Elvis Presley will always be remembered as the greatest entertainment icon of all time. Mainly because as John Lennon said, there was no one before him. He pretty much set the bar. He was the gold standard. The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Taylor Swift. Hell, even Frank Sinatra couldn’t measure up to Elvis. There was just something about him that now, almost 50 years after he died, he still remains a cultural icon to pass along the generation gap.
Unfortunately, since his death, we’ve learned too many things that shatter his image. Elvis twisting and gyrating his pelvis on TV was considered extremely controversial at the time. A lot of people didn’t care for him. Steve Allen publicly humiliated him. But it didn’t matter. He was popular with many people who didn’t care for Steve Allen. And Hank Snow may have felt he was bigger than Elvis and didn’t care for his “unGodly” ways. But Snow is only remembered as a footnote as Elvis was his opening act at one time.
But it was really all a ruse. Elvis was living a lie, a fantasy for his fans. He was also living in an untrue reality where he could do almost anything he wanted. And just like MJ, he never fully seemed to mature when he needed to. Most celebrities live in arrested development as it is. I remember Alice Cooper saying he never made a phone call for so long he forgot how to do it because someone was always handing him the receiver. In Priscilla, the biopic about the lie of Priscilla Presley during her time with Elvis, has a lot of people being told so-and-so is always on the phone. I’m just wondering it the same was with Elvis.
In the Showtime TV movie Elvis Meets Nixon, which had a more humorous slant, Elvis is shown as someone out of touch with America and many things by the start of the 1970s. He didn’t know how to use a credit card and thought he could carry his guns on a commercial passenger plane. And you can see a lot of that here as Sofia Coppola wrote and directed an adaptation of Priscilla’s memoir Elvis and Me. A miniseries was made in 1988 with Susan Walters as Priscilla. She would be more famous as Delores, aka “Mulva” on the Seinfield show, as well as Melrose Place.
Cailee Spaeny plays her here. Her small waifish petite body is more of a perfect match as she’s able to portray the 14-year-old military brat in West Germany and the later wife and mother effectively with only hair style and wardrobe changes. Since Coppola is directing, it’s shown mostly from Priscilla’s POV. I don’t doubt that Coppola, who was once a cousin-in-law to Lisa Marie Presley, intentionally kept the close-ups off Jacob Elordi as much as possible, just to show how distant Priscilla was from the man.
Elordi is taller at 6-foot-5 than the real Elvis at 6-foot even. But I think it adds to just how domineering he was to Priscilla but unable to stand up to the sycophants around him. And even though he was a celebrity and big money-maker, his father and manager seemed to have more control over him. Elordi doesn’t try to do an Elvis impersonation as much as showing The King in his private behind-the-scenes life.
Even in 1960, there still was some concern about a 24-year-old man being too close to a young girl who was barely in high school. Two years later, they reconnect after both go from West Germany back to the states. Priscilla convinces her parents to have her move in with Elvis’ family at Memphis and finish her school at a private Catholic girls school. Unfortunately, it isn’t all she thinks. Elvis’ father, Vernon (Tim Post), doesn’t really care for her even though she does get some love and affection from Elvis’ grandmother, Grandma “Dodger” (Lynne Griffin).
Yet, all Elvis wants to do when he’s around Memphis is hang out with his Memphis Mafia friends with Priscilla tagging along. This causes her grades to drop but she does eventually graduate even though it’s implied she cheating by inviting her classmates to their parties to meet Elvis. Yet during the 1960s, Elvis was making movies and not performing so he is constantly away in Hollywood or elsewhere. As Priscilla moves to Graceland, she learns that it’s like a prison as she has to spend most of her days alone in the house. She’s criticized for playing outside with her puppy dog. Vernon doesn’t want her in the same room where Elvis receives fan mail because she’s distracting the women who work here. She lives at Graceland but finds a lot is off-limits. Even the gates that keep excited fans out seem to reflect more of a penitentiary than an estate. It also shows how fame and fortune really leads to solitude and depression.
The red flags are flying high but Priscilla doesn’t see it. Or doesn’t want to see it. Tabloids report Elvis is having an affair with Ann-Margaret and Nancy Sinatra. When she does visit him in Hollywood, Elvis says she needs to leave after a day or two because of a tabloid scandal. Thankfully, Coppola leaves Col. Tom Parker out of the cast entirely. He’s referenced a few times, much to Priscilla’s chagrin or Elvis is shown talking on the phone to him. It’s obvious Elvis didn’t really want someone serious. He just wanted a beck-and-call girl to remain at home whenever he stopped in to Graceland.
But even when he’s in Memphis, all he wants to do is hang out with the Memphis Mafia. Priscilla learns that Elvis has a quick temper and can’t take criticism. When Priscilla says she doesn’t like a song, he throws something at her. When a playful pillow fight doesn’t go the way he wants, he hits her. And it becomes apparent that Priscilla isn’t going to be the Betty Homemaker he has envisioned. Because they have servants, Priscilla finds herself being nothing more than someone Elvis wants to have sex with when he wants.
However, I would argue Elvis is just a product of the times. When you have people all around you sponging off like his friends, Parker and obviously, Vernon, Elvis was just unable to make his own decisions. Women couldn’t even get credit cards in their own name. He thought, like so many people have, that settling down would solve a lot of his problems. But you can’t settle down when you’re in big demand he was. And as Priscilla grows up, she realizes she doesn’t want to be someone Elvis just sees in passing. Elvis never grew up.
The real Priscilla Presley is credited as an executive producer. Lisa Marie passed away on Jan. 12, 2023 from a reported cardiac arrest at the age of 54. She reportedly was opposed to Coppola’s movie, but it’s not known if she was able to see a rough cut as filming on the movie wrapped in December of 2022. Elvis Presley Enterprises refused to allow any of his original recordings for the movie’s soundtrack. But it’s not needed because it would be a distraction. This isn’t a musical biopic. It’s about about Priscilla’s life with Elvis and it wasn’t too glamorous behind the scenes.
There’s been a lot of movies, series and TV movies made about the life of Elvis. We can’t deny the fact that he did have a violent temper as he was known to shoot TV sets if he didn’t like what was on there. His drug use has become more associated with him than his music or dress style. In Elvis Meets Nixon, it was implied he did pills because he thought they were safer than cannabis, cocaine or heroin, but they only did worse. The fact that he died on the bathroom floor keeled over from apparently falling off the toilet seems like a tasteless joke in a movie. Yet it happened.
In 2022’s Elvis, it was easy to sympathize with him because a poorly miscast Tom Hanks as Parker is the villain and the movie followed the usual biopic structure of rise from obscurity to extremely famous to fall from grace. This is more about a woman becoming empowered as she sees that she’s having to walk away from a life millions of other women probably would fight and claw over each other to have. It can be seen as a companion piece to Coppola’s Marie Antoinette as they’re both about young woman who find themselves marrying rich, wealthy important people only to realize it’s all a facade to make their husbands look better.
If you can put aside your biases toward the real Elvis Presley and the criticism toward Coppola still lingering after The Godfather Part III, it’s a great story of someone discovering fantasy and reality are two different things. It’s a coming of age story.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 