MIFF Session 14: THE KING

It took me a long time to find out about Elvis. By the time I discovered rock music in the 70s (I'd been classical only until 13) he was a naff old square with slicked back short hair. And then I saw the movies before I heard the music, the real music, the music from before them. Until then he might as well have been Fred Astaire. Strangely, when punk landed and took me with it and Johnny Rotten had some vitriol to spit at the news of Elvis' death I started seeing clips played in tribute from the earlier days. It was a different figure; young, slim and wild. I wondered why that had been kept under tarpaulins of Vegas ballads, deep fried sandwiches and reclusion. That's not a long wonder.So, a day after the 41st anniversary of his death at 42 I went to see this.

Documentarian Eugene Jarecki has created a dense essay that embeds Presley's lifestory into an account of the state of the Union then and now. Rather than wheel out a cast of old stagers to reminisce (though there is that) Jarecki is interested in people's take on the phenomenon and how to place it in America's idea of itself.

In the Tupelo birthplace two old ladies from the 99% praise the figure but lament that the country and its ideals are strangers. A long line of contemporary musicians (particularly delighted to see the Handsome Family among them) joins him in a road trip in Elvis' own Rolls Royce as they travel north, south and west to the big bright green-room mirror of a city where the Elvis of the tearing energy softened into his own tribute act.

Everyone has something to say and mostly the needle of their concerns wavers freely between the culture of screens and endless money and the pure vs the neon Elvis. The best, as always, comes from the dissenters. Chuck D. reminds us that Elvis was just one of the origin points of rock and roll, that he promotes the cultural appreciation that Presley used so joyously, but that the playing field should surely be levelled by now. Will it, though. The fluid montage behind the chat and the testimony is increasingly coloured by imagery from the 2016 federal election and the towering pumpkin coloured freakshow who won stands tall as a clip from the near-death King has him at the piano singing in his pitch perfect velvetine passion the old standard Unchained Melody. Near naked dancers cavort in rains of money on game shows, swat teams shatter doors with rams, the towers fall and there is even a glimpse of the blinding mushroom of Los Alamos as Trump is announced to the throne room.

At one point Jarecki asks his father, driving in the car with him, what the latter thinks the film is about. His father bats the question back. Jarecki looks away but seems to think himself a memo to include this in the film.