Elvis is back
Our film critic gets all shook up in anticipation of a new biopic about the King of Rock 'n' Roll that's hitting our cinema screens this summer
by JASON SOLOMONS
You know to expect something a bit different when Elvis Presley is billed as 'the original punk'.
That's how director Baz Luhrmann has described his take on the King of Rock 'n'
Roll, as he's about to be depicted in a long-anticipated biopic -a film that will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this month before its cinema release in June and simply be called Elvis.
Luhrmann, known for his dazzling cinematic imagination and his visual twists on classic material, as evidenced by enduring hits Moulin
Rouge! and The Great Gatsby, has said his challenge was to convey to a modern audience the huge impact Elvis had when he first rose to fame. 'Elvis in the early Fifties was wildly provocative. There really were riots,' he said.
'People at the time talked about how strange he looked, how shocking he was. Our job is to translate "strange and shocking" to a contemporary audience.'
The Australian director has said his film will use the subject of Elvis to 'paint a canvas of American life in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies'. The narrative will trace US history through the ascent of Elvis, documenting the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations in the Sixties and going up to 1977, when Presley died, aged just 42, at his Graceland home.