“Elvis” by Baz Luhrmann – the Blackness Ambassador

You’ve read it before: Elvis Presley fused rhythm ‘n’ blues and country music into rock ‘n’ roll. It’s also now in the credits of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” film. You also SEE Memphis’ Beale Street, the Juke Joints, you see Gary Clark Jr. as Arthur Crudup – author of “That’s All Right” – and Yola as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, you see the influence of the wild Little Richard and – at a late press conference – Fats Domino, whom Elvis calls the inventor of rock ‘n’ roll. You see a kind of levitation of the young Elvis at a gospel mass.

Now, this isn’t a documentary, but it does put Presley’s appearance in context: an adept at the styles and expressions of black music he’s absorbed since childhood. The film shows Elvis as a brilliant student of black singers and musicians, as an eclectic of styles and, even that, as a transgressor.

Love hate as fuel

Luhrmann’s film is not revisionist, but it shows Elvis Presley as a man of his time and his world. He wasn’t born the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Unfortunately, Luhrmann lets Elvis’ life be told by an unreliable gossip: Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker fusses and laments for two hours and forty minutes. The love-hate relationship between the two men forms the center of the film: Elvis wanted to go to Europe, Parker didn’t have a passport. Elvis wanted movies like the ones with James Dean, Parker wanted cheap, fast acts.

And Parker presented Presley’s helpless father, Vernon, with a bill for all expenses since 1955. In addition to Hanks’ off-commentary, all information has been placed in mannered dialogue. Everyone speaks swollen unctuously like in gangster movies. The roles of Priscilla Presley, Jerry Schilling, Charlie Hodge and Dr. Nick are moderately busy. The news of the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and a speech by Lyndon B. Johnson run in the background as time color. Colonel Parker babbles and babbles. And he wasn’t even a colonel. Not even Parkers. Not even Tom.

Nevertheless, this film is a sensation. The sensation is Austin Butler. The actor EMBODIED
Elvis Presley has his hips spinning from the first performances and only gets better as he performs in the leather suit on the comeback special, belts out “If I Can Dream” in the white suit, and finally performs with fanfares at the Hotel International. He’s as good as Elvis. And nobody is as good as Elvis.

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