a few years ago<\/a> for Elvis\u2019s release, you explained to us how your preferred editing style is to challenge the audience and make them really work for what they\u2019re seeing. How closely did you want to adhere to that approach for your take on a concert documentary? Did your directorial sensibility change at all?
It did. It\u2019s different in the sense that, number one, I didn\u2019t write or shoot a frame, and I didn\u2019t cast it. It was already precast with this lead player. It was accidental that we found the material. We literally sent someone into the salt mines in Kansas City, Raiders of the Lost Ark style, and boom, there were 65 canisters of negatives but no sound. Then there were two whole years of scraping back sound, finding it, and getting all the rights holders together to obtain the music rights. A lot of the tracks were good, but then you have to deal with gangsters to buy back the black-market stuff. After all that, then it\u2019s like \u2014 what to do with it?<\/p>\nThe idea came when we found those 30 minutes of Elvis just speaking and being very unguarded. This is where it got particularly different from my other films, because I wasn\u2019t going, Oh no, how do I get an audience to get onboard with Elvis as the storyteller? I realized the film should do something unprecedented with Elvis, which was to get us out of the way. His whole life was about people managing him or telling their story. But if Elvis was going to tell his story, then we had to be guided by Elvis\u2019s telling. Now, that doesn\u2019t mean we didn\u2019t have energetic cutting. Elvis would use the latest technology and want a big sound. We really worked with our great music teams in making it as concertlike as possible. There\u2019s stuff in there that\u2019s like a dreamscape. It\u2019s not a documentary, it\u2019s not a concert film. It\u2019s its own babe.<\/p>\n
Elvis is, effectively, the narrator of this film, and the footage you unearthed finds him at an introspective moment in time. He talks about the difference between the image and the human being. What went through your mind while watching all of this footage for the first time? Did it align with what your image of Elvis was?
I discovered his humor, which is locked in with a type of goofiness. This is only my theory \u2014 having done so much research on Elvis and meeting Sam Bell, his childhood friend who wasn\u2019t someone living off the Elvis myth and was an older man of color. Sam told me, \u201cElvis was living in one of the few white houses in the Black community. The Presleys were in East Tupelo and were so, so poor.\u201d His father went to a very famous jail. Elvis had a great hole in his heart and always felt less than, but then he grows into this Greek god who\u2019s got the voice of Orpheus. He goofed around a lot and was always setting up to disarm himself, the audience, and the band, so that they could deal with the man and not the myth. The whole \u201cman and the myth\u201d thing was a really big thing with him, so the goofy humor was a big surprise. Like, he does it all the time. He\u2019s nonstop.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a goofy dude. At one point in the film, he fellates a microphone and then does some crowd work and tells his audience, \u201cIt gets dry up here, man, it feels like Bob Dylan is stuck in my mouth.\u201d
And then he\u2019ll sing a really huge power ballad and be like, \u201cI\u2019d get down on my knees if this suit wasn\u2019t so tight and shove it up your nose!\u201d It\u2019s a silliness where there\u2019s no embarrassment. I remember Whitney Houston\u2019s mother, Cissy, met Elvis when she was still in the Sweet Inspirations. She must have been 10 years old. She said, \u201cElvis walked in the room and you didn\u2019t go, \u2018Hello, Mr. Elvis,\u2019 you just stared.\u201d If you\u2019re someone, when you walk in a room, people just stare at you, you\u2019re that famous. You have to do a lot for people to get past that shield of fame to connect with the person. Elvis used humor to get people to realize, \u201cHey, I\u2019m a human being, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Presley working on his karate and tuning a guitar in EPiC. From left: Photo: NeonPhoto: Neon\n <\/p>\n
\n Presley working on his karate and tuning a guitar in EPiC. From top: Photo: NeonPhoto: Neon\n <\/p>\n
Did you have any concert-film North Stars that helped guide you? I know discovering and working with footage is different from directing a live performance, but I\u2019m curious if, say, Martin Scorsese or Jonathan Demme\u2019s work in the genre provided any inspiration.
Those are some of my favorites. I love Stop Making Sense and The Last Waltz. But the answer is \u201cNot really.\u201d I consider what Peter Jackson did for The Beatles: Get Back as sort of the go-to \u2014 if you want to understand the creative process, collaboration wise, that\u2019s the highest-possible watermark. It\u2019s the rough and tumble and the craziness of John Lennon belting something out from the piano and going, \u201cWhat do you think, Paul? Got anything for me, George?\u201d What Jean-Luc Godard did for the Rolling Stones in Sympathy for the Devil is really kind of crazy, because as a fly on the wall we pick up all these expressionistic things. I remember thinking, Oh, there\u2019s something interesting about seeing the randomness of bands creating.<\/p>\n
But the difference with Elvis is he wasn\u2019t in a band, which was why it was so hard for him. The bands fare better because they have each other. Elvis was alone. Music aside, do you know Listen to Me Marlon, which featured tapes of Brando just talking? Leonardo DiCaprio and I are huge Brando fans. He was going to, at one stage, be in my Romeo + Juliet film, and I still have the beautiful letters he sent me. Hearing him sit there and rattle on about what he really felt, you feel close. You start to understand the person when they\u2019re actually telling you their story.<\/p>\n
There are several moments of Elvis playing around with the Beatles\u2019 work. In rehearsals, he covers \u201cYesterday\u201d and \u201cSomething\u201d \u2014 he notes that \u201cSomething\u201d has \u201cvery suggestive lyrics\u201d \u2014 and he incorporated \u201cGet Back\u201d into a Vegas show. What did you gather from his attitude toward the band or other contemporaries? The Beatles were a rare match for Elvis in terms of fame.
Funny enough, Paul McCartney spoke very openly with Austin Butler about this. They took a train ride together before Austin started shooting Elvis about what it was like to meet him. Paul was all about how they were kids, smoking a bit of weed, and they went up to the house here in Los Angeles. They just sort of stumble out of a car and meet Elvis. They were struck by how beautiful looking he was. But the Beatles all remembered it differently because they were probably all high, you know? Paul talked very warmly about how he and Elvis jammed on a song. Even Bob Dylan has said, \u201cOne of the greatest moments in my life was Elvis covering one of my songs.\u201d You can\u2019t overstate how much of an influence Elvis has on all of these musicians. A lot of what\u2019s been said about Elvis\u2019s attitudes towards the Beatles is made up or when he was going through his degenerated period of being on drugs and doing crazy things. You see in this film that he covers Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel songs. He has no prejudice when it comes to good music. He\u2019s looking for great material and then makes it his own.<\/p>\n
I was keen to ask about the \u201cPolk Salad Annie\u201d sequence, where it switches between Vegas, rehearsals, and a Presley family portrait. Elvis ad-libs \u201cBecause that\u2019s all they had to eat, but they did all right,\u201d and it\u2019s very much alluding to his upbringing. I\u2019d love to learn more about the editing for this one and what it helps us understand about, as you said earlier, the man behind the myth.
It defines the film, and it\u2019s something that Jonathan Redmond, my editor and collaborator, cut early on. It\u2019s masterful. In the rehearsal, it\u2019s running at a different tempo than the one he ultimately performs onstage. We wanted to show Elvis finding the song \u2014 he has the same energy in rehearsals as he does onstage, which is unusual. If Elvis was telling you his story, it\u2019s how the songs were there to illuminate his story. He\u2019s famously not someone who launches into speeches about anything. But if you want to know what his heart is, look at his song choices. Look at what he says in a song like \u201cPolk Salad Annie.\u201d It\u2019s a fun, jokey song about being down in Louisiana. \u201cThe alligators look so mean and there was a girl razor-blade clean.\u201d What they eat is, essentially, swamp greens. The cheapest of the cheapest. You\u2019ve got to be really poor to eat polk salad, but the Presleys did it. Sam Bell, who I mentioned earlier, told me that they had a good vegetable patch despite being beyond poor. That\u2019s the key to it.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s a moment like Elvis debuting \u201cBurning Love\u201d at his residency, where he declares, \u201cIf you don\u2019t know it you will.\u201d I\u2019m like, Yeah man, we sure will.
Elvis didn\u2019t even like the song. He was wary of it. Onstage he thought he was going to screw it up because he was very nervy with lyrics, so he had the paper in front of him and he\u2019s actually singing it while looking from a page. Now, of course, we know it\u2019s a giant hit. So we cut between him finding the song onstage and you can see all the musicians and backup singers eyeing him down, because no one has any idea what he\u2019s going to do, including the band. So they have to watch him all the time. He never went on and said, \u201cHere\u2019s the set, everyone.\u201d He wanted to be spontaneous, change his mind, and keep them all on their toes. He never rehearsed his steps, nothing. I love when he says, \u201cI just do what I feel.\u201d We also use it to show that period where he is doing 15 cities in 15 days. The Colonel has got him doing, like, three shows a day in two cities, and it\u2019s the touring that really starts to wear him down. Because he thinks he\u2019s going to finally get the chance to tour overseas, but the Colonel\u2019s got him doing the Vegas show over and over and over again. That\u2019s a lot to do with the gambling and the deals he made.<\/p>\n
What was the most interesting piece of footage of Elvis you discovered that, for whatever reason, didn\u2019t make the final cut?
There\u2019s an old saying: \u201cWhen you edit, the first thing you should do is cut your favorite shot.\u201d Because you can\u2019t fall in love with a shot, you fall in love with the story. I\u2019m having trouble thinking of a specific number because once you let it go, it\u2019s surprising how it makes what remains behind better, so you sort of block it out. There\u2019s a lot more of Elvis clowning around in cars and in rehearsal rooms. That was great but didn\u2019t really advance the plot. You know what, I\u2019ll call Jonathan and find out how many musical numbers we cut. We\u2019ll get in a lot of trouble because it\u2019ll be like, \u201cRelease the files, release the files!\u201d I know, for sure, we cut about two or three. It had to be on point \u2014 otherwise you\u2019re indulgent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I get that. I remember leaving the theater and thinking, Wow, I wish it was longer, but it\u2019s because of those editing choices.
Listen, I\u2019ll be Uncle Baz for a moment: What we have to do is get enough people in the cinema to make it economically viable to do more of these. It\u2019s extremely expensive to bring this material back at a quality you can see on Imax. I funded this myself. We look like we\u2019re on track to pay the bill. And if we pay the bill, the sky\u2019s the limit. It\u2019ll be an ongoing legacy of Elvis. We had to scan all of the material before we even had the idea of the footage, because it was rotting. When all the reels came in, they possessed this intense vinegar smell. And it\u2019s the smell of negative film dissolving. So our first job was to preserve it. Now it\u2019s all scanned at the highest-possible resolution. If we put it back in the salt mines, it would\u2019ve died. So it means there\u2019s endless years of work that can be made from it, and that\u2019s up to those who come after me to do. But the first thing to do is to show it\u2019s economically viable and there\u2019s an audience for it.<\/p>\n
Has your exposure to all of Elvis\u2019s incredible costumes changed the way you dress? I can unequivocally state that, in the weeks after watching this film, all I\u2019ve been shopping for is colorful sunglasses and flashy pants.
There\u2019s nothing wrong with a flashy trouser and cool glasses. With whatever film I\u2019m doing, I very early on adopt the sartorial styling, the look, and the feel. But I think his aesthetic has always been inside of me a little bit. I\u2019m always amazed that he didn\u2019t have a stylist, he just dreamed it up. Even early on he had sideburns and was wearing makeup at school \u2014 it was coming out of his inventive mind. He was bullied a lot. So he was defying them by going, The hell with that, and obsessively hanging out in the Black community and being on Beale Street. He was like any kid who feels isolated. I was speaking to someone just last night who was very close to Elvis. I said, \u201cWhat was the reason for the big long collars? People thought they made him look like Napoleon.\u201d And they responded, \u201cHis parents told him he had a really long neck, like a turkey. So he felt he had too long a neck.\u201d Which is funny, because I don\u2019t see anything wrong with his neck, you know? Always follow the clothes for the story.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t realize just how wild Elvis\u2019s performance schedule was until that title card at the end, where it states he played well over 1,000 shows during that time period.\u00a0When you look back at your own career, what were the most demanding years you made it through?
Getting through Australia. It was a vast epic and we were spread out all over the country. We had so much bad luck. I mean, you have to expect bad luck when you\u2019re making a big movie. But we had equine flu and it rained in the desert for the first time in 100 years. There was grass everywhere. We did some silly things to deal with that. We went like, Well, we\u2019ll shoot up in the north, then. And the north of Australia makes the Sahara look positively populated. But it was such a grand adventure, I wouldn\u2019t give any of it up. It was really hard but beautiful. When I\u2019m shooting, I expect to get three hours of sleep at night. You just keep moving forward. I\u2019m not one of these people who screams or has histrionics on set, because it\u2019s called \u201cplay acting.\u201d It\u2019s a \u201cscreenplay.\u201d As I see it, my job is to take on everyone else\u2019s fear and lead through positive vibes. Nobody wants another scared person on set.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On That Note Welcome to \u201cOn That Note,\u201d a rock-and-roll-centered column that will dive into the big stories,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[56867,57158,15762,88,206,216,224852,10677,19665],"class_list":{"0":"post-489972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-baz-luhrmann","9":"tag-elvis","10":"tag-elvis-presley","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-on-that-note","15":"tag-vulture-homepage-lede","16":"tag-vulture-section-lede"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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