Elvis
In that moment, in a flash of lightning I watched that skinny boy in the pink suit transform into a superhero.
Last week, my sister (who I interviewed for my monthly newsletter!) went on a liking and commenting spree on my newsletters, bombarding my email inbox with notifications. The one that stood out the most was her comment on Priscilla, where she wrote, "Austin Butler is Elvis." Priscilla was a film I covered during the strikes because it was produced by the independent entertainment company A24, which wasn't one of the struck companies. In that newsletter, I compared Jacob Elordi's performance to Austin Butler's, coming to the conclusion that they're pretty incomparable since Butler was playing Elvis the celebrity and Elordi was playing Elvis the person. The public never knew the Elvis presented in Priscilla because they only ever saw his public persona. Elordi's Elvis was one only Priscilla knew.
I saw Priscilla in November, but in July 2022, I sat front row at AMC to see Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. It wasn't just because I was so close to the screen that the movie and Elvis himself seemed larger than life, but because the director and film crew did an astounding job bringing Elvis' story to life on the big screen. Since tomorrow is my sister's birthday, and she is such a massive fan of Elvis and stands firm in her opinion that no one could ever compare to Austin Butler's performance, I've decided to cover the movie of summer 2022 for this week's newsletter.
Austin Butler As Elvis Presley
I remember Austin Butler most from his role as James Garrett on Nickelodeon's Zoey 101, where he starred alongside Jamie Lynn Spears, seemingly as Chase Matthews' replacement. I also remember his appearances on Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, The Carrie Diaries, and Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure. These roles spanned from the mid-2000s into the early 2010s, but his career never seemed to take off outside of children's programs. That was until he made an appearance in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 comedy-drama Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. He soon booked the role of Elvis Presley, and his life was never the same.
The internet does this thing where they praise and worship someone, put them on a pedestal, and then once the initial admiration dies out, they turn on them, push them from the pedestal, and relentlessly pick them apart (just look at what they've done to Taylor Swift!) When the time came for Jacob Elordi to promote Priscilla, suddenly, the internet decided they all hated Austin Butler, they couldn't stand the Elvis accent he couldn't seem to shake, and even though he won a Golden Globe for his role and was nominated for an Oscar, they decided maybe he wasn't even that good after all.
“You and I, we are two odd, lonely children reaching for eternity” -Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis.
However, after rewatching Elvis for the newsletter this week, I stand by my belief that there was no better actor for the role of Elvis Presley in Bazz Luhrmann's film. Buter's first big scene comes when he steps on stage in his pink suit to an unenthusiastic audience. But that changes fast when he starts dancing, driving the women in the audience crazy and causing concern from his mother that the wild crowd might somehow harm her son. When young Elvis shakes off his nerves and shows the audience what he's capable of, Butler transforms from someone audiences mainly knew from children's programs into a star.
Austin Butler had a lot on his plate as he had to recreate iconic moments like Elvis' 1968 comeback special, as well as his legendary Vegas performances and his June 26, 1977, final performance, where he sat at a piano and serenaded the audience with "Unchained Melody," two months before his death. However, his toughest feat was maturing from a naive, hopeful boy through all the eras of Elvis' career, which ended in his downfall. He did this effortlessly, to the point where, throughout the movie, it's hard to decipher the difference between Austin Butler and the real Elvis Presley.
Not to mention, Butler was acting alongside two-time Best Actor Academy Award winner Tom Hanks, and not once does Butler fade into the shadows of Hanks' talent or star power. Of course, Hanks was incredible as Colonel Tom Parker, but he didn't have to convince anyone of his talent. Austin Butler, on the other hand, was unheard of to people who didn't grow up watching Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. With Elvis, He proved himself to be just as capable of an actor as the far more seasoned Tom Hanks.
After Elvis, Butler went on to book several other roles, one as Major Gale Cleven, a real-life WWII pilot in Apple TV's Masters of the Air. In January, I attended a viewing of the premiere episode of the series, followed by a conversation and Q&A with the cast and producer. Butler stars alongside actors Callum Turner, Sawyer Spielberg, and Barry Keoghan in the show. My friend really likes Turner, and she and my sister agreed they think he's cute, but as we were analyzing the cast, my sister said something that rang true every time Butler was on screen, "Callum is cute, but Austin is a star."
Baz Luhrmann's Chaotic Directing Style
Before Elvis, I knew Luhrmann's work from 1996's Romeo + Juliet, 2001's Moulin Rouge, and 2013's The Great Gatsby. There was one word I would always use to describe it: chaotic. The camera was moving all over the place, seemingly flipping upside down at times, and there always seemed to be a lot of loud music. However, the chaotic directing always fit the movies he made and it was the perfect way to showcase just how out of control Elvis' life was.
In my Pride & Prejudice newsletter, I wrote about the importance of using directing as a form of storytelling. In Elvis, what Lurhmann does best with his directing style is create an alternate reality. Nothing about Elvis feels real because nothing about Elvis' life was real compared to the reality that most people in the world live. The singer and his life were truly out of this world.
The film opens with a bedazzled Warner Brothers logo followed by Luhrmann's initials, BZ, also studded in diamonds, surrounded by the quote from his 1992 film Strictly Ballroom: "A life lived in fear is a life half lived." Once the movie begins, we meet the Colonel, who narrates the story throughout. From this moment, the camera is already flipping all over the place, creating confusion and the suspicion that what the audience is about to watch is no average movie. During Elvis' childhood, when he first discovers rock and roll from the black community, Luhrmann chaotically cuts between shots of the people dancing with Elvis getting caught up in the crowd to showcase just how much discovering that style of music shook up Elvis' world.
I love the juxtaposition of Elvis' life earlier in the film versus later, once he's become a superstar. The lighting and colors are much softer as Elvis first steps into the spotlight, and the most noticeable change comes with the viral TikTok mashup of Elvis' "Viva Las Vegas" and Britney Spears' "Toxic." As Colonel narrates, "his life became one big Hollywood movie," we see Elvis' life change forever. From this point forward, everything is even more over the top and colorful than it was at the start of the film.
While Luhrmann's work was impressive throughout, what stood out to me the most came at the very end of the film, and it was not just thanks to his directing but also the work of the film's editors. At the end of Elvis, Butler recreates the singer's final performance. The scene then fades to earlier shots from the movie of Elvis as a young boy first discovering rock and roll. Then, it cuts to Elvis' real final performance. This evoked so much emotion because it not only reminds us that Elvis was once a young, innocent boy with a dream, but it reminds us that as much as we got swept up in the film and Austin Butler's performance, this is not just an entertaining film, but someone's real life, no matter how unreal it looked.
What Elvis Taught Us About The King of Rock n Roll
Before Elvis, I didn't really know much about the singer. I knew he had a connection to Las Vegas so iconic that Elvis impersonators are still walking up and down the strip and officiating weddings at Little White Wedding Chapel. I knew he was the musical inspiration behind Uncle Jesse on Full House, and like Priscilla star Jacob Elordi, I probably first heard his music in Disney's Lilo & Stitch. Though, after watching Butler embody Elvis, I understand the star a lot better.
Elvis, at his core, was basically the same as any other Hollywood star: someone who once had a dream, who was swept up in the chaos of the Hollywood machine and was unprepared for what being in the spotlight really meant. Elvis also caused a lot of controversy with his music and dancing, not only because society deemed it inappropriate but because many feel he stole it from the black community. Ray Charles once said in a 1994 interview, "He was doing our kind of music, so what the hell am I supposed to get so excited about?" Many agree, but BB King, known as the King of Blues, did not.
“I’m all out of dreams,” -Elvis Presley, Elvis.
As the movie showcases, Elvis grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in Tupelo, Mississippi, attended black churches that increased his love for gospel music, and strolled up and down Beale Street in Memphis, admiring the black rock n roll artists that came before him. In King's 1996 book Blues All Around Me, the singer wrote, "Elvis didn't steal any music from anyone. He just had his own interpretation of the music he'd grown up on, same is true for everyone. I think Elvis had integrity." The film also gives credit to Little Richard and Big Mama Thornton, the original singer of Hound Dog, as some of Elvis' inspirations.
However, the moments where I felt I learned the most about Elvis were during the devastating losses throughout the movie. When Elvis' mom dies, we see him hiding in her closet, crying into her clothes while the others gather around her coffin, paying their respects. Elvis did so much to please his mother, not only buying her the iconic pink Cadillac but also making sure she would never struggle with money again and that his father would never find himself back in prison.
He also did his best to assure her that he would be safe no matter how famous he became. However, a few other losses in the film proved he might not be able to keep this promise. Elvis seemed distraught over the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F Kennedy. He later was disturbed by Sharon Tate's murder and was beginning to feel unsafe and quite paranoid. This felt like the beginning of the fall of Elvis.
The final time we see him, before his last performance, Elvis is in his car, arriving at his private jet as radio announcers call him "washed up" and market his upcoming Vegas performance toward "older crowds." At the same time, they announce The Jacksons will be playing at the MGM Grand. This reminded me a lot of something Taylor Swift said in her Miss Americana documentary: Once stars reach a certain age, they're discarded into an elephant graveyard. In her 2012 song "The Lucky One," she sings, "all the young things line up to take your place," and in "Nothing New," a vault track from Red (Taylor's Version), she sings the lyrics, "Are we only biding time 'til I lose your attention? And someone else lights up the room? People love an ingénue," followed by "Will you still want me when I'm nothing new?"
Elvis was not what he once was by the end of his career, and younger stars had seemingly taken his place, yet 45 years after his death, people were still interested in his story. Elvis brought in $151 million at the box office in the US and Canada and $288.7 million worldwide. It's sad how many stars are tossed aside only to be appreciated after death, but I do believe Baz Luhrmann brought new appreciation to Elvis and introduced him and his music to a whole new generation.
Though, none of that would have happened had the role of Elvis not been perfectly cast. Austin Butler made audiences fall in love with him as Elvis, and as a result, he helped audiences fall in love with Elvis Presley all over again. So, no matter how many times people want to argue over which actor best portrayed Elvis, I believe in what my sister wrote in my Priscilla newsletter comment section: Austin Butler is Elvis.