Despite its title, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert isn’t merely footage of the legendary musician in his element. It’s from Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann, who has shaped hours of archival material into a tight, free-associative rush of sound and image, a mixed-media collage of Elvis in the years before his final downfall. Like so many of Luhrmann’s narrative films, it’s sometimes frustrating, sometimes exhilarating and always overwhelming.
Luhrmann started developing the documentary while researching his Oscar-nominated 2022 Elvis biopic, retrieving hours of 1970s concert footage from the Warner Bros. vaults. Some of that footage is from previously released films capturing Presley’s endless Vegas residency, and some has never been seen, now blown up for IMAX screens with sharp detail and vivid color. It’s those scraps, outtakes and rehearsals that make the movie special.
EPiC takes us back to the early ’70s, when Elvis’s jumpsuits were dripping in rhinestones and his sideburns swallowed his face. He blazes through his material, from the early rockabilly hits to gospel standards to contemporary covers, and the screaming crowd is wrapped around his little finger. He’s constantly goofing around, too: flopping onto his back, picking up a bra that’s been thrown at him and draping it over his head, changing his lyrics so they’re crass jokes. You’re amazed at his ease on stage but also fascinated by his refusal to take himself seriously, as if he wants the audience to know he knows his persona has tipped into camp.
The movie uses delirious editing to jump across time, intercutting footage from a span of years within a single song. Elvis was arguably the most recorded and scrutinized solo performer of all time, so we notice the changes in his appearance, especially when the movie is toggling back and forth between 1970 Elvis and 1972 Elvis. We also see Elvis in a press conference late in his career, and he’s bloated, disheveled and glassy-eyed, a stark contrast to his look a few years prior.
Luhrmann isn’t known for his attention span, and he rarely lets a song play from beginning to end. It’s maddening at first, but it mirrors Elvis’s actual concerts: he would often condense songs into medleys or break them into fragments; at one point, he barrels through “Hound Dog” in half the time it takes to listen to the original.
But the best stuff in EPiC is the rehearsal footage, with Presley and his band locked in a studio and running through dozens of songs. Elvis is perched on a stool, wearing dark glasses and surrounded by session musicians, and even though he’s not in full-blown King of Rock ‘n’ Roll mode, you can’t take your eyes off him and his voice grabs you by the collar.
Part of me wishes this material had gotten the same treatment as the unseen Beatles footage in Peter Jackson’s behemoth Get Back, which was so exhaustive it felt like a procedural. But Luhrmann’s approach is less concerned with the mechanics of Presley’s performances than their sweaty, flashy momentum. It’s impossible to deny Elvis’s power while you’re watching him. Even with his feet firmly planted on the stage, he’s like a ball of light bouncing around the room. If you didn’t understand his appeal before, you’ll get it now.
Nathan Weinbender is a co-host of Spokane Public Radio’s Movies 101, heard Friday evenings at 6:30 and Saturday afternoons at 2 on SPR News.