Bringing the life story of rock and roll legend Elvis Presley to the big screen, “Elvis” will be released on June 24.
"When things are too dangerous to say, sing." Elvis Presley
Australian director Luhrmann’s first feature film after a nine-year hiatus, “Elvis”, will be released in Turkey on June 24, along with world cinemas. The young actor Austin Butler plays Elvis in the biography that focuses on the life of Elvis Presley, the “king of rock and roll”. We see Tom Hanks as Elvis’ manager, Tom Parker.
The biopic, which focuses on the music career of the king of rock and roll, also aims to reveal the unknown aspects of the artist. According to the first comments from the film critics, one of the most striking points of the movie seems to be the scenes that explore Elvis and deal with his complicated relationship with Colonel Tom Parker, who has been his manager since the beginning of his music career.
In the trailer of the movie, which opens with the image of a western narrative, we watch the birth of a star in the following minutes as we follow Elvis’ debut on the stage step by step. Elvis’ unique and interesting dance figures accompany the concert scenes of this 159-minute-long film. First impressions are that the film is quite theatrical, but Elvis, who left his mark on a considerable period after the 1950s, was not handled in depth.
Speaking to the Radio Times, Luhrmann says that the entire editing of the film was actually 240 minutes, but they reduced it to 159 minutes to be shown. Continuing to say, “I would like to mention more about Elvis’ life,” the director states that this four-hour editing also includes the artist’s relationship with his first girlfriend, Dixie. The final version of the film also frames Elvis Presley’s famous meeting with United States President Richard Nixon at the White House (2016’s “Elvis & Nixon” was also a movie about the meeting of the two).
Equipped with plenty of Elvis Presley songs and spotlights, the film focuses on Elvis’ life as well as “I was the one who brought Elvis Presley into the world.” He seems to take his manager, Tom Parker, who says, to his story. Although it is difficult to re-talk a life and transfer it to the big screen, the idea of listening to Elvis Presley tunes for about two and a half hours sounds good.
