 |
| Poster for Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks, 2022. |
 |
| The real Elvis Presley, 1968. |
Baz Luhrmann’s fever dream of an Elvis biopic, titled simply and rather prosaically Elvis, is a mishmash of ideas thrown at the screen. I like Luhrmann’s films—I think Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby were fantastic—but Elvis just doesn’t quite work.
First off, can biopics please junk the “cradle-to-grave" format? Inevitably, characters are streamlined, events are fictionalized, and timelines go to pieces under the burden of presenting someone’s entire life in two hours. (Or in the case of Elvis, 2 hours and 39 minutes.) I’d much rather see a biopic that focuses on a discrete time in that person’s life. For Elvis, you could choose from many periods, but the 1968 Comeback Special and his return to live performances in 1969 would be fascinating.
I think Luhrmann made a fundamental error in having Elvis’ manager Colonel Tom Parker be the narrator of the story. Why should Presley’s story be Parker’s to tell? Having Parker be the narrator inevitably focuses more attention on him, which feels unfair to Elvis. Because Luhrmann chooses to characterize Parker as an evil, amoral carnival salesman, a stock villain instead of a three-dimensional character, Parker quickly wears thin. Parker wasn’t actually a Colonel—he was born in the Netherlands and was an illegal immigrant to the United States. Many Elvis historians have theorized that Presley’s seeming disinterest in performing internationally was due to the Colonel’s fear that his secret would be discovered, and he would be deported from the United States. I agree with this theory, as does Luhrmann. What’s missing from Luhrmann’s film is any sense of the Colonel’s fears of being deported—this is a man who is acting out of his own personal fear, and that doesn’t come across in the movie.
Then there’s the woeful miscasting of Tom Hanks as Colonel Parker. Now, I don’t know what Colonel Parker sounded like—the only clip I’ve heard of him speaking is from a 1987 Nightline interview, where he betrays no hint of a Dutch accent. If Parker really spoke as Hanks does in the movie, no one would have believed that he was from West Virginia, as Parker claimed. Tom Hanks is a brilliant actor, of course, but sometimes instead of doing three hours of makeup to make Tom Hanks look like Colonel Parker, can’t you just hire an actor who looks like Colonel Parker?
Austin Butler does a good job with the difficult task of playing Elvis Presley, one of the most handsome and charismatic entertainers who has ever existed. For me, Butler was more believable as the young, pre-Army Elvis than as the jumpsuited 1970’s Elvis. Part of that is Butler’s looks—he looks about a decade younger than 31, his actual age.
By focusing more on Elvis’ relationship with the Colonel, short shrift is paid to Elvis’ music, unfortunately. For a more thorough look at Elvis as a singer and musician, check out the excellent 2018 documentary The Searcher. Elvis recorded 28 takes of “Don’t Be Cruel” and 31 takes of “Hound Dog” before he was satisfied with the final product. I want to see a movie about that guy—you could position him more as a Brian Wilson-type of eccentric genius trying to perfectly replicate the sounds inside of his head rather than a simple country boy.
And don’t get me started on the historical inaccuracies in Elvis. It wasn’t a choice between “going into the Army or going to jail,” as the Colonel ominously intones in the movie. Elvis makes it seem as though Elvis was drafted immediately after his July 4, 1956 performance. In reality, Elvis was drafted in late 1957, obtained a deferment to film King Creole, perhaps his finest movie, and was inducted into the Army in March of 1958. The peacetime draft was commonplace in the period between the Korean and Vietnam Wars. And Elvis comfortably skates over any queasiness 2022 audiences might feel as 24-year-old Elvis meets 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu in Germany in 1959 by not mentioning her age and having 24-year-old Olivia DeJonge play Priscilla through the whole film. The movie also doesn’t really mention how Elvis then stashed Priscilla away at Graceland until they married in 1967. (Her parents were apparently okay with this.)
I can’t imagine experiencing the kind of adulation that Elvis Presley was showered with every time he appeared on stage. It must have been intoxicating to have people treat you like something approaching a deity. But at the same time, I wonder if that wouldn’t wear off fairly quickly when you realize that people will treat you as a deity no matter how good or bad your own performance is. The effects of that kind of adulation on Presley’s personality would be fascinating to know.
Elvis offers a flashy feast for the eyes that the real Elvis Presley would no doubt approve of. But too often, instead of a revolutionary way of examining the life and career of a truly revolutionary entertainer and artist, Elvis settles for the typical storylines of a generic biopic.
