“EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert” is a documentary film about Elvis Presley directed by Baz Luhrmann, acting as a follow-up to Luhrmann’s 2022 biographical film “Elvis.” The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it received extremely positive reviews from critics for its visual and audio restoration, and an electric look at one of the greatest entertainers of all time, fully in his element, on stage in front of an audience. Luhrmann was kind enough to spend some time speaking with us about his work on the film, which you can read, listen to, or watch below. Please be sure to check out the film, which will be released exclusively in IMAX theaters by NEON beginning on February 20th, before being released theatrically to the general public one week later on February 27th. Thank you, and enjoy!
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*Please note the conversation below has been edited for clarity*
Hey Matt.
Hi Baz. Luhrman. It is an honor and a privilege to speak with you, sir. “Moulin Rouge!” is my favorite ma movie musical of all time.
Oh, really? Thank you.
I had such an amazing time watching “EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert,” your first documentary. Thank you for being here, man.
Thank you. I’m just glad you get joy out of them.
I mean, so much so that I gotta be honest with you, as somebody who didn’t grow up listening to Elvis, and only knew very little about him, I fully understand now. I get it. I know why this guy was hot during his time. The way you captured him: The rawness and energy of his live performance are really incredible, and you convey them through this footage that, as I understand, was a herculean effort of restoration, both visually and auditorily.
Yeah.
So, tell us a bit about what it’s like bringing this footage to life?
Baz: Well, the discovery was an accident. I was told there are some missing reels, but they’re in, literally in salt mines in Kansas City. That’s where they keep this stuff. And I had enough money to go looking, so they kicked the door in. And it was a bit like “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” There are 60 reels of footage of him on tour, of about 16 million feet; we got about eight million. So that was the footage. Now we had to scan it. And then we had the great Peter Jackson and his team, who helped us bring back that beautiful quality. There was no AI here, friends. No visual effects of any kind. It’s just the quality that Peter can bring with the actual negative, and you can see that up on the screen. But then the problem was that we had no sound. Now we tracked down the mag, which is the original sound, but the mag would be like a cutting mag. So you have like vocals, drums, and not even on every track. Some of the orchestrations were a bit damaged, and some of the suites were really good, and some not so much. So then we found this one take of Elvis just talking about his life unguarded, and that’s when my editor, Jonathan Redmond, asked, “How do we do this?” So we think, “why don’t we just get outta the way and let Elvis just tell his story and sing it to us,” because you know, the film is always with Elvis, and that’s what we stuck to. It’s a bit like a dreamscape, like it’s not strictly a documentary and not strictly a concert film. It’s Elvis telling you his story and your experience of it. I mean, I love it when someone says, “Oh, I wasn’t into Elvis at all,” like you did, but now you get it because we are not doing that. We just brought this footage to the highest possible quality.
Yeah. Do you see it as a companion piece to your live-action feature film “Elvis,” or as a separate experience?
Well, I think it could be a companion piece. At some point, not now, they’ll probably run it as a double feature. But I think they do two very different things. I wanted to use “Elvis” as a bit of a reflection on America in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and also on the tension between commercialism and a character who kind of sells his name and is seen as somewhat of a carnival attraction. And you know, how much merch and brand stuff can I do? And then the carnival attraction turns out to be this incredibly spiritual, quite beautiful soul, who is unbelievably gifted. He’s an unusual human being. And so the tension between that in “EPiC” is about, well, it’s Elvis, but I think we get to see, as he says in the film, it’s very hard to live up to an image. There’s an image of a man, and I think we get to feel him more as a man. We also get to see how he actually works on music. We touch on it very lightly in the movie. But he works on it like nobody else. Like, no one ever knew what he was going to do, but he gets everyone so relaxed. That’s why there’s a lot of humor in it. He’s really funny and goofy, and he gets everyone really relaxed and involved in the music, and they never knew what he was gonna do. Like, this could go on for another round. Like, he uses his entire body actually to be the music and conduct, you know?
Totally. It’s a very physical performance, and I don’t know how he could have done three shows a day for as long as he did.
No. Exactly.
Pretty wild. After spending so many years of your life with Elvis in both of these projects, I’m curious if there is anything that still surprises you about him, his life, or if you feel like you’ve uncovered everything that you ever sought out to uncover about him?
I once had a conversation with someone who is actually an icon musically, and we are friends, and we were talking about Elvis. He asked, “How interesting is Elvis?” We asked that question, that’s before I made the movie, and I went on the journey. I found that the more that you peel away, the more that you find. There’s no question he’s enigmatic; he’s not like everyone else, and then he has a life unlike anyone else. I mean, there’s probably one other person who’s as famous as him, and is in music, and who, as time goes on, leads to great blinding explosions of light, but then also brings as a cost deep loneliness, is that the things that we can survive from human love, or, I don’t know, going to a barbecue or sitting under the coconut tree, whatever, just can’t quite do it for you. When the only love you come to trust is the love across the lights. And that’s why I think it draws him to being just on stage, between that and being off stage, Elvis and a few of the other kinds of icons…Well, the other two I knew, they do tend to wanna numb themselves because life itself is quite, it’s hard to be Elvis off stage.
Yeah. And in a similar vein to the last question, after spending so much time also going over these songs, and especially with “EPiC,” having to hear them play out in live concert form, is there a favorite Elvis track that you have not grown tired of?
Well, of course, I love the classics like everyone else: “Suspicious Minds” or, you know, you can’t compare them because something that was recorded in the fifties is cool, you know?
Mm-hmm.
But in this movie, even when I’m not gonna sit in on a screening, I always wait till “Polk Salad Annie” because just seeing the way in rehearsals he gives it his all, but the way he carves it and creates it, and then it’s spontaneous every time I see that. I feel the way he just goes into it, you know, like the boom boom, but then they did all right. And there’s something about it that truly defines his uniqueness in the moment musically on stage, which is unpredictable, and gives you a heart-pounding relationship to it.
So, after these two works, are we done with Elvis? Is there something else that you’re cooking up, a podcast or something that we don’t know about?
Haha. Well, I accidentally blew it the other day when I revealed we were working on an Elvis musical.
Amazing.
I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it for our movie, but there’s a great team on it. And I know I must move on. I’m deep in medieval France right now on Joan of Arc, but I’m at peace with the idea that Elvis will probably never leave my building. Meaning I want to train up a younger team. I like to hand my things over and be Uncle Baz, you know? And there’s so much more material. So we gotta keep him for the Elvis hardcore fans to enjoy. We’ve gotta get out there and bring in other people to the big screen. We’ve gotta keep him on the big screen because if that plays, it’s a viable possibility to do more of the materials we’ve found. And I would supervise that. I’m not sure I can give all the time to doing it, but I feel like I have a debt to ensure that these things are done to the quality that Elvis deserves, you know, he always went for what would be the biggest and the best.
Yeah. Well, I can tell you that I haven’t seen a music documentary or whatever you wanna call it, quite like this, since something like “Moonage Daydream,” where it’s an IMAX theatrical experience that needs to be seen on the biggest screen with the best sound possible.
For sure.
Baz, thank you so much for your time here. I really, really appreciate it.
Thanks, my man. Nice to talk to you.
You too.
“EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert” will be released exclusively in IMAX theaters by NEON beginning on February 20th, before being released theatrically to the general public one week later on February 27th.
You can follow Matt and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars and Film on X @NextBestPicture
