In EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert Elvis sings and tells his story like never before in a new cinematic experience from visionary filmmaker Baz Luhrmann. Part documentary, part concert film, and full Elvis experience, Luhrmann transports audiences into the mind of Elvis Presley through found and restored footage.
At the red carpet premiere of EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert at the AACTA Festival on the Gold Coast, Nick L’Barrow spoke with Baz Luhrmann, and his wife and award-winning costumer designer, Catherine Martin, about the journey in bringing this visual poem to life.
Nick: Baz, can you walk us through the journey from finishing and bringing Elvis into the world in 2022, to finding and restoring the footage for this concert film?
Baz Luhrmann: I had spoken to Ernst Jorgensen, who is the number one expert in the world on Elvis. And he had told me that there was maybe these lost reels of footage from the Vegas show, but no one could ever find it. But, I had the resources to go into where MGM keep all of their movies, which is in a salt mine in Kansas City. It was a bit Raiders of the Lost Ark!
We spent $100,000 going down into the salt mine, and we had these guys go through all of these dusty rooms where there were all these boxes on the floor. And they sent me pictures of stuff everywhere, but there were 68 boxes of both the Vegas concert and the tour. We also came into possession of 8mm film.
Then it took a guy two years – because we had found sounds from so many different sources – to sync all the sound up to [Elvis], and to his band, and his voice on stage. We found all this sound of him talking to his band, and we found that Elvis was always innovative. And all of this audio made you feel like you were in the rooms.
And the fans found out about all of this, and found out we had 12 hours of stuff. And they want us to release all of it! But I decided to make this sort of poem. A dream. It’s as if Elvis comes to you and tells you his story. You’re a friend of his, and he tells it. I tried to do it like that because we have all of this audio of him in a very unguarded way, talking about his life.
Nick: I think the restoration of lost or old film is so important and exciting because it keeps alive artistic history. After going through that process on this film, what does restoration mean to you now?
Baz Luhrmann: You know, I worked with the king of restoration on this, and that is Peter Jackson and his whole team in New Zealand. They are extraordinary people. What Peter does is just incredible. There is not a frame of AI in this movie. There’s no visual effects, except for the visual effect that this will have on the audience.
When I saw that Beatles film he did [Get Back], that became such a high watermark to understand how creativity as a group works. There’s nothing that comes near it. And I think what Peter did, his love of making this the highest quality– wait until you see this on an IMAX screen. I’ve seen it on an IMAX screen that’s as tall as this building, with all of the 8mm footage.
I think we need to be doing this with all of these lost treasures, because it’s our job to hand it on when we’re not here anymore.
Nick: Catherine, what does something like film restoration give for you as a costumer designer?
Catherine Martin: Well, I am incredibly grateful. The interest is filled with pitfalls, but one of the great things that it has allowed us as visual artists or visual practitioners, is to access vast amounts of research and pictures that we would have never had access to. When images like this are restored, you actually get to see what’s going on in the pictures in a way we never would have otherwise. So, I’m very grateful for that.
I think that one of the great things about the internet is that people in general are much more visually educated and sophisticated than they ever have been before. They understand the refuses and nuances that maybe people in the past, including myself, who in the old days had photocopies of black and white books from the library, didn’t have. They now have so many great visual resources. And it’s making sure we honour the past. Without a past, we don’t have a future. The past has to be remembered to be generous to the future.
Thank you Baz and Catherine for their time, and to Universal Pictures for organising the interview. EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is in Australian cinemas from February 19.
