How I prefer to remember Elvis Presley

Midway through director Baz Luhrman’s lavish spectacle, "Elvis" (2022), chronicling the life of Elvis Presley as played convincingly by Golden Globe winner Austin Butler, is a scene I found to be one of the film’s best moments. The clip had me wishing there had been more of them over the course of the biopic’s 160-minute running time.

The scene happens in 1968 as Elvis is rehearsing the song, "If I Can Dream", in preparation for his television comeback tour. The shot which can be seen on YouTube compares Butler’s performance to the real-life Presley’s 1968 version. The one thing not lost watching those comparisons was how the singer poured his heart and soul into that performance – something he did throughout his lifetime even in his final years where he couldn’t remember the lines to some of his songs. Elvis Presley changed a lot physically while he was alive but the one thing that never evaded him was that commanding voice.

The song, "If I Can Dream", stuck with me long after seeing the film. Even as I write this blog that hit, along with "In the Ghetto" and "An American Trilogy" were among the ones I listened to from "Elvis: 30 #1 Hits", the 2002 two-disc set released on the 25th anniversary of his death along with "2nd to None" released the following year. I am no rock music aficionado, but I don’t think The Beatles, or the Rolling Stones had more than one or two greatest hits albums and if they did, it wouldn’t come close to the combined 61 hits Elvis recorded in his lifetime that were listed on those double 25th anniversary releases.

There is no disputing audiences were captivated by Luhrmann’s film though most of the critics said otherwise. In fact, "Elvis" the movie IS as critic proof as any unnecessary Transformers installment or those "despicable theme park" Marvel movies directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola spoke of. 

I went in hoping director Luhrmann’s vision would offer a chance to hear a number of the king’s greatest hits in their entirety from "Kentucky Rain" and "Return to Sender" to his rendition of Frank Sinatra’s "My Way" (which would have been the perfect ending to the film versus the one showing Butler’s bloated version singing "Unchained Melody" before a packed audience two weeks before his death). What I got instead were less than three-minute tidbits of the singer’s hits as if this was another version of Luhrmann’s "Moulin Rouge" (1999) where the lyrics of 80's hits were all cleverly tied together. In short, I wanted "Elvis" the movie to be a celebration of Elvis Presley's life since 2022 marked the 45th anniversary of the singer’s passing. 

While the film was a triumph in visual style it offered nothing new that I didn't know already about Presley. The moments the biopic did offer had me questioning whether they actually happened and wondering if this was just another case of creative licensing (the singer firing manager Colonel Tom Parker during a live performance and Priscilla urging Presley to enter rehab following their divorce reportedly never happened according to Elvis's biographer Alanna Nash).

I’ve always said biopics and those based on historical subjects should not be taken as the gospels. They should be stepping-stones to allow the viewer to look up books about the subject to get the real story. You want proof look no further than "Blonde" (2022) starring Oscar nominee Ana de Armas as Hollywood starlet Marilyn Monroe. The filmmakers along with the distributor and streaming service, Netflix, promoted the 165-minute NC-17 pic as fact when it is based on author Joyce Carol Oates’ best seller which is a complete work of fiction.

Maybe it’s just me (those who know me will likely say IT IS ONLY me) as the older I get the more jaded and cynical I’ve become when it comes to what Hollywood churns out. I no longer see any entertainment value in movies involving terrorism and biopics of singers whose untimely ends were all the result of their out-of-control lifestyles.

Anyone can make a movie about a beloved music icon who went too soon. It’s another if the filmmaker can leave the viewer without the depressing ominous feeling of how that icon’s life ended. I wanted "Elvis" to be like "Bohemian Rhapsody" (2018) which WAS a celebration of the life of Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, as played by Oscar winner Rami Malek. I am well aware (who isn’t?) that Mercury succumbed to AIDS in 1991 at 45. That biopic, however, went out with a bang. Instead of showing the singer’s remaining years dying from the dreaded disease, the film ended appropriately with his 1985 Live Aid performance with the band.



Compare that to how "Elvis" the movie ends, where two years before his death Presley’s ex-wife Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge) pleads with him to go to a rehab clinic in hopes he can recuperate from his addictions. Elvis tells her he is all “out of dreams.”

“I’m gonna be 40 soon. 40. And no one’s gonna remember me," he tells her. "I never did anything lasting. Never made that classic film I can be proud of.”



This is not how I want to remember the “King of Rock and Roll.”

Instead of being a celebration Luhrmann’s "Elvis" joins that “gone too soon” list of big screen biopics ("Wired" – 1989, "The Doors" – 1991, "Judy" – 2019, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" – 2022 - along with the upcoming productions chronicling the life of singers Amy Winehouse and Michael Jackson – both of which are drawing negative criticism and rightfully so) designed to make adoring fans not only saddened but angry such cultural icons threw their God given talents away on the evils of addiction and life’s excesses.

I don’t need a depressing two-hour plus biopic to enjoy the music Elvis gave us along with Jim Morrison and Whitney Houston as well as the films audiences embraced featuring Judy Garland and John Belushi to appreciate them. The only question Luhrmann’s "Elvis" leaves are one I have yet to hear anyone who’s seen this movie more than once give me a justifiably good answer.

Where is the joy in watching a film about a rock and roll legend who lived fast, died young and left a good-looking corpse?

©2/8/23