Baz Luhrmann directed an electrifying biopic of Elvis Presley, Elvis, in 2022. While researching it, he discovered a treasure trove of previously unseen footage of Elvis in concert. He couldn’t use this, obviously, since another person (Austin Butler) was playing Elvis in the film.
All we saw of the ‘real’ Elvis was a few minutes near the end where he delivered an incredible rendition of ‘Unchained Melody’, sitting at a piano as the sweat rolled off him. As I looked at him, I thought: This man is dying, but boy, can he still sing.
Luhrmann has now collated this footage for EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert. It’s a treat for those of us who loved Elvis at his best. And who didn’t?
Most people know he spent almost ten years making soul-destroying films in the sixties for astronomical sums he couldn’t resist. Some of them were shot in a fortnight – and it showed.
The manner in which Elvis exploded into people’s lives in the fifties was neutralised until his 1968 stage comeback. Expiration of the film contracts liberated him for a return to his first love – live performing. Savour that here, and the rhinestone and karate.
Colonel Tom Parker, his egregious manager, loved money more than music. He was largely responsible for the straitjacketing films. The Marshall Terrill/Greg McDonald book Elvis and the Colonel, and Alanna Nash’s The Colonel, left one in little doubt about this.
Last year Peter Guralnick tried to rehabilitate Parker’s reputation with The Colonel and the King. This was a tiresome book that can only have been of interest to music managers. It was sad to see Guralnick putting his name to it after his two previous wonderful books on Elvis, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love.
What happened, I wondered, since these? Had he become a Graceland patsy? If so, I felt Priscilla Presley, Elvis’ widow, would have been the cause. She’s now 80 but still exerts an iron grip on all things Elvis, including this film.
I’ve just finished reading her second autobiography, Softly As I Leave You. It’s written by a different woman than the one who penned Elvis and Me in 1985.
She’s made of sterner stuff than the Presleys. Priscilla has outlived not only Elvis but also her daughter Lisa-Marie and her grandson Ben. Such strength is to her credit, of course. She had a difficult life with Elvis. This was made blindingly clear in Sofia Coppola’s 2023 film Priscilla.
But she’s extremely controlling. I discovered this myself some years ago when I wrote a conceptual book on Elvis, The Elvis Diaries. My agent of the time showed it to her. She insisted on large segments of it being redacted, even though it was basically a fictional undertaking.
This is all tangential to the present film, which gives us precious new footage of Elvis both performing and talking. It will be mandatory viewing for all those ‘anoraks’ and completists out there.
