{"id":17320,"date":"2022-06-22T13:49:45","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T11:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1667263"},"modified":"2022-06-22T14:20:09","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T12:20:09","slug":"elviss-ambition-is-its-greatest-flaw","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/elviss-ambition-is-its-greatest-flaw\/","title":{"rendered":"Elvis\u2019s ambition is its greatest flaw"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 22 June 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Throughout the press tour for Elvis<\/a>, Baz Luhrmann has insisted that his film shouldn\u2019t be seen as a biopic in the traditional sense of the word. \u201cThis is not really a biopic,\u201d he explained during a CinemaCon panel back in April. \u201cIt\u2019s really for me about America in the \u201950s and \u201960s and \u201970s. If you want to talk about America in the \u201950s and \u201960s and \u201970, at the centre of culture, for the good the bad and the ugly, was Elvis.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be fair to Luhrmann, there are certainly things about the film that distinguish it from other recent examples of the genre \u2013 less inventive films such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Respect. For example, the Australian filmmaker\u2019s always exuberant directing style \u2013 full of flashy editing and flamboyant sets and eccentric camera movements \u2013 ensures that Elvis is never anything short of a brilliant spectacle, while the decision to sprinkle in modern music alongside the well-known hits is also an interesting touch.<\/p>\n

And yet despite this, the film isn\u2019t able to avoid the major pitfall that plagues so many musical biopics \u2013 coming off as a checklist of important moments from its subject\u2019s life rather than a genuine exploration of their inner selves. Across its lengthy runtime, the film essentially ticks off an assortment of bullet points \u2013 the origins of Elvis-mania, his romance with Priscilla, his 1968 Comeback Special \u2013 without ever really pausing to consider the significance of these moments in any meaningful way, racing through various highs and lows at such breakneck speed that it sometimes feels more like a 2-and-a-half-hour montage than a coherent narrative.<\/p>

The problem, really, is that Luhrmann has tried to stuff too much story into one film \u2013 and indeed his admission that an even longer\u00a0four-hour version<\/a> exists only seems to underline this point further. It would have made much more sense to focus on a specific moment of Presley\u2019s career \u2013 his long years in Vegas for example \u2013 and use that as a backdrop to more thoroughly explore some of the same themes that the film largely brushes over.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say that other aspects of the King and Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll\u2019s life and legacy aren\u2019t important or interesting, but simply that in trying to be everything all at once the film ends up doing its subject a bit of a disservice. Why not simply accept that most people will already be broadly familiar with the beginning of his career and jump straight into a more focused story about his decline, one that actually has time to dive a little below the surface?<\/p>\n

Alternatively, another option might have been to go for a similar approach to the one taken by the terrific 2014 Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy. That film jumped between two different sections of The Beach Boys star\u2019s life \u2013 his creative apex in the \u201960s and his later mental health struggles in the \u201980s \u2013 allowing us to see both the highs and the lows without necessarily needing to showcase every single moment from cradle to grave.<\/p>\n