https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp2BNHwbwvI
I was the first kid on my block to see Elvis, attending without hours of the first release at Regal, a few hundred yards from my house. I give this one five stars. I don't get why some of the early reviews were intensely negative, although in his career some people loved Elvis and some hated him.
My family was an anti-Elvis family. My Dad liked Hank Snow, the former straight-laced touring mate of Elvis who thought that Elvis was immoral. My Mom was taught by American missionaries in Korea that all music except for European classical music was created by and for barbarians (literally). They were especially taught not to play drums. So she wasn't much of a fan either.
I didn't recognize Tom Hanks, who deserves an Oscar. I had never heard of Austin Butler prior to this film, but he too deserves an Oscar, because he makes Elvis come to life, especially on stage. It's easy to impersonate Elvis, but hard to make him real. Butler was remarkable. Like the old murder mysteries, Butler did it!
I predict that this movie will trigger an Elvis revival this summer. Elvis has never really left the building, but our culture is really determined by those of us who are, say, 13 to 23 years old. Music is meant to be danced to by single people. It's in our blood from prehistory. It's how young men and women find each other, and that is exactly what is going to happen again.
As an adult I have understood that Rock 'n Roll was tightly connected to the music of Africa and that the chord progressions are Scotch-Irish overlaid on the the African Blues Scale. But what I didn't realize was that Elvis was heavily and directly influenced by African American gospel music as a kid. I thought it was a cliche that Elvis was a white kid who sung black, but the movie made clear exactly what was meant. In fact, I didn't know much about Elvis as a child, so that part was totally new for me and very interesting.
In that way, Elvis truly connects African American and European cultures. It is much more than just sound. It's why the rest of the world is so fascinated by America. Maybe Americans have never fully understood or appreciated our unique role, and many have been terrified by it.
As a period piece, it was a great movie. I am more than 20 years younger than Elvis, but we are close enough in age that I think I know what his world should look like and how it should feel, and, at least to me, they pretty much nailed it.
One story that was not covered was the first concert north of the Mason-Dixon Line, which occurred in the Circle Theater in Cleveland in 1954. It's part of the rationale for locating the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The show was called Hillbilly Jamboree and two of the people in the audience included my future parents, Byron Kennel and Sook Cha Lee.
The version I heard was that the screaming was definitely for real, but they did not know who this kid was and they were not impressed. My mother supposedly fell asleep, but my theory is that this was an act of passive aggression to show how mad she was at being taken to a crowd of literal barbarians.
But later, I realized that this fusion of African and Scotch Irish music was the most awesome sound God could ever give humanity. My parents didn't think so, but it was. This is what made us Americans.
It took me back into the 1960s. Even though I saw Elvis through a teen's eyes, my kid's brain was recording information back then, and probably working better then than it is now, to be quite candid. I remember the phenomenon quite clearly, the good and the bad. The movie took me back and gave me an earlier starting point on his life, and of course told the story from the inside, rather than from the perspective of a fan or outsider.
It would be so interesting to learn how today's teenagers will view this movie. My kids have not seen it yet. I wonder if they will reignite the craze, or whether they will figure, well, we've seen Elvis impersonators before, so it's not big of a deal. I have to believe things are going to get All Shook Up before the summer is over.
Elvis Lives!!
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