Movie Review
EPiC (Elvis Presley in Concert)
By Roger Paradiso
EPiC film poster.
There’s something very interesting going on with EPiC, the new Elvis Presley Concert/Documentary. The movie as a concert film is terrific. Director Baz Luhrmann has cut and mixed this series of rehearsals and concerts, mostly in Vegas, to make you feel you are at a concert. The sound is fantastic. In fact, the sound is better than a concert and definitely better than any home sound surround. The visuals are designed to make you feel you are at a concert. I paid $10 to see this film with about ten other folks in the theater, on a rainy weekday afternoon. What I am here to tell you is that the way to get people back to the theaters is to do more outstanding films like this. Why rush to the arena shows and pay hundreds of dollars? This spectacle of music, 75 songs and dramatic scenes created by Luhrmann, is the way to go. If I were the studios I would line up today’s big artists and create a series of concert films with this quality. It is one way to bring folks back to the theaters.
So what makes this film so great besides the sound? We see Elvis at his best musically. It is the real Elvis playing his hits, but more importantly, playing the music that made him what he was. Yeah, he does Hound Dog, Suspicious Minds and In The Ghetto but adds in the Beatles’ Get Back and Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters. And to show his roots he mixes in Oh Happy Days, What’d I Say and songs I never heard him sing before ─ Tiger Man and Polk Salad Annie. Elvis and the band are terrific in bringing these songs to life. The remixing and editing made it so alive.
You are also watching documentary as if you are there because of all the behind-the-scenes work in these performances. Elvis was never given credit for leading the band. You see the humor and substance at the rehearsals. You see him on stage conducting his band with his eye contact, his choreography movements and improvisation. In the film Elvis says that the music changes at every performance. Yet the artists are on stage playing like a band that rocks in total harmony. The improvs in rehearsal also happen in the concerts and are fun to watch.
The other part of this spectacle is the 15 minutes of interviews where Elvis deals with all the misconceptions. These moments reveal a different man than the one who was presented to the public in the scandal magazines. Elvis comes across as a sincere artist who was just trying to find himself while he flew around the stage entertaining an audience. I can’t give his inner monologues away but one of his regrets was that he never played in concert outside of North America. He was a good actor and wanted to do more films but not in the way he was portrayed in his Hollywood career. It never happened and that is the tragedy.
Thank the gods of music. Luhrmann said that the film is built entirely from restored, previously unreleased footage of Elvis. Thank Warner Bros. archives and the Graceland collection for saving this material ─ some of which was preserved in a salt mine to keep the film from degrading or being destroyed.
Luhrmann further emphasized that “there’s not a frame of AI in it” and that the only “visual effect” is the effect Elvis has on audience. The archival footage was restored to their original form without any artificial intelligence.
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As for those who think Elvis was an out of shape has-been who forgot his lyrics and who couldn’t handle his shows anymore, I would say one thing. You try wearing that jumpsuit and do two to three shows a night. I doubt you can do it. Not in the humorous and gracious way Elvis did his shows. And that’s why most rock fans called him “The King.”
EPiC is a must-see event. And there is a surprise ending you would not have imagined.
Playing on Broadway in IMAX AMC 25 234 West 42nd Street
