Elvis doc ‘The King’ takes a Trumpian turn
CANNES, France – In 1963, Elvis Presley bought a Rolls-Royce Phantom V.
Forty years after the rock ’n’ roll pioneer’s death, filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (“The House I Live In”) hops in the driver’s seat of that very vehicle for a new documentary, “The King” (in theaters Friday in New York and Los Angeles, expands nationwide throughout July and August), which puts the singer’s life in a modern context. The film looks at how Presley’s rise and decline mirrors that of the USA — a lofty premise that works better in theory than execution but still makes for a fascinating portrait of an icon by one of the documentary genre’s most accessible directors.
“King,” which premiered in 2017 at the Cannes Film Festival, starts in Presley’s birthplace of Tupelo, Mississippi, where he grew up in a poor, predomi- nantly black neighborhood. Flashforward to 2015, and tourists and Elvis impersonators are the last surviving industry in the once-thriving town.
Jarecki then travels to Memphis, Tennessee, where Presley was introduced to soul and blues music and launched as a “white face with a black sound” by Sun Records’ Sam Phillips. In one of the movie’s most thoughtful passages, Public Enemy’s Chuck D and others mull Elvis’ complicated history with race and cultural appropriation, scoring early hits with covers of black artists.
But it was his signing with manager Colonel Tom Parker — an undocumented Dutch immigrant born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, whom “Donald Trump would throw out of the country in an instant” — that kick-started his downfall. Traveling to Presley landmarks in the singer’s sometimes faulty Rolls-Royce, Jarecki talks with famous Elvis fans including Ethan Hawke, Alec Baldwin, Emmylou Harris, Mike Myers and Ashton Kutcher about the perils of celebrity and being an all-American icon.
It’s here that “King” is at its most political. Presley never marched with civil rights or war protesters, which reinforced the idea that celebrities should keep their personal views exactly that. Baldwin takes it a step further, suggesting it was Presley’s simplicity that helped make him so beloved.
Later in his career, Presley became more brand than artist, appearing in ad campaigns and teenybopper movies and playing residency shows in Las Vegas, where his substance abuse apparently spiraled. He was found dead in the bathroom of his Graceland mansion in Memphis on Aug. 16, 1977, at just 42.
Did Trump’s similar need to be liked, and ability to resonate with Middle America, contribute to his election? And is Presley’s version of the American dream — hard work equaling success — no longer a viable path for most Americans? “King” suggests the answer is yes, going so far as to say the USA is now “Fat Elvis,” on the brink of self-destruction.
It’s a grim thesis from Jarecki, whose attempts to draw such parallels are often a stretch. But it’s a noteworthy effort that will certainly provoke conversation.