Baz Luhrmann

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert

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Close-up of Elvis

Epic: Elvis Presley in Concert. A marketing award to whichever genius came up with that title for this epic rebrand of old product done with such polish and dash that it casts Elvis Presley anew – all over again. Baz Luhrmann is credited as the director but here he’s more an editor. Having come across tons of never-seen material in the vaults while researching his Elvis biopic a few years back, he decided to take a closer look at what he’d found, the raw footage to the Elvis: That’s the Way It Is and the Elvis on Tour movies. Undoubtedly this was prompted by the realisation that the celluloid itself was in astonishingly good … Read more

Elvis

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Elvis on stage in the early years

It was Elvis’s misfortune to die in 1977, just as punk rock was coursing through mainstream culture. Old and worn out at 42, sick and fat, the King became an instant shorthand for everything that this new wave of music wanted to drive to extinction. He died on the toilet, the story went, with an impacted colon. What a metaphor – the man was literally full of shit. None of that features in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, a gaudy and joyous celebration of the man from cradle to grave, stopping off mostly at the best bits and leaving the dark stuff way off to the sides. This would be terribly problematic, if Elvis were the … Read more