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There's no doubt that the filmmaking style of Elvis director Baz Luhrmann is divisive. All of the pomp and circumstance can take away from the story he's trying to tell. At least, according to his critics. His fans, on the other hand, are totally swept away in the magic of his very specific approach to cinema.
For the most part, his 2022 biopic epic, Elvis, was well-received. In particular, fans loved actor Austin Butler's take on the classic American figure. And that's in spite of the fact that the film skipped over some of the more controversial aspects of the singer's life. Even Elvis' wife, Priscilla Presley liked the movie, although found it hard to watch.
But was Elvis just a glitzy take on the complicated and ultimately tragic life and career of the singe of "Jail House Rock"? Or was it about something far deeper?
The True Meaning Of Austin Butler's Elvis?
In an interview with Vulture, Baz Luhrmann pulled the curtains back on Elvis, revealing that there was a far deeper meaning to the whole thing than some viewers may have realized.
"I think it’s the great tragic American opera," the Moulin Rouge! and Great Gatsby director said to Vulture.
"And I don’t just mean opera as in vocals. Operas tend to be vast. They have big internal emotions, and they speak to a larger truth, usually about worlds. In this film, there’s the personal journey of Elvis Presley, but probably more than any other character in popular culture he reflects the American journey: the potential of America in the ’50s,' he continued.
"There’s this kind of beautiful Camelot moment with Kennedy, lost somewhat in the purple haze of Vietnam. When Kennedy gets shot, the disillusionment begins, and the disintegration begins. The death of Martin Luther King Jr., the [substances] and malaise of the ’70s."
Luhrmann went on to say that Elvis emerged from within all of that. And through it, he became the "cipher for the whole generation".
Despite Elvis being a shy and polite person, he ultimately became a symbol of rebellion amongst his generation.
"He just organically, inherently, represents the frustration of youth: of shaking off authority, of being edgy, of looking for their war," the director said of the generation born after the 2nd World War.
Tom Hanks' character, Colonel Tom Parker, represented another aspect of American society at that time, according to the director.
"If Elvis is the soul of that journey, the colonel is the sell. The time Colonel Tom came into was the time America started moving directly toward populism," he continued. "[He represents] the carnival barker. Put your brand on things. Parker doesn’t know anything about music, but when he sees Elvis’s effect on the audience, he goes, 'That’s the greatest carnival act I’ve ever seen.' Elvis and the colonel come together as an atomic explosion."
As for why Elvis made sense for 2022, Luhrmann believes that American society has been through a similar period as the one depicted in his movie.
"We’ve been through a period where what is much more important than making something genuine and authentic and new and responding to the moment is to brand it, and sell it, you know?"
Luhrmann On Elvis' Relationship With Colonel Tom Parker
The vast majority of the film centers on the complicated and frustrating relationship between Elvis and Colonel Tom Parker. As well as the dark mystery behind who the man who managed Elvis' career actually was.
"There’s a coldness in the colonel. We don’t really know why he ran [from his home country]. We know that he comes to America, and we know that he reinvents himself," Baz Luhrmann explained to Vulture.
While Colonel Tom Parker almost certainly takes advantage of Elvis and contributes to his spiral into his own torment, Baz Luhrmann believes there was a love there.
"When the colonel expresses love for Elvis, he really loves Elvis, in that moment. But he’s also capable, right in that same moment, of grafting on the qualities of being Elvis’s mother, solidifying his control, separating him from those who might protect him. His behavior is both conscious and unconscious."
Is Elvis Secretly About Baz Luhrmann?
One of the most interesting questions that the interviewer at Vulture asked director Baz Luhrmann was if Elvis was actually about him. In response, Luhrmann admitted, "It’s everything I’m about."
He went on to say, "Elvis’s documentary is called The Searcher. I think somehow, also, I’m probably searching. I mean, if you want to get analytical about it, coming from a broken home in the middle of nowhere, one’s always trying to — like, do what Elvis was trying to do, you know? Always trying to make it good. I’m always moving forward. I think the search is actually about not being constrained."
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