Revue “ Epic ”: Baz Luhrmann does not need Austin Butler to make another Rockin film ‘Elvis
Baz Luhrmann came to the Toronto International Film Festival years ago with his film “Elvis”, which survived a long delayed production in pandemic to land eight nominations in Oscars and win nearly $ 300 million worldwide. One would think that he would be ready to move to the rhetorical end of this trip, but Luhrmann was back in Tiff on Saturday with another film by Elvis, this one entitled “Epic: Elvis Presley in concert”.
The title seems to tell you everything you need to know about the film, but Luhrmann has bigger ambitions than that. The film is a concert film by Elvis in a way, drawn mainly from images filmed for a pair of documentaries from the early 1970s, “Elvis: it’s like that” and “Elvis on Tour”. But it is far from being a right concert film, because it mixes concert images with rehearsals, studio sessions, archive materials and off voices in which Elvis describes his life in a way that seems more relaxed and perhaps more honest than most of his public statements.
Luhrmann calls him a “poem of your”, but you can also consider it as a remix in the sense of the most nervous moments of the latest Elvis film by Luhrmann, when a song could start with the familiar Elvis version, interpreted by Elvis or Star Austin Butler or by a mixture of the two, but also bring hip-hop elements before.
“Epic” is Elvis through the Baz lens, where large and daring is always preferable to the simple and where to go to the top is never considered a bad thing. If it is not revealing for people who saw the existing films of the time, it is the most imaginative, generous and entertaining look at a time when Elvis’ return always had real life.
He also has a great rhythm and you can dance on it, as did the public of the Princess of Wales Theater.
(Of course, Luhrmann may have helped to invite this by his commentary on pre-deplery that he would seek the most enthusiastic members of the public and giving them a swag.)
The film is based on shows that Elvis made internationally Hotel de Las Vegas in the summer of 1970; It was not his return to live performance, which had occurred the previous year, but a subsequent commitment that was filmed for the film “Elvis: that’s how it is.” But some other shows have also entered the mixture, which means that we manage to draw a year or two from Elvis by its combinations: the white and studded look of these 1970 vegas shows; a light blue number that found Elvis a little paler and more blowing, presented in “Elvis on Tour”; A dark blue suit that fell between the two.
And the performance turns between fun and passionate, with Elvis in a great voice throughout the raw songs of rock’n’roll of his past and full walks to which he would turn more and more for the rest of his career. The protruding facts include the very first live performance of “Burning Love”, a few attractive moments of “I will go out” from Bob Dylan “and the arrival of” Suspects “and” Can’t Help Fall in Love “as real showstoppers.
“Epic” is a film that more or less follows an Elvis show but which is still on the move in and around this program. Offstage Elvis informs Elvis and Vice Versa on stage, and the zeal with which Luhrmann Fouette everything in an indefinable Elvispalooza is able to a king.
