that’s because – at the end of the day – these performances are as irrepressibly enjoyable as they are culturally valuable.
The Lost Highway Hotel 