Baz Luhrmann now has two Elvis movies under his bedazzled belt. The first is his epic biopic starring Austin Butler and now he has unleashed another called EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, remixing archival material with never-before-seen footage from the singer’s residency in Las Vegas. What’s remarkable about them both, apart from the director’s obvious affinity for his subject’s showmanship, is his refusal across so many hours of jiggling and swivelling to meaningfully hold Elvis to account.
Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated 2022 film acknowledged Elvis’s cultural appropriation: how his phenomenal success owed so much to the R&B, gospel and rock he grew up around and the racist institutions that put him on a pedestal while holding down the Black artists that birthed and gave that music its soul. The movie also painted Elvis as a bleeding heart for the Black community, projecting so much torment on the crooner over the injustices he witnessed, despite his refusal to say anything publicly – for the community he benefitted from – during the civil rights era. It was all the craven and exploitative Colonel Tom Parker’s fault, according to Luhrmann’s Elvis, depicting the leery and controlling manager (played by Tom Hanks) as the reason for the singer’s strict silence, and the root of so many sins.
That same crafty apologia continues in EPiC, which features a moment when a journalist questions Elvis on his thoughts as the Vietnam war was raging. “I’m just an entertainer,” Elvis responds, with Luhrmann carefully pointing out that Tom Parker is always lurking nearby. When pressed further about expressing his feelings, Elvis continues, “I can’t even say that.”
Luhrmann emphasizes the “I can’t,” replaying those words like a haunting echo to fill the silence, as if drilling down on the idea that Elvis was a victim of his own circumstance. Luhrmann even interjects that moment over footage of Elvis performing the bleeding-heart ballad about a child raised in hardship, In The Ghetto, as if that song hints at where the singer’s heart was at. It’s a slick choice, stacking the deck in Elvis’s favour and giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Moments like this, where Luhrmann quickly dispenses with the unflattering when it comes to Elvis’s biography, are a thorn in this otherwise boisterous celebration’s side – though not enough to prevent fans at the world premiere in Toronto from getting up and dancing in the aisles during the big numbers like Burning Love.
Elvis is of course a tailor-made subject for Luhrmann, the Moulin Rouge director’s trademark bombast and razzle dazzle so in tune with the singer’s rattle and roll, which comes through in both his biopic and now EPiC. The latter, Luhrmann says, is neither a documentary nor a concert film. Actually, it’s pretty much both of those things, but with an obvious slant, which the director accounts for by explaining “the storyteller is Elvis himself”. There are no talking heads here, just excerpts from Elvis’s interviews offering a running commentary over unearthed footage that shows off what an electric performer he was, even during a 70s Las Vegas residency when some may assume he was washed up.
Elvis is a hypnotic stage presence, even when just mumbling off sounds with his deep baritone while swiveling his hips, the dexterity in his voice unhindered by antics like swallowing a mic whole. The larger than life spectacle of his performances, backed by an all white band while his Black backup singers remain off to the side, are nicely tempered by Elvis’s easy-going, tenderly flippant charm. It’s just as entertaining watching him lay on his back and keep the audience hanging off his pillowtalk as it is watching his mesmerizing seizure-like moves. Luhrmann even slows down his typically aggressive editing styles to take it all in, only revving things up by cutting to different angles when in tempo with his king.
The director gets most of his kaleidoscopic visual kinks off in the blistering prologue, when he sets the stage for the Vegas shows by frenetically recapping Elvis’s life and career up to that point. Your favourite photo collage and TikTok remix apps have nothing on everything Luhrmann throws at the screen when the movie covers Elvis’s hits, his run-ins with the law for obscenity, his Korean War years and the Hollywood career that made him feel alienated from his own popular image.
Tellingly, Priscilla Presley is not mentioned or seen in those highlights. She of course was the subject of Sofia Coppola’s 2023 film Priscilla, which was released the year after Luhrmann’s Elvis. Coppola’s film made obvious how much of the singer’s grooming and abusive behaviour Luhrmann conveniently swept under the rug in his adulatory biopic.
That continues in EPiC. Priscilla, and her baby daughter Lisa Marie, are glimpsed for mere seconds after the one-hour mark in archival footage. Their happy times briefly but strategically deployed alongside footage of Elvis performing his mournful rendition of Always On My Mind, reaching for a sentimentality that – genuine or not – feels craven and unearned in this movie.
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is screening at the Toronto Film Festival and will be released at a later date
