The lead-up to the 2016 presidential election horrified half the country or more, forcing into mainstream discussion whether the republic itself would atrophy as badly as the American dream already had. To illustrate the derangement, filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (Freakonomics, Why We Fight) laid hands on Elvis Presley’s shitbox of a 1963 Rolls Royce, retrofitted it with cameras and drove across the nation as Americans considered whether to send Donald Trump to the White House.
Jarecki slapped Elvis’ life, career and death-on-a-toilet over the nation’s sordid history, visiting living rooms in the King’s birthplace of Tupelo, Mississippi, filling the backseat of the Rolls with a parade of incredible musicians and piping in sad interview clips of Elvis lamenting his loneliness to tell viewers that capitalism will eventually eat itself. David Simon (creator of The Wire and current Twitter exile) complains that Jarecki should’ve used one of Elvis’ made-in-America Cadillacs—the Rolls breaks down several times, notably with alt-country growler Mary Gauthier about to belt out a tune in the back seat.
Van Jones (former Obama aide, current CNN host) bigfoots Jarecki, schooling him up on how Elvis was nothing more than cultural appropriation personified; Public Enemy’s Chuck D says fuck all that, “culture is culture,” but stands by the famous lyric from “Fight the Power:” “Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me you see, straight-up racist that sucker was.”
The film’s exploration of massive, difficult themes is nakedly ambitious, as was Elvis’ insatiable grab for money, fame and everything that comes with them. Ethan Hawke appears to have made much of the trip with Jarecki, and Hawke tosses a bow around the metaphor by describing Elvis as a perfect symbol for imperial America, whose chief export once was democracy but now is capitalism. It’s probably a reach, and the comparison struggles in spots—though the surprise of it and the interspersal of old footage of everything from the Vietnam war to Elvis’ final performance delighted us.
The nighttime shots make the film luxurious and drippy, and Jarecki has sorted a way to stitch together a million jump cuts without making us dizzy. But this is no happy repackaging of either the Presley or American myths. Still, EmiSunshine wailing away in the back of that Rolls brings just enough feels to even the scales.
7
+An orgy of jump cuts; Chuck D standing by his lyrics
-Elvis-as-metaphor-for-America never quite works
The King
Directed by Jarecki
Center for Contemporary Arts, R, 108 min.
