EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert @TIFF 50

If you haven’t had a chance to see how good Elvis Presley was, then you should check out director Baz Luhrmann‘s new documentary. He calls it EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert, and he refrained from calling it a film or a documentary when he spoke to the audience before its screening at TIFF 50. Director Baz Luhrmann wanted you to just think about this movie as just that “EPIC”. As it should be, because Lurhmann found about 37 hours of lost footage in Kansas City.

It was footage of his residency in Las Vegas, where he was the talk of the city and had the most epic concerts of all time. Much of the footage was Elvis singing his songs that were remixed from his younger days, classic covers and songs created when he was older.

The approach of this film is much different than that of his previous feature with Austin Butler taking the reins. Director Baz Luhrmann wants you to see a side of Elvis Presley that made him the singer, performer, and entertainer that he was. He wants to share how Elvis Presley, who blended genres from rock and roll to gospel, mesmerized the world. Director Baz Luhrmann told the audience at the premiere screening at TIFF that he wanted you to get up and dance and have fun, which these concerts were about. And so they were, and the film felt like Elvis was telling his own story and focusing on a very pivotal portion of his life.

But this film felt like a concert on its own, released in today’s format. I am sure the footage was mastered to another level because the audio and visual components of the footage were on point. Bangers after bangers were dropped by Elvis in EPIC. Everything from “Suspicious Minds”, “Always on my Mind”, and “The Ghetto” was performed by Elvis in fine form. The audience couldn’t get enough as they were up from their seats and dancing and clapping hard after every song. From FERNTV‘s point of view, there is nothing like this seen anything or experienced anything like this in a theatre.

It’s good to see that there was a side to Elvis where he wanted to perform for his fans. And he did just that in his residency in Las Vegas. Despite his impactful divorce and his drug use, Elvis was still an entertainer, dancer and singer. As director Baz Luhrmann says, Elvis did need to do a voice check because he was always on point. Not only was Elvis that good, but he was EPIC, which was the purpose of this movie. EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert is probably the only real experience of seeing him live in concert, and from the perspective that we all looked at him at one point in time.