Elvis (2022)

The King is Dead. Long Live the King (Accept No Further Substitutions)

or

"You're a Devil in Disguise"

"The people gave their money and they gave their screams, but the Beatles gave their nervous systems, which is a much more difficult thing to give."

George Harrison

 

Baz Luhrmann is a favorite in these quarters for his brio and audaciousness, but his "throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks" approach to film-making can be off-putting to purists. Too many mash-up's, too many liberties taken with authenticity, too many anachronisms. 

 

Yeah, yeah. So what?

 

Baz Lurhrmann makes kaleidoscopic multi-media myths with the emotional histrionics of grand opera, and a design sense that is stuffed with equal parts sub-text and glitz. So, if Lurhmann was going to continue the trend of making movies dissecting the lives of pop artists (Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman), he would laser-in on the career of Elvis Presley, the culture-described King of Rockn'Roll, who flashed like a meteorite in the the 1950's and crashed to Earth, dying at the age of 42.

Not everyone might know the story of Elvis, although they might know the prevailing culture—the hoardes of imitating Elvi, the wedding chapel versions, the general prevalence of over-the-top glitz, the rotation of movies on TCM, and maybe the vast catalog of music he produced. Presley was born in poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi and became a sensation in the fledgling field of rockabilly and Rockn'Roll, which he'd morphed from their origins in Rhythm n' Blues. His stage-work was what made him famous, as he dervished and swiveled on stage that sent bobby-soxers swooning and the morality police into over-drive. He became a pop sensation with equal efforts to exploit him and contain him—his first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" would only show him from the waist up.*

There was a brief period of inactivity after he was drafted into the Army (which became the origins of the musical "Bye-Bye, Birdie")—where he met his future bride, Priscilla at the tender age of 14—and once his tour was over returned to recording and a career making movies in Hollywood, which he found lucrative but ultimately unsatisfying as, after making a couple of dramatic roles (he idolized James Dean), he was relegated to made-to-order musicals to serve the fan-base but not much else.

To jump-start his career in the late 60's, he made a couple of television specials that recalled the old Elvis, pre-Hollywood, revived his recording career (and critical regard) and contracted a long-standing "residency" in the big International Hotel showroom in Vegas. The grueling schedule had a detrimental effect on his health, his marriage, and his life, and he began taking drugs—he'd previously sworn off any drugs or alcohol (there was a lot of alcoholism in his family)—to maintain his commitments. He finally succumbed to a heart attack.

By now, we've come to expect a bit of gloss in our musical bio-pics, especially when it comes to the darker aspects of celebrity (can't risk discouraging the ambitious, now, can we?) and Elvis has plenty of that. And it's not just in little details (Elvis is coerced into enlisting in the military to promote a wholesome image rather than—as the truth is—being drafted) so much in the big arc of the story—that Elvis (Austin Butler), a child inspired and enraptured by Rhythm and Blues and Gospel music, is enticed by success and then trapped in it by music promoter—and con-man—Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). There's a lot of truth in that—Parker was a rascal—but Elvis was not so much the innocent as portrayed in the movie. But, then, Luhrmann wouldn't have been able to match the story to more operatic roots.

And that opera is "Faust." Based on Goethe's play, it is about a philosopher who, to attain transcendence, makes a deal with the Devil at the cost of his soul. Here Col. Tom is the Devil, who tempts Elvis with fame and fortune, controlling his life—despite Elvis' repeated acts of rebellion—until the singer is contracted to endure a brutal performance schedule from which he cannot escape that will eventually kill him. The movie is narrated by Parker, who constantly makes the case that he is innocent of Elvis' fate, but the story is rife with evidence that he's a con man, a grifter, and—in a touch that's a little too much on the prosthetically enlarged nose—a provider of "forbidden fruit." Giving audiences, in his words, "feelings they didn't know they should feel." When he sees the audience's reaction to Elvis' jittery first stage performance, he stalks him in a carnival house of mirrors to propose his business deal, delivered at the top of a stopped ferris wheel. The pact is completed on a precarious foundation.

Hanks' performance, like his other rare villainous roles is over-the-top. Sporting a vaguely Germanic accent—Parker, whose real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, was Dutch—and swaddled in layers of latex, he is all twinkling malevolence and insinuation, always upping the ante for his targets and hedging his personal bets. Luhrmann has him rising from a hospital bed to descend to his own version of Hell, a darkened casino showroom festooned with slot machines; Parker was an insatiable gambler and used the Elvis fortune to pay off his soaring debts.

But every villain must have a sympathetic victim and Luhrmann's ace in the hole is Butler, whose prettified Elvis is all guileless mamma's boy. Butler resembles Presley in the all-important eyes, but his jawline and cupid bow mouth are more feminine than the real guy; the resemblance really kicks in when Butler sports a cocky grin—it's just that Luhrmann offers few opportunities for that expression. Except on-stage, and that's where Butler's performance goes full-tilt. In fact, when Luhrmann's directorial energy flags mid-stream that's when Butler's stage theatrics take over, giving the movie a boost right when it needs it most.

At times, it's uncanny; the director uses a lot of split-screens of archive footage of the hysterical crowd reactions (it would be tough to duplicate today) and every-so-often Elvis pops into it and it takes a moment to realize if it is Elvis Presley or Butler—it's always Butler until towards the end of the film when footage of the real singer is used in a montage of images culminating in a stage performance of "Unchained Melody" where a clearly out-of-shape and exhausted Presley gives a powerhouse performance and, making it through it, gives a delighted, spent smile to the audience. That footage alone slaps away any disparaging "fat-Elvis" comments and makes you realize what an amazing talent the man had...even at the end.

Which, ironically, makes Butler's performance that much more impressive. He sings during the concert footage and does a great job as an Elvis imitator (according to ABC News, there are more than 35,000 as of 2002—I wonder what the unemployment rate for them is after Covid?). Well, their job is just that much more difficult now. There can be no more half-measures, no lame karate moves. Butler rises to the occasion in the Elvis royalty; if not quite The King, certainly an excellent torch-bearer.

Oh, one other thing: Luhrmann makes an interesting through-line of the story, taking Elvis from a little kid fascinated with gospel and the devotional reactions of the congregation and extending it to its culmination in the International's Vegas show-room, seeing it as its own Church of Elvis and his own personal ecstasy—while for Parker it's his own personal Hell, both trapped in prisons of their own making.

 

Damned clever, that Luhrmann.

Okay. I'm leaving the blog-post. You've been a fantastic audience. (Thenkew! Thenkewvermuch.)

* They relented in his next appearance, but Presley toned down his act considerably, even knowingly teasing it.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Stephen Norrington, 2003) We've talked about The League of Gentlemen, Basil Dearden's ingenious caper movie. Writer Alan Moore had a devious idea for what he called "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," a comic series he created for the "America's Best Comics" publishers. He'd had editorial problems—"notes" as they're called—with the major comic book companies because he'd write stories for their licensed/trademarked characters only for editors to tell him "we/they can't do that, as we need the characters to sell breakfast cereal/action figures/underoo's/whatever." Rejection. It was just this sort of thing that forced him to create new characters for his landmark "Watchmen" series, when the characters he wanted to use (and rather irrevocably, too) were considered "too marketable or exploitable" by the company that had acquired them. He couldn't kill them off, give them less than honorable intentions—anything the Comics Code Authority considered "unheroic."

Quatermain, Tom Sawyer, Dorian Gray, The Invisible Man, Mina Murray and Captain Nemo

But, for this "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" he decided to make up his team consisting of characters that appeared in works in the public domain, where nobody could squawk or...sue...for that matter...over their use and what Moore wanted to do with them. So, his book has Mina Murray, recent paramour of Count Dracula, recruited by British agent Campion Bond (yeah, "they're" related) to recruit a team which consists of: Allan Quatermain from H. Rider Haggard's books (particularly "King's Solomon's Mines"), Captain Nemo from "20,000 League Under the Sea," Dr. Griffin from "The Invisible Man", and Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll (and if he's in, so is Mr. Hyde). The first story had the League recruited by Bond's  spy-master boss, "M" (who is eventually revealed to be Professor Moriarty) to look into the smuggling of the valuable anti-gravity mineral "cavorite" (from H. G. Wells' "First Men in the Moon") involving a Chinese criminal named "The Doctor" (who resembles Fu Manchu). The next series had them battling invading Martians during that bothersome "War of the Worlds" incident. A library of literature and "alternate histories" were there for Moore to exploit and the series enjoyed great success in comics circles.

Connery, being the biggest star, becomes the de facto leader of "The League"

Moore's work had already made it to the screen—The Hughes Brothers had adapted his "Jack the Ripper" series "From Hell"—and there had been talk of making a film of his "Watchmen" since the time it was published. Moore was apathetic—he hadn't liked the From Hell film and found the attempts to adapt his work tedious and less than faithful—and vowed to have nothing to do with them.

Mina Murray—a vampire in broad daylight in Africa

It would seem hard to screw up "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", however. The characters were well-known, Moore had breathed a less Victorian sensibility into them—while remaining true to the original concepts. But, that was assuming people read books. The screenplay—by James Dale Robinson—became a patchwork of Moore's concepts and studio-dictated "ideas," such as the character of Dorian Gray (played by Stuart Townsend), who for the film is not only immortal, but also unkillable, Mina (in the film and played by Peta Wilson) is not just immortal but a full-fledged vampire, The Invisible Man (played by Jason Flemyng) is another character entirely (use rights could not be obtained for Wells' character of Dr. Griffin), and—for the benefit of American audiences who might find the film too "European"-centric, a character named "Tom Sawyer" (played by Shane West) is added as a member of the U.S. Secret Service; there is nothing extraordinary about him, other than he might be able to paint fences. The thing is: if somebody doesn't know who "Dr. Jekyll" or "Captain Nemo" is, they're not going to know who "Tom Sawyer" is, either.

Captain Nemo (played by Naseeruddin Shah) is true to Jules Verne's Prince Dakkar version—not Disney's—but the emphasis is on Sean Connery's Alan Quatermain. His salary took a big chunk out of the budget, and, as one of the film's producers, he and the director clashed so often they nearly came to blows. Connery subsequently retired from acting—except for some voice-work, and Norrington, citing studio interference and the difficulty of working with large crews, stated he's never direct a large studio film again. They might have added Mary Lincoln to the characters if only to ask "How was the play?"

Quatermain reasons with Hyde

Where the film sticks to Moore's original it's rather good: Connery's a fine Quatermain—but the film-makers misspell his name at a rather crucial point—and the other actors acquit themselves rather well given what they have to do; the most unnerving thing is the sight of the gargantuan Hulk-like Mr. Hyde, even though it recalls the way artist Kevin O'Neill drew him in the books. Nemo's Nautilus also recalls the "Scimitar of the Sea," although how it could traverse the canals of Venice without scraping bottom remains a mystery, along with how Dorian Gray can survive multiple gun-shots and how a vampiric Mina can go out in the noon-day sun of Africa.

But, then, there's not much to the story. Moore's book was so "inside" that it would have left audiences in the library-dust. So, there's no "cavorite" and the main villain is "M"/Moriarty disguised as a phantom menace known as The Fantom (and played somewhat tepidly by Richard Roxburgh), whose scheme is to build the League in order to discover their secrets and thus make replicas of them for a rampaging world-conquering army of vampires, invisible men and Id-creatures armed with Nemo's technology. The question lies: they needed Quatermain to do that? Not really, and given that there were enough members of the League capable of double/triple-crossing their ranks, such a formation becomes unnecessary...even an empty effort that just delays things. Moriarty would never do that. I doubt Gaston Leroux's "Phantom" would do that. Even Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Phantom" wouldn't do that...he might fit in a song-soliloquy, but he'd get on with it.

It's something of a mess, and it's such a gory mess that even the several gateways to literature it provides ends up as so many dead-ends; no parent would take their kids to see this, although so many kids have some of these characters in their culture growing up (well, the last time I was a kid, they were). Such a waste of good material and the potential that Moore made of it, one of the most fanciful pastiches to come out of the comics world and out of literature.

An extraordinary waste, fiction be told.

The Nautilus crests...