A somewhat recent review that I thought was worth reading was A.O. Scott’s review of the biopic “Elvis” in the New York Times. When I watched this movie, it was a confusing whirlwind that didn’t seem to necessarily encapsulate Elvis, his life, and his struggles in the 2h 39m film, so I was curious to see what others thought about it.
It turns out that Scott had feelings very similar to my own, unsure of what to make of the movie, but I think he puts it in much more eloquent terms than I do, providing words to the aspects I found most confusing.
In many ways, the movie felt too busy and distracting, taking away from pieces of Elvis’ life, something Scott made notice of as well.
“You might mistake this for a vampire movie,” he explains. “ It wouldn’t entirely be a mistake. The central plot casts Elvis (Austin Butler) as the victim of a powerful and devious bloodsucking fiend. That would be Col. Tom Parker,…He isn’t a colonel…and his real name isn’t Tom Parker. The mystery of his origins is invoked to sinister effect but not fully resolved. If we paid too much attention to him, he might take over the movie, something that almost happens anyway.”
I think Scott’s review also made an incredibly important point about how director Baz Luhrmann chose to allocate time to certain aspects of Elvis’ life, altering the legacy he leaves behind and what parts of his said legacy are pushed to be remembered.
“Elvis himself remains a cipher, a symbol, more myth than flesh and blood. His relationships with Vernon, Priscilla and the entourage known as “the Memphis mafia” receive cursory treatment. His appetites for food, sex and drugs barely get that much.”
Scott continues discussing the consequences of the narrow theme of this film, saying
“Who was he? The movie doesn’t provide much of an answer. But younger viewers, whose firsthand experience of the King is even thinner than mine, might come away from “Elvis” with at least an inkling of why they should care.”
While some of the less-than-glamourous parts of Elvis’ life were glazed over or left out entirely, there’s a larger conversation involving how and what pieces of his legacy are being carried on and why following generations should care to keep their edited memory of him alive. There is so much more to him than this film allowed us to see and one wouldn’t know that from watching it.
While this places a large amount of responsibility on a film to make sure future generations understand and appreciate who Elvis was, the content created today about icons like him is what future generations will know him as. If that’s not completely accurate, an unfortunate game of telephone involving bits and pieces of Elvis’ life could be left behind. In future decades, the version of Elvis people are familiar with may not be the person that existed.
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