If you have seen past creations of Australian director Baz Luhrmann, such as The Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge!, you will have a good idea of what auteurist visuals to expect in his latest film extravaganza, Elvis. Elvis has been available for streaming on HBO Max and as a high-priced rental or buy on Prime Video. Now one can own it on disc. This is a vibrant movie that can be seen over and over without losing entertainment value.
The bio-pic takes a somewhat non-linear approach to the life of the King of Rock and Roll. His story is told in no small part through the eyes of his manager and second father, Colonel Tom Parker, played to perfection by Tom Hanks. The wily Colonel takes Elvis from a skinny farm boy with a velvet voice and erotic pelvic zone to one of the most successful, innovative entertainers in modern history. Of course, the road from early 1950s Southern poverty to the heights of Las Vegas’s riches is not without several stops at Heartbreak Hotel!
Luhrmann isn’t the kind of filmmaker to offer audiences a conventional bio-pic. Instead, Elvis is a somewhat abstract visual and audio treat. The cinematography, the film’s overall design with vivid colors and overcooked pictorial motifs, and the musical presentation, are true to Luhrmann’s keynote style.
Austin Butler plays the title role. I could not take my eyes off his bowed lips, Mary Pickford-like! Fans of ex-Disney star Butler have been wondering: Has there been plastic surgery or Botox? No matter. Butler makes a wonderful Elvis, not a copy but an interpretation. When women in his audiences scream in orgasmic delight, it makes sense. Elvis the Pelvis is one sexy fellow! And Elvis, the movie, is worth a look.
Two older films that I recently viewed also are outstanding imagined looks into peoples’ lives, not famous people. Everlasting Moments by acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell from 2008 examines the strife of his real-life mother-in-law, Maria Larsson. Sweethearts Maria and Sigfrid win a camera in a lottery and so they marry to settle who will take the camera home. They have a large brood of children, but Sigfrid is a nasty drunk, disloyal, abusive, and disgusting to his wife and children. Maria eventually takes out the camera and discovers she is an apt student of photography. The intimacy with which the story is articulated is so engrossing. The powerful, fact-based screenplay emphasizes the drudgery of Maria’s life, her victimization, and takes a feminist point of view towards her predicament.
Another terrific look at peoples’ lives is All or Nothing, a 2002 fiction film from British writer/director Mike Leigh. Its style and storyline are that which is very much associated with this director, building off improvisations and emphasizing small moments, conversations, in the lives of lower economic working-class people. Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville lead the cast, which includes a young, very heavy James Corden.
Throughout the film, the three families at the center of the plot are at times rude, unloving, or just don’t seem to care. They live in low-priced council flats. Some rely on drink. Money is scarce. Few seem to recognize what happiness can be. Amid family conflict, Manville’s character says to Spall, her husband, who has suggested to their ailing son the absurd idea that they plan a trip to Disney World, as if that will solve their problems. She says, “It ain’t about goin’ on holiday. It’s about getting’ by week in week out. It ain’t a game!” All or Nothing is an extraordinary example of Leigh’s talents, and his casts’ abilities, and his insights into the human condition.
Bio-pics and films about family life can give audiences perceptions into how those around us live, and sometimes even a mirror into our own lives.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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