A Little More Conversation
Director Baz Luhrmann on the standout musical numbers of ELVIS
“I’M TRYING TO be more focused,” says Baz Luhrmann, before adding with a laugh, “Not possible. You’ve seen my movies, right?” We have. And the Australian auteur’s latest is Elvis, a two-and-a-half-hour biopic of the King Of Rock ’N’ Roll, Elvis Presley. A dizzying, none-more-Baz-like roulette-wheel-spin through Presley’s life, it features a great central performance from Austin Butler, and a number of key performances from Presley’s career, some of which happened, some of which didn’t. We asked Luhrmann, in his inimitable, long-way-round, trying-to-be-more-focused, scenic-route way, to talk us through five of the best.
AN AMERICAN TRILOGY
The first time we hear Elvis’ voice in Elvis is over the opening salvo of studio logos, with a brief burst of ‘Suspicious Minds’. But that’s just a tease. The first time we really hear Presley is in Luhrmann’s frantic fever-dream opening, which flashes forward briefly to Elvis’ 1970s Vegas residency, where he added a brassy, gospel-tinged aspect to his music. That first tune is ‘An American Trilogy’, with its bombastic, big-note finish. “I make a lot of reels, sort of like extended trailers of the movies I’m going to do,” says Luhrmann. “For this, we always began the reel with ‘American Trilogy’. It’s the most heraldic and godlike vocal expression of Elvis that there is. It’s almost the entrance of a superhero.”