Kings of Cool
Elvis (1979)
directed by John Carpenter
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
For all the talk of how much respectability short season, long-form shows like The Sopranos or Mad Men have brought to cable television, it's still difficult to imagine a hot new Hollywood director taking a break from his big screen career to make a movie for TV. Elvis is post-Halloween, pre-Fog John Carpenter, and if his safe re-telling of the recently dead pop star's life and career offends no one, I still like that Carpenter saw the Sunday night format as a way to expand his dramatic range. Besides, who wants an Elvis biography that offends?
Elvis does two things better than I would have imagined. The first is to surround Elvis with black extras in casual scenes. Presley's progress, Carpenter reminds us, occurred within a prominently African-American musical milieu. In 1979, I doubt that popular consensus gave Elvis's influences and heroes any credit at all for the King's success, and it's important that Carpenter is happy to. The second deft touch is how well Carpenter conveys how out of place someone like Elvis must have looked to his Memphis classmates in high school. It's easy (if you don’t mind pomade) to romanticize "cool" from a ducktail and a pink sport coat in 2010, but those were strange accoutrements in the early 1950s.
Still, every Martie needs a Leo (or at least a Michael Pitt), and no one sells oddball like the Batman we never knew, Kurt "the Skirt" Russell. You know that somewhere down the line, David Lynch watched those pink credits and the little impersonator that could and asked himself, “What’s Barry Gifford up to these days?” Well, what’s John Carpenter up to these days? And doesn’t Kurt get tired of playing coaches? Isn’t there one last old-age sense of humor left between them? Something that Elvis might have liked, far from the sea of horror where late-career Carpenter drowns - a modern-day Treasure of the Superstitions, maybe, where the one homage to the past is Kurt’s arctic/desert beard.
directed by John Carpenter
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
For all the talk of how much respectability short season, long-form shows like The Sopranos or Mad Men have brought to cable television, it's still difficult to imagine a hot new Hollywood director taking a break from his big screen career to make a movie for TV. Elvis is post-Halloween, pre-Fog John Carpenter, and if his safe re-telling of the recently dead pop star's life and career offends no one, I still like that Carpenter saw the Sunday night format as a way to expand his dramatic range. Besides, who wants an Elvis biography that offends?
Elvis does two things better than I would have imagined. The first is to surround Elvis with black extras in casual scenes. Presley's progress, Carpenter reminds us, occurred within a prominently African-American musical milieu. In 1979, I doubt that popular consensus gave Elvis's influences and heroes any credit at all for the King's success, and it's important that Carpenter is happy to. The second deft touch is how well Carpenter conveys how out of place someone like Elvis must have looked to his Memphis classmates in high school. It's easy (if you don’t mind pomade) to romanticize "cool" from a ducktail and a pink sport coat in 2010, but those were strange accoutrements in the early 1950s.
Still, every Martie needs a Leo (or at least a Michael Pitt), and no one sells oddball like the Batman we never knew, Kurt "the Skirt" Russell. You know that somewhere down the line, David Lynch watched those pink credits and the little impersonator that could and asked himself, “What’s Barry Gifford up to these days?” Well, what’s John Carpenter up to these days? And doesn’t Kurt get tired of playing coaches? Isn’t there one last old-age sense of humor left between them? Something that Elvis might have liked, far from the sea of horror where late-career Carpenter drowns - a modern-day Treasure of the Superstitions, maybe, where the one homage to the past is Kurt’s arctic/desert beard.
posted by NPK at 6:04 AM
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