Review of Elvis (2022) by Mauro_Lanari — 12 Aug 2022

(Mauro Lanari).

Elvis was "sex, drugs & r'n'r" (Ian Dury 1977). Sex: he **** with a multitude of groupies, the film shows only one; he dated Priscilla since she was 14 and not the double (28) as narrated. Drugs: he was an autonomous itinerant pharmacy, the film shows that it was the bad manager who seduced him with a handful of pills or tablets. Rock'n'roll: in his music the white component of country prevails over the black one of blues and gospel, the film transforms him into a paladin of black culture, even a political activist. There is much more truth about him in the brief anecdote of the meeting with Nixon told by Lisa Johnson in 2016 than in these 159 minutes. Luhrmann is the new barker who gets rich by parasiting the fame of his sideshow phenomenon. Canonical objection: does postmodernity not declare that there are no facts but only narratives, storytellings? It is a psychotic thesis that can be useful and advantageous to who knows how many individually, collectively, globally. Luhrmann's style is baroque indeed rococo, pompous, bombastic, excessive, tacky, a dizzying acceleration of Sufi dance with the aim of obtaining the same effect: a drunk daze, a vitalistic Dionysian spirit, Nietzsche's active nihilism. Again the canonical objection: isn't it a simple problem of knowing how to live your time well, precisely the postmodern as a comfort zone? De gustibus.