Austin Butler and Tom Hanks star in Bar Luhrmann’s new “Charmed Boy”
In 2001, when he presented Moulin Rouge in Cannes, Baz Luhrmann announced that he was finishing his Red Curtain trilogy, which began with Come dance with me1992, and continued with Romeo + Juliet, 1996. The story of Satine in the Parisian cabaret becomes an emblematic work. Between reality and artifice, Luhrmann has built a watershed film. Excessively, Moulin Rouge was intensely loved and hated. At the heart of the narrative, “There was a very strange enchanted boy / boy”.
Ewan McGregor played Christian, the nature boy, in love with Satine / Nicole Kidman. It took 21 years for Luhrmann to tell the story of another Nature Boy and reopen his trilogy, which, after all, has become a tetralogy. Elvis! His biopic about Elvis Presley is a surprise.
Elvis is Luhrmann’s new weird and enchanted baby. The entire first part of the film has an incomparable brilliance. And it’s bold. The enchanted boy is seen in the eyes of the plot villain, “Colonel” Tom Parker, the man who built the myth of Elvis, and in an abusive relationship perhaps destroyed it. This man comes from the world of monsters and circus artifice. Luhrmann incorporates Guillermo Del Toro and the great carnival, The alley of the nightmare.
The Elvis boy belongs to a white family that inhabits the black neighborhood of Memphis. The father was arrested. The boy has black friends. He discovered rhythm and blues very early on. He spies on the black cabaret and runs to the tent where the reverend also uses music – rhythm – to provoke the ecstasy of the faithful. This construction of space is essential. The cabaret and the church, and the space in between, which is Elvis’s. He’s the white guy who sings the nigga song and hangs out on Beale Street. James Baldwin – If Beale Street Could Talk, That Became a Great Barry Jenkins Movie. Luhrmann now gets Beale Street talking. The Elvis story is also a story of racism in America.
Segregationism, black empowerment, the murders of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy run through the narrative. The colonel, who is not a colonel, nor is his name Tom Parker, uses Elvis as a money-making machine. Tom Hanks is playing the role. An Oscar-winning interpretation.
But the soul of the film is Austin Butler, Elvis himself. Four years ago, Rami Malek won an Oscar for Bohemian Rhapsody. We took for quality what his performance flaws were, which he brought to the limits of the unbearable in subsequent films. The fact of the matter is that the Hollywood Academy has not since awarded Taron Egerton, as glorious as Elton John Rocket man. It could be premature, an exercise in futurology: Will Austin Butler award Elvis?
The basin
Elvis blew up like a hurricane in American music. His swing was considered obscene, a risk to the family. Luhrmann directs his camera towards that point. The girls went crazy, he was a Nature Boy devoted to his mother. It is no mere coincidence that his name is a variation of Satine. For his mother, Elvis builds Graceland. The female presence in the film continues with Priscilla.
The theme of love, so dear to Luhrmann. The rest of the film is a story of abuse, of frustration. Elvis is not, as he wanted, the new James Dean. The colonel loads him with drugs. His father figure is essential. It is the weakness of the father, played by Richard Roxburgh himself, who kills Satine Moulin Rouge, which throws Elvis into the colonel’s clutches. The family collapses, in the farewell Elvis stammers to Priscilla – “I love you”. And he flies into eternity. It’s a great movie.
Source: Terra
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
