Before Elvis Left the Building

Last Thursday, the day I learned of the death of Lisa Marie Presley at age 54, seemed the right time to finally check out Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of Lisa Marie’s daddy. Of course I mean Elvis, who was born in 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi and succumbed to cardiac arrest in Memphis, Tennessee in 1977, at the not-so-ripe old age of 42. In life, Elvis—who upended the music world by injecting African-American rhythm and blues into Top Forties pop, then adding in an outrageously kinetic performance style—was credited with transforming rock n’ roll into something essential to teenage life. His flamboyance and Luhrmann’s often over-the-top brand of  filmmaking would seem to be a perfect match.

 My feelings for Luhrmann as a film director have always been mixed. Back in 1992 I was entranced by his charmingly outrageous Australian debut film, Strictly Ballroom. Once he went Hollywood, I found things to like in both Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!, notably a hugely expressive visual style. Still, Luhrmann’s tendency to overwhelm his stories with lurid art direction and camera tricks was hardly to my taste. But I wondered if, with a born showman like Elvis Presley, he’d finally discovered his perfect subject.  

 Luhrmann’s choice to frame Elvis’s story by using his longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker, as its narrator also sounded provocative. Parker, something of an international man of mystery, concealed his Dutch roots and his lack of official American papers as he promoted some of country music’s rising stars. Upon discovering Elvis, he became a shifty father figure, influencing the star’s personal life as well as his career. Though the all-American Tom Hanks would seem to be an odd choice for the role of Parker, I thoroughly enjoyed the film’s early scenes, in which razzle-dazzle filmmaking whisks us from one concert venue to another, underscoring Elvis’s intense visceral effect on his female fans. There’s a carnival quality to these scenes, connecting with the fact of Colonel Parker’s longtime familiarity with carny acts and sideshow spectacles, that struck me as distinctive and important.

 Actually, my favorite section in the entire film does not even include Austin Butler’s much-hailed performance in the title role. Its focus is the very young Elvis, a poor country boy perhaps 8 years old. Hanging out with a horde of African American cronies, he happens upon a Black juke joint where hot music and steamy sensuality are the order of the day. In his wanderings, he also discovers a Black revival meeting, where he’s entranced by the writhing of newly-saved souls. These formative encounters, conveyed to us via strong visuals, are what Luhrmann suggests have eventually shaped the mature Elvis’s personal style. And this notion is passed on to us in the audience by way of Parker’s narration..

 At a certain point, though, the notion of Parker as a Mephistophelean narrator and commentator wears thin, and Tom Hanks, with his weird (though apparently authentic) accent, has less and less to do in this story. As we move into Elvis’s private life, spending time in situations of which Parker would seem to have little knowledge, Elvis devolves into that very standardized thing, a biopic. Which means we see Elvis, having reached the pinnacle of his fame and fortune, struggling with his past, with his marriage, with his rapidly degrading  sense of self. Ho hum. After a while, all biopics start to look alike. Childhood trauma, then the heart-pounding rise to stardom, then the long, sordid slide into desolation and decay. Why, really, do we bother?  It always ends the same way.

 

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Elvis at the Movies, or Heartbreak Hotel Goes Hawaiian

I marked the 35th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley by remembering the happy days and nights I spent at the Heartbreak Hotel. Yes, there is one – and it’s right across the street from Graceland. I can’t quite remember what brought us to Memphis, but it’s a city full of tourist attractions: the original Sun Records, the music clubs on Beale Street, the National Civil Rights Museum (not a cheery place, because it’s housed in the motel where Martin Luther King was murdered), the ducklings who march daily through the lobby of the Peabody Hotel (yes, really), lots of good barbecue. We wanted to stay in the heart of all that, but somehow we wound up in Elvis Heaven, at 3677 Elvis Presley Boulevard.

As you would imagine, the Heartbreak Hotel is as garish as the man who inspired it. The lobby is done up in shades of purple, bright blue, and mustard. Just off it is the Jungle Room Lounge, with décor that reflects Elvis’s own party den across the road. At the Heartbreak Hotel, you can choose among the Hollywood Suite (sleek art deco), the Burning Love Suite (romantic shades of red), the Graceland Suite (“gives guests the sense of living in their own diminutive Graceland Mansion”), or the Gold and Platinum Suite. We opted for a simpler room, and didn’t bother to patronize the gift shop where you can buy Elvis wine and an Elvis birthday card. But for me the Heartbreak Hotel’s oddest, greatest delight was that each guest room features Elvis movies round-the-clock.

Elvis Presley starred in 31 movies over a period of just 13 years. Frankly, I saw bits and pieces of so many of them that they all blend together in my mind. But most feature an Elvis who’s slender, attractive, fun-loving, and prone to break into a sappy love song or a lively up-tempo tune. The backdrops change, but the plots are generally pretty much interchangeable: see Blue Hawaii, It Happened at the World’s Fair, Fun in Acapulco. In Harum Scarum (a movie that would never be made today), romantic entanglements have him running around an Arab kingdom, sometimes in flowing robes, charged with assassinating the local potentate. In Kissin’ Cousins, he plays twins, and romantic entanglements have him running around the Ozarks spooning with man-hungry hillbilly gals.

One film I saw from start to finish was Elvis’s first. Love Me Tender (1956) is a serious romantic drama, set in the aftermath of the Civil War. Elvis plays, with impressive simplicity and sweetness, the youngster who’s stayed home to look after the farm and ended up marrying the sweetheart of the elder brother (Richard Egan) who reportedly died in battle. Of course big brother belatedly returns, with murderous consequences – but not before Elvis has touchingly crooned the title ballad. There’s a sense of conviction in Elvis’s performance here I didn’t see elsewhere. Who knows what he could have done in Hollywood if he’d been given better acting challenges? Or if his primary obligation wasn’t to sell soundtrack albums?

In any case, I hear Elvis enjoyed the time he spent living in Southern California. One favorite pastime was riding motorcycles in the hills of Bel-Air. (A man who once worked for a Triumph dealership remembers him coming in with his entourage, then ordering new bikes for all.) Surprisingly, one of his favorite hang-outs was the Lake Shrine, a peaceful garden retreat in Pacific Palisades maintained by the Self-Realization Fellowship. It must have been a good spot to shrug off the pressures of celebrity, Elvis-style.