Tag Archives: Baz Luhrmann

The Showman and the Snowman

Elvis

by George Wolf

If you’re looking for someone to bring a fresh perspective to the Elvis Presley story, Baz Luhrmann would seem like a no brainer. Though he can certainly lean too hard toward style and away from substance (Australia), he can also fill a screen with tremendous energy, visual pizazz and musical exuberance (Moulin Rouge!).

And by now, any by-the-numbers take on Elvis would just be silly. Think more Rocketman, less Bohemian Rhapsody.

Luhrmann’s Elvis succeeds – to a point, as inspired choices often push the film forward while others seem to hold it back.

At the top of the win column is Austin Butler’s mesmerizing performance as The King. Beyond capturing the smoldering good looks and iconic speech pattern, Butler finds power in the raw physicality of role, an essential part of believing how this one man’s sexuality shook the world. No doubt Butler will be remembered comes awards season.

And yet, this film is only partially about Elvis.

GD national treasure Tom Hanks – an awards contender himself under layers of impressive makeup and prosthetics – narrates the film as Elvis’s longtime manager, Col. Tom Parker. Ill and seemingly nearing his end, Parker wants to tell us his side of story, and why he’s maybe not as bad as we’ve been told.

And while focusing on the perspective of the “Snowman” (Parker’s term for a master of the snow job) without legitimizing it is an interesting approach, it also keeps us detached from the Showman.

Even when depicting Elvis’s childhood, Luhrmann (co-writing as well as directing) frames him as akin to a comic book hero. So as we follow the meteoric rise, the Hollywood floundering, the comeback and the Vegas rot, the film is more interested in holding Presley up as a mythical figure than holding him accountable as a mere mortal.

There are moments with show-stopping visuals and stand-up-and-cheer performances (especially the “If I Can Dream” sequence from Elvis’s TV special in 1968), but they never feel like enough. Luhrmann drops in occasional clips of the real King, and peppers the impressive cast with Kelvin Harrison, Jr. (as B.B. King), Gary Clark, Jr. (Big Boy Crudup) Yola (Sister Rosetta Tharpe) Kodi Smit-McPhee (Jimmie Rodgers Snow) and more, gearing you up for a gloriously indulgent showcase that never comes.

Elvis is stylistic, well-performed and often highly entertaining. But with an overlong running time of 2 1/2 hours plus, you’d think there would be at least a little room left to go full Luhrmann.

Gatsby? What Gatsby?

The Great Gatsby

By Hope Madden

A Moulin Rouge spin on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of decadence, longing, and the brutal carelessness of the wealthy could have been awesome. Isn’t that what we kind of expected when Rouge helmsman Baz Luhrmann signed on to direct The Great Gatsby, especially when he unveiled his hip hop and jazz soundtrack? What better way to bridge the gap between eras, to help today’s audience fathom the indulgent lifestyle of the filthy rich in the roaring Twenties?

Somehow, though, Luhrmann can’t quite pull it off.

It isn’t his cast. A more perfect actor-to-character match is hard to imagine. Though some may miss Robert Redford’s stiff, humorless Gatsby, Leo DiCaprio fills the screen with the vulnerability, flash and charm that made the character leap off Fitzgerald’s page. Likewise, the ever wide-eyed Tobey Maguire wanders amiably through Gatsby’s world as though he was born into Nick Carraway’s life.

Not surprisingly, it’s the great Carey Mulligan who almost effortlessly steals the film. Her voice full of money, her languid flirtations both lovely and sad, Mulligan’s marvelous Daisy Buchanan becomes so human, she’s probably more sympathetic than the character deserves to be.

Even with a strong concept, brilliant source material and a perfect cast, Luhrmann stumbles. He just tries too hard. One of the most efficiently written, perfectly crafted novels ever penned, clocking in at barely 300 pages, morphs in to a 143 minute film? Why? Needless complications.

For instance, co-writing the adaptation with frequent collaborator Craig Pearce (Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge), Lurhmann opens the film on a depressed, alcoholic, insomniac Nick Carraway telling the sad tale of his neighbor Jay Gatsby to his shrink at the sanitarium.

What?

Lame.

But the film’s greatest misstep is probably the overwrought, surprisingly lifeless style. Luhrmann aims to mirror the gaudy, hopelessly shallow glamour of the era. He succeeds in spurts, but his approach is so heavy handed it overwhelms the film. Gimmicky and uninspired, the directorial vision serves mostly to draw your attention away from all that’s right about his picture.

It doesn’t kill the effort so much as undermine it. Luhrmann had something really remarkable to start with. He just needed to be a little more trusting of his cast and source material and a little less self-indulgent.

So, The Great Gatsby remains a lesson in the evils of self indulgence. Too bad, because it could have been a good movie instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuQhprtLJ3k

 

Verdict-2-5-Stars