I recently got around to watching Baz Luhrmann’s 'Elvis.' When I saw its trailers earlier in the year, I had a feeling that it would be an amazing movie. I thought the cast looked well-picked and that Luhrmann’s direction would make it a very captivating and exciting take on Elvis’s life. Now, after seeing the movie, I can confirm this prior assumption.
As expected from Baz Luhrmann, the movie seemed like it was constantly moving at 100 miles per hour. There would be scenes no longer than 5 seconds long before they transitioned to a new setting. One of my favorites was the portrayal of Elvis’s first ever performance in the Levitt Shell amphitheater in Memphis. Before Elvis goes upstage with his band, he is in the back of the building getting warmed up. Elvis is meant to go on stage and perform one of his first ever hits: “That’s All Right.” This is when Luhrmann decides to add a flashback, one that shows Elvis’s discovery of Gospel and American-blues music. You see Elvis as a young boy in Tupelo, Mississippi with a couple of friends. They are spying on a guitar player in a shotgun shack singing a heated version of “Black Snake Moan” by Blind Lemon Jefferson. Then, Elvis overhears a congregation just a few feet away in a religious revival tent. Young Elvis and the friends enter the tent as they become captured and entranced by the gospel music being sung. Luhrmann incorporates both “Black Snake Moan” and the gospel singing from the congregation to create a mash-up. Not only does this mash-up sound amazing in the movie, but it shows where Elvis got his inspiration for his own music. After the mash-up, you begin to hear Elvis singing “That’s All Right,” indicating he was influenced by the music he heard as a child. It was truly a mesmerizing part of the film and I was impressed by the beauty in the mixing of songs. There was not a single minute of the movie where I was bored or tired. This movie tells an amazing story in an electrifying way.
Image previously used at Telegraphindia.com.
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