NEW YORK – Baz Luhrmann is obviously obsessed with Elvis Presley, even if he can’t quite explain why.
Following “Elvis,” his Oscar-nominated 2022 biopic, the Australian hit maker has a new, mesmerizing tribute to the King of rock n’ roll: “EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert.”
Greeted with critical raves, “Epic” took years of work via long-lost film footage and amazing vocals to see Presley on and offstage in 1970 Las Vegas.
“This was a complete accident,” Luhrmann, 63, said last weekend at an invitation-only screening. “I’m making ‘Elvis’ and am told there might be a missing reel from the original documentary. Footage I could maybe use.
“I had someone go into the literal salt mines in Kansas City where they kept the MGM negatives. There’s hundreds of rooms. It’s ‘Raiders of the Lost Art’ and there’s 65 boxes of negatives that say ‘Elvis 1970 Vegas.’ It’s 60 hours of stuff.
“Only we get it back to Warner’s and there’s this intense vinegar smell. If you know anything about negatives, that means it’s actually dissolving in front of our eyes. So, I convinced Warner’s to digitize it.”
Then came the obvious question: “What now? We can’t put it back in the salt mines.”
As Luhrmann watched the reels with Presley in rehearsal, onstage, in interviews, we learn that every show was treated as something new.
Elvis mentions he has 150 songs – Black gospel, white gospel, by the Beatles, Bob Dylan – that he’s able to do whenever the spirit moves him. His backup band and chorus is always ready to follow their leader.
“It’s just Elvis in the most unguarded way, telling you about his life,” Luhrmann realized. “I’m listening and go, ‘That’s it!’ Let’s just get out of the way. Let Elvis tell his life — and he can then sing about his life as he goes through it.
“That was the mission which took years.”
What we now see is truly Elvis up close. “Our discipline was to make sure that, as Elvis told his story, that even if there was stuff he loved, it had to illuminate his story.
“We went about this process of just making the most of it, as if you were there, in the concert with Elvis. That was our philosophy.
“Our second rule was Elvis would definitely want the best sound, and he would want it on the biggest screen possible.”
Which is why “Epic” is on IMAX. Luhrmann emphasized there is no AI here, no computer imaging, adding proudly, “As we’re sitting in this theater right now, this film Elvis is in 5,000 theaters around the world.”
