Presley: the music
A new documentary about Elvis Presley, backed by his former wife, charts his early influences, writes
MORE than 40 years after Elvis Presley’s death, a documentary backed by his former wife, Priscilla, charts the singer’s early life as a young man from Tupelo, Mississippi.
A twopart, threehour documentary, Elvis Presley: The
Searcher, will be streamed by TVNZ OnDemand on Thursday. It has been backed by the Presley estate, in the hope that it will refocus attention on Presley’s captivating music and presence, as opposed to his sad physical decline. The Searcher portrays the young Elvis as an ‘‘eclectic’’ music lover who, before making his first recordings at Sun Studio, was slipping into the black clubs on Beale St in Memphis, or into the black gospel churches, to assemble ‘‘his version of himself’’.
‘‘We didn’t exactly know who he was but there weren’t a lot of white kids hanging out at the clubs,’’ renowned Stax Records producer David Porter said.
Long before Sam Phillips invited the young singer to cut his first tracks, Elvis was a familiar figure on Beale St, absorbing the musical style that came to be known as Memphis blues, says Porter.
‘‘He wasn’t there to party, he wasn’t there to be a fly on the wall. He would come down to the Flamingo Room to observe singers like Rufus Thomas, Jackie Wilson and Roy Hamilton.’’
Priscilla Presley says the documentary, which took more than six years to complete, is ‘‘an honest effort to get the story straight about who he was’’.
‘‘There have been so many documentaries and so much that has been shown on film already. There are so many different perceptions, so many different people’s ideas, so much altered information and so many questions,’’ she said. She describes her own involvement as the first time she has let her guard down about her former husband. ‘‘It’s still hard for me to watch after living it because so much went down,’’ she says.
Much as Martin Scorsese’s documentary Living in the Material
World burnished the reputation of George Harrison, the makers of The
Searcher believe the time is right to return to a focus on Presley’s music and his ability to connect with an audience.
Director Thom Zimny says his objective was to reveal a man driven by music ‘‘even at his darkest times’’. Zimny told Rolling Stone in April: ‘‘I wanted to attack and shatter the shorthand version of Elvis Presley’s life story — that after the army there was just bad films, bad recordings, bad tours and then his life was over.’’
µ The Tale premieres Monday at 8.30pm on SoHo.
Despite backing the project, Priscilla Presley says she is anxious that Elvis fans might not want to see their idol this way.
‘‘They know him as a movie star, the king of rock’n’roll, and now we’re exposing what went on behind the scenes. Do they want that image taken away? But if you truly love him, then you want to see him this way.’’ when it premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it also made headlines for its troubling depictions of sex between Bill and the teenage Jennifer (Isabelle Nelisse). Fox went to great lengths to ensure both actors felt safe and comfortable: a psychologist was on hand to evaluate them, and Ritter filmed scenes with an adult body double in scenes where their characters are pressed together or kissing.
‘‘[Isabelle] and I rehearsed totally nonsexual cues like, ‘Act like a bee stung you’ or ‘Act like you cut your finger,’ ’’ Fox says. ‘‘We went through a jukebox of different cues that she could then act and just did a rotation of them.’’
Ultimately, Fox and Dern hope
The Tale will empower more people to not only share their own experiences with sexual abuse, but speak up when they witness it happening to others.
Although the movie was shot nearly three years ago, its release amid highprofile scandals ‘‘has been incredible in getting the word out’’, Dern says. ‘‘People aren’t afraid to see the film and say, ‘Yup, that’s my experience. Me Too.’ It’s been given a very different light because of this conversation.’’ — TNS
Part of the filmmakers’ focus is to look at what is commonly known as the Elvis Presley ’68 Comeback
Special, the TV show that reclaimed Elvis as a musician after seven years of making lightweight, musicfocused Hollywood films under the direction of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who many hold responsible for failing to put Elvis together with producers who could have pushed him creatively.
‘‘The ’68 Special came at the right time, it brought him back to what he loved most, which was performing,’’ Priscilla (73) recalls. ‘‘Elvis was so nervous before he went on. He didn’t want to come out of his dressing room. We were all so young at the time, we didn’t always know what he needed. He was like a young boy sometimes. At the time, we didn’t realise how great he was.’’
She was just 14 when she met the singer during his military service in Germany, but did not start dating Elvis, who was a decade older, until he returned to Memphis after he was discharged.
The second part of the documentary deals with Elvis in the later years, his declining health, punishing touring schedule and reliance on prescription drugs, and one final, epic recording session in Graceland’s Jungle Room a year before he died.
‘‘It was difficult for all of us; we certainly didn’t see it coming,’’ Priscilla says of Elvis’ sad decline. ‘‘But we certainly saw the journey he was taking.
‘‘People go, well, ‘Why didn’t anyone do anything?’ Well, that’s not true. People there in the inner group did, but you did not tell Elvis Presley what to do. You did not. I mean, you’d be out of there faster than a scratched cat. They would try and no way. He knew what he was doing.’’ — Guardian News and Media
µ Elvis Presley: The Searcher is available to stream at TVNZ OnDemand from Thursday.
AMERICAN HORROR STORY will dip into its magical, murderous past for its next offering.
Cocreator Ryan Murphy tweeted that Season 8 of the horror anthology, due in the spring, will be a crossover event featuring characters from two earlier outings, Season 1’s Murder House and Season 3’s Coven.
Murder House, which focused on a haunted, homicidal home in Los Angeles, featured Dylan McDermott and Connie Britton. Stars of Coven, which followed a group of witches in New Orleans, include Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett.
Others in Murphy’s TV repertory company — including Sarah Paulson, Jessica Lange, Evan Peters, Frances Conroy, Taissa Farmiga and Lily Rabe — appeared as different characters in Murder
House and Coven .—TNS
APPLE has struck a multiyear deal with Oprah Winfrey to produce original content, the technology giant announced.
The iPhone maker has been looking to diversify its revenue beyond the devices it makes and apps produced by other developers.
Winfrey, famed for her talk show and acting roles, is also chief executive of the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN. Discovery Communications agreed to pay $US70 million last year to take a majority stake in the network.
Apple landed two Sony television studio veterans, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, to lead its push into original programming last year. Among the first projects could be an animated film, according to Bloomberg. — TNS
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E! NEWS will soon welcome a familiar face: Giuliana Rancic is coming back as a cohost.
Rancic, who did the job from 2005 to 2015, is the first ‘‘new’’ host since Maria Menounos was diagnosed with a brain tumour and left the show in July 2017.
Returning is ‘‘every bit as thrilling to me today as it was 16 years ago’’ when she started with the entertainment news channel, Rancic said.
Though she left the show in 2015, she led royal wedding coverage and has been a fixture on
Live From the Red Carpet, which she will continue to do.
Rancic left E! News just months after saying on the network’s
Fashion Police that singer Zendaya — who wore a cornrow hairstyle on the Oscars red carpet — looked like she smelled of ‘‘patchouli oil or weed. Probably weed’’.
Cohost Kelly Osbourne quit the show over the comment, and cohost Kathy Griffin left soon after. Along with Jason Kennedy, Rancic will cohost E! News .—TNS
NETFLIX has answered your prayers, Lucifer fans.
Following its cancellation last month after three seasons, Netflix has rescued the supernatural procedural, producer Warner Bros confirmed.
No word on how many episodes are in the new season or when it will premiere, although the show’s stars, Tom Ellis, Lauren German and Kevin Alejandro, are expected to return.
Based on DC Comics characters created by Neil Gaiman, the drama follows the devil, Lucifer Morningstar (Ellis), as he helps a Los Angeles police detective (German) solve crimes. — TNS