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The Comeback & Fall of the King

With 'EPiC', Baz Luhrmann gives Elvis the tribute he deserves.

By Stephanie Zacharek in Time

n the 1980s and '90s you'd sometimes see "Elvis Lives" scrawled around this or that city or town. It was a furtive declaration with an unclear meaning. Was it a reference to the popular conspiracy theory that Elves hadn't really died on Aug. 16, 1977, at 42, but was hiding away somewhere, living as a private citizen? Or did it mean that after his death, the molecules of energy he'd left behind had simply taken another living shape? Elvis died one death, only to spring back in an infinite number of forms, as uncountable as the stars in the sky.

But sometimes, Elvis goes a little underground -- his reformed molecules can grow hazy. In the past few years, Baz Luhrmann has done the most to bring them back into focus, first with his fantastically unruly 2022 biopic Elvis, and now with a film that's less documentary than spiritual conjuring. EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is constructed of previously unreleased footage Luhrmann's Elvis researchers found: this trove, 59 hours of performance and interview material, had been languishing in a Warner Bros. vault located in an underground salt mine in Kansas. In addition, Luhrmann sourced rare Super 8 footage from the Graceland archives. This footage, painstakingly restored, forms the fabric of EPiC, which, despite Luhrmann's penchant for hurtling over the top -- or maybe because of it -- feels profoundly intimate.

  

EPiC mixes concert footage with interstitial clips of Elvis being Elvis, as if to collapse the distance between his public and private selves. Luhrmann hopscotches through Elvis' early career, breezing over the cheesy movies, his stint in the Army, during which he lost his beloved mother Gladys. We see glimpses of Elvis' manager Colonel Tom Parker, whom Luhrmann frames as an evil manipulator, though in reality, his role may not have been as diabolical.

Luhrmann has also unearthed some hypnotic clips of Elvis performing in Hawaii in 1957, wearing a shimmering gold jacket, his neck ringed with a lei. This was Elvis near the peak of his beauty, when his pleasure in performing seemed to bathe him in radiant light. No wonder he got under people's skin; what they saw and identified as profanity was really a state of grace.

But the film's core is footage from the hundreds of performances Elvis gave in Las Vegas from 1969 to 1976. His costumes alone are a wonder, bell-bottom jumpsuits accented with Revolutionary War-era collars and cinched with macramé belts. A true sensationalist, Elvis gave in to beauty without a second thought.

In some of the Vegas footage, it's possible to see glimpses of the desperate figure Elvis would become: the hint of a jowl, a thickening waist, a gaze veering toward blankness. But mostly, the Elvis of EPiC is alarmingly alive. His moves are smooth. His voice sounds banished and vital. As he sidles into "Polk Salad Annie," Annie's story seems to mesh with his own: those greens were all her family had, but "they did all right."

Luhrmann spins these words in an echo chamber, even as he superimposes a ghostly-looking picture -- the famous black-and-white baby photo of Elvis nestled between his parents -- atop the image of Elvis revving up to sing the song. In the picture, baby Elvis is the sunshine center of a family that also had nothing. Luhrmann isolates baby Elvis, with his quizzical, knowing face, and sends him whirling toward us. Is it corny? Or is it everything? Luhrmann's gift as a filmmaker, as well as the very thing that can sometimes make him annoying, is that he always errs on the side of "everything." He gives EPiC his all, and its joyous abundance almost feels like more than we deserve -- just as, maybe, we never deserved Elvis. And yet there he was, giving us more, possibly, than he had to give. His life was great and vast and almost unbearably sad. The life he has now is better, because he's given it over to us. And just by continuing to hear him, we build it anew every day."  

Flashback to 1979!

From People's Jan. 15, 1979, issue.

DIANA ROSS TAKES THE REINS OF HER LIFE AND CAREER AS DOROTHY IN THE WIZ

iana Ross has been used to all the money and fame since the '60s, when her Supremes outsold every other group except the Beatles. The problem, she confesses at 34, is "growing up." Splitting from her husband of six years, Robert Silberstein, in 1977 was rough enough, but she also put a coast between herself and Motown founder Berry Gordy. "I've wanted this freedom of space for so long," she states. "I feel like Dorothy. Suddenly, BOOM, I'm in a whole new world." She'd just heard that Motown was producing the film adaptation of the musical "The Wiz," and she wanted to be Dorothy. In two weeks she won the rolle, and Ross put her 12-room Beverly Hills fortress on the market to move her three daughters (Rhonda, 7, Tracee, 6, and Cudney, 3) into a Manhattan co-op. On-set her supporters included her protégé Michael Jackson, 20: "She's so beautiful, inside and out," he gushes. Wiz director Sidney Lumet declared that "watching Diana is like watching this supernova exploding -- she's stunning."

IN THE NEWS: JAN. 1979

Engagement: Pat Boone's daughter Debby Boone, 22, said yes to marrying Gabriel Ferrer, 21, the art student son of José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney.

Couples: Armand Assante, 29, called his romance with Lady of the House costar Dyan Cannon, 42, "the most fantastic thing that's happened to me."

Fundraiser: The Bee Gees led a UNICEF benefit with Rod Stewart, Donna Summer, and more.

PICKS & PANS

Wild and Crazy Guy by Steve Martin  Steve Martin's comedy album is wild and crazy at its best, but his shtick, while hilarious, has become repetitive and limiting.

Superman: The Movie  Christopher Reeve's Superman doesn't just soar, he reseals the San Andreas Fault and voyages among the stars with a delightful script -- camp, but not too cute.  

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