“If it feels a bit like a superhero movie, it is, because it was the original superhero.” This is how Baz Luhrmann described his most recent film at a certain point, despite the fact that it was really a musical biopic. But it’s hard to deny his claim when Collect more codes from classic superhero cartoons and epic tales that of the formulaic scheme that tapes like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ repeat ad nauseam.
It was a trick statement, of course. The Australian used that recognizable term knowing that are the dominant pop culture of the moment. And he uses them in the same way that a literary teacher would (he manages to spare): “Shakespeare explored culture through the kings.” Today, superheroes are king. 60 years ago, the kings were other pop icons like ‘Elvis’.
tragedy full of spotlights
This biopic of the king of rock has been one of the sensations of the year, and it can finally be enjoyed in streaming with its arrival on HBO Max. A golden opportunity to see just how these superhero codes are used to tell the complex story of the musician from Tupelo, Mississippi. Not only with clear references, pulling vignettes of Captain Marvel (one of Presley’s favorite heroes from whom he copied part of the aesthetic) or other comic lines, but hyper-modern and exaggerated visual language to tell this myth of the past.
But there are tragic overtones in this super story. Because the story is not told to us by Elvis himself from beyond the grave with a voiceover, but by Colonel Tom Parker, his representative and also one of the most complicated relationships of the singer’s career. As Luhrmann chooses to tell it, the colonel was the Lex Luthor of Elvis’s Superman. And, as we know from the true story, Luthor ends up winning here.
That particular way of framing Presley’s story is just what distances ‘Elvis’ from the umpteenth classic musical biopic. It is also the one makes its veracity questionable, and you have to take it with a lot of tweezers lest someone believe that this was really the singer’s life. But this does not choose to be an artist’s Wikipedia article, rather it seeks to tell the tragedy of a legend.
‘Elvis’: Show Unleashed
But ‘Elvis’ is not only distinguished by its outlandish tone, its luxurious visual finish or that montage as lively and devilish as a movement of the singer’s hips. Luhrmann intentionally quotes Shakespeare to talk about how he reflected societies through his icons, and here he does so in all its aspects. The obsession with celebrity, the racial conflict or the cultural revolution of the sixties are several of the ideas that are being subtracted from a story as ambitious as it is spectacular.
It is no longer just that he opts for a moderately fresh approach, but that he manages to defend it with an audiovisual power that very few films have been able to match this year, in addition to a direction of incredible actors where Austin Butler shines with his own light as the king of rock (a job far beyond adequate imitation) and Tom Hanks suitably puts the evil counterpart of the colonel. A show unleashed that some could (we) call the best work of the Australian filmmaker.
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