It’s like something out of a movie. A rendezvous in a nondescript carpark. A gangster waits with a package, ready for a buyer to arrive with the cash. After a short negotiation, the transaction is complete and both parties go their separate ways.
The package in question contained a rare bootleg of a 1970 Elvis Presley concert in Las Vegas and acquiring it is an example of the extraordinary lengths Baz Luhrmann went to in order to bring the King back to life in his latest project, EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert.
“It wasn’t easy to get,” Luhrmann admits with a wry smile.
Speaking to STM at the start of a global tour to promote EPiC, Australia’s most successful director sits like a coiled spring, ready to release all the energy contained within.
“I’m not directing on my day off, but I do honestly go, ‘And . . . Standing by . . . Let’s settle, let’s focus . . . And action,” Luhrmann jokes, playfully directing the start of the interview.
It’s all smiles for the director of Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet, and why not, having received a rapturous reception for EPiC in early preview screenings in Sydney and his hometown, the Gold Coast.
It was during the making of his last feature film, 2022’s Oscar-nominated Elvis, starring Austin Butler as Presley, that Luhrmann first heard rumours of lost footage of the King’s legendary Las Vegas residency.
Two concert films, Elvis: That’s The Way It Is and Elvis On Tour, had apparently been shot in 35mm anamorphic on large MGM cameras over various nights of the residency, but no one had seen the footage since 1970.
“But we found this mythical footage, literally in salt mines in Kansas City. We didn’t think it would exist. It was a bit Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and there it was, 64 boxes of film negatives,” Luhrmann reveals.
When Luhrmann realised the treasure trove he had uncovered, what had initially begun as an attempt to locate anything useable that could be incorporated into the Butler film quickly evolved to become something far more ambitious.
But it was an ambition that felt different to the creative impetus that drives the director when making movies such as Australia and The Great Gatsby.
“I usually have to shoot the movie, and then I have to go, ‘Well, this actor I hired, I hope he delivers’,” the 63-year-old says.
“But this time I knew the footage was amazing at the beginning, and I felt like, you know, the lead player was pretty damn good. So it was a gift, and it was the most enjoyable creative thing I think I’ve ever done.”
Like all the best directors, Luhrmann finds pleasure in problem-solving, which is arguably half the work of any production but a good three-quarters of the work on EPiC.
He had 59 hours of film negatives that were nearly 60 years old and audio tracks that didn’t sync with the footage, from a variety of unconventional sources, such as the aforementioned gangster bootleg.
There was also Super8 footage unearthed in the Graceland archive, which provided never-before-seen candid glimpses of Presley on tour and talking about his life.
To make this viable for projection on a cinema screen, the negatives were first scanned in 4K, before the lot was handed over to industry heavyweight Peter Jackson, of Lord Of The Rings fame.
Jackson’s Park Road Post production company in New Zealand has an enviable reputation for this kind of work, having successfully restored precious archival footage of the Fab Four in The Beatles: Get Back and Beatles ’64.
However, there was still the issue of sound, which is kind of a big deal when you’re trying to make a concert movie.
So, with an additional 2300 rolls of archival material provided by Warner Bros, Luhrmann enlisted a team of lip-readers, who painstakingly married audio tracks to the words Elvis was singing in the restored footage.
During this process, the Aussie director worked from an office at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, for 18 months.
But all that work, all that expense, is justified by one of the final shots in EPiC, depicting an exhausted Presley walking off stage to stand alone, sweat drenching his stretch gabardine jumpsuit.
It’s intimate and unlike anything Elvis fans have seen before.
After the previous 90-minutes of seeing an icon in absolute control, with the audience in the palm of his hand, the effect of this moment is jarring.
Of course, including this moment was a deliberate choice by Luhrmann, but why?
“That is a great question that no one else has asked, and I’m really glad you asked that, because I think that this is a singular moment when you realise the essence of Elvis that even fans don’t know, which is inside that incredible looking man, with that extraordinary gift with music, is the most vulnerable, insecure human being,” the director explains.
“Inside there’s a man who just sort of goes, ‘I’m still that guy from East Tupelo, but I’m beloved like a god’, so, off stage, he was never comfortable.
“And I think if you’re an Elvis fan, EPiC is a deepening of the relationship, but what I’m loving is that people are going, ‘I had no interest in Elvis, and now I feel like I’ve met a new friend’, and I think that’s a beautiful part of it.”
Luhrmann is quick to point out his new film is not a documentary, although it does include short sequences that give a potted history of Presley’s life, nor is it strictly a concert film.
A better description might be a hallucination. A waking dream in which the viewer is transported to the International Hotel in Vegas and given a front-row seat to see Elvis.
Accordingly, much is left to the imagination when it comes to Presley’s ever-turbulent life off the stage and the infamous relationship with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, but one gets the feeling EPiC would be a fantastic companion piece to Luhrmann’s other Elvis movie.
“I didn’t intend it, but you’re right . . . and I think that there’s going to come a day, that I’m looking forward to, when we run double bills,” the director says.
The new film certainly lives up to its title when it comes to the music.
It contains over 70 pieces of music performed by Elvis, either in Vegas or on tour, as well as in rehearsals.
The rehearsals provide a fascinating insight into Presley the artist, revealing how he interacts with his musicians when no one is looking, and the laser focus he applies to perfecting each song before it is performed to an audience.
The film has all the classics you’d expect, from Can’t Help Falling In Love to a truly spectacular rendition of Suspicious Minds.
Asked for his favourite, Luhrmann squirms visibly in his seat.
“I don’t really play favourites with art in general,” he says with a smile.
“But (I’ve seen 1400 people in a screening of EPiC), hands in the air, and, at the end, dancing like they’re actually there in the room with Elvis.”
When pressed further he admits a lesser-known Elvis cover, originally recorded by Tony Joe White, is a personal standout.
“I kind of love that we’ve got Polk Salad Annie in the movie,” he says. “It’s really unique.”
The end result here is so good, one wonders if there are other iconic artists Luhrmann might resurrect in future.
“I have to be so careful about that, you have no idea how many people tell me about legendary artists,” he says.
“Actually, I am going on to another legendary human being, Jehanne d’Arc, and although there’s not a lot of hidden footage of Joan of Arc, I have been doing my digging in the south of France.”
That digging will come in handy when his highly anticipated biopic on the 15th-century French heroine goes into production on the Gold Coast later this year, with UK actress Isla Johnston in the title role.
There’s a good chance it will eventually give Luhrmann a fifth movie in the top 10 highest-grossing Aussie films of all time, but in the meantime, he wants West Aussies to get behind EPiC.
In the words of Elvis, of course.
“Play the hell out of it,” he says.
EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert is in cinemas February 19