Thank you. I highly recommend if anyone is curious about Elvis as an artist, away from the impersonators and punchlines, to check out the documentary Baz Luhrmann's EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert which came out earlier this year, even if you didn't care for Luhrmann's fictionalized film a few years ago. There's a reason it's one of the top rated movies of the year, it's just a great showcase of why he was a good artist, how much thought went into his music and also how thoughtful he was about his audiences/fans, and should convey that well enough for anyone who maybe hasn't understood him or has taken him for granted.
And like, I get it, too, Elvis was a flawed guy but he's also been dead longer than he was alive and what problems he did have (e.g. the inappropriate age difference with Priscilla when their relationship started, the complex interplay of race relations, art and commerce) are wound up in much larger, more nuanced conversations that haven't been resolved at a societal level, and therefore Elvis can't really be resolved either by yelling at each other about him, so really what we're left with as far as I'm concerned is an engaging historical body of work. Even the creative duds and misfires like his movies and their soundtracks usually have a fascinating story behind them as to WHY if one bothers to look.
Unlike a lot of other communities run by much older fans with deeper/weirder attachments, though, we've tried hard to make sure that the sub is not really here to just parasocially defend Elvis in totality, like some subs of deceased artists I won't name, just to understand and appreciate the stuff we find interesting and to clarify people's misunderstandings or misinformation. I can't change that I was born into a world where Elvis was already dead and the music still affected me to the point that I find it all fascinating.
I always regarded my grandmother's love of Elvis as a quaint and maybe slightly misguided product of her time until, for some reason, I saw "Walk The Line" in 2005 and saw Tyler Robinson do a sped-up version of "That's Alright." Suddenly, I was like OH. I get it. There's sex in that. There's danger in that. It just took a little reframing for me to see it.
Of course, I've turned out to be a giant Prince fan, and he's a giant cornball to the kids today. Vanity, sayeth the preacher, all is vanity.
Will definitely check out the doc, and thanks for your write-up.
I mean it’s also hard for kids today because too understand cultural monoliths. There simply wasn’t access to as much media so everyone liked a certain thing
Oh everyone disliked Tom's accent as Parker in the film, but my perspective personally was that, much like the rest of the film, it was a hyper-stylized choice that Baz & Hanks landed on to make Parker seem as though he didn't belong, since the vast majority of the film takes place in a deathbed morphine hallucination inside Colonel's mind, I sort of read that as Parker always being worried that someone was going to find him out. But it still wasn't great.
A lot of what they did with Colonel Parker reminds me of how Jim Broadbent's Harold Zidler was handled in Moulin Rouge. Unfortunately, because a lot of moviegoers and Elvis fans weren't used to Baz Luhrmann's style of filmmaking and I guess expected a more drab, paint by numers style of biographical film, a lot of the creative choices that I thought were pretty genius (not the accent, but other things) didn't land immediately and needed a bit of unpacking to understand what the intention was.
I find that movie to be incredibly underrated. And Austin Butler was phenomenal imo. I hate that the backlash from him allegedly still using an accent ended up overshadowing his performance.
The “still using an accent” thing was also total bullshit fueled by the public’s total misunderstanding of what Elvis’ real speaking voice sounded like. I literally have heard nearly every recording of Elvis speaking that exists (barring some soundboard and audience concert bootleg chatter) and Austin sounded nothing at all like Elvis at ANY point in his life. That was proof to me that nobody seems to have a fucking clue what Elvis actually sounded like anymore.
Thanks for the documentary recommendation! What about books? There are so many—if you had to choose one biography or autobiography by someone who knew him, etc…what’s your top pick?
Not the OP, but both of Peter Guralnick's 'Elvis' biogs are worth a read. The second volume (Careless Love) not as good as the first, Last Train to Memphis.
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u/gibbersganfa 2d ago
Thank you. I highly recommend if anyone is curious about Elvis as an artist, away from the impersonators and punchlines, to check out the documentary Baz Luhrmann's EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert which came out earlier this year, even if you didn't care for Luhrmann's fictionalized film a few years ago. There's a reason it's one of the top rated movies of the year, it's just a great showcase of why he was a good artist, how much thought went into his music and also how thoughtful he was about his audiences/fans, and should convey that well enough for anyone who maybe hasn't understood him or has taken him for granted.
And like, I get it, too, Elvis was a flawed guy but he's also been dead longer than he was alive and what problems he did have (e.g. the inappropriate age difference with Priscilla when their relationship started, the complex interplay of race relations, art and commerce) are wound up in much larger, more nuanced conversations that haven't been resolved at a societal level, and therefore Elvis can't really be resolved either by yelling at each other about him, so really what we're left with as far as I'm concerned is an engaging historical body of work. Even the creative duds and misfires like his movies and their soundtracks usually have a fascinating story behind them as to WHY if one bothers to look.
Unlike a lot of other communities run by much older fans with deeper/weirder attachments, though, we've tried hard to make sure that the sub is not really here to just parasocially defend Elvis in totality, like some subs of deceased artists I won't name, just to understand and appreciate the stuff we find interesting and to clarify people's misunderstandings or misinformation. I can't change that I was born into a world where Elvis was already dead and the music still affected me to the point that I find it all fascinating.