MOVIES

‘The King': New documentary compares Elvis to Trump

Patrick Ryan

USA TODAY

CANNES, France – In 1963, Elvis Presley bought a Rolls-Royce Phantom V.

In "The King," director Eugene Jarecki argues that modern-day America is "Fat Elvis," on the brink of destruction.

Forty years after the rock 'n' roll pioneer's death, filmmaker Eugene Jarecki ("The House I Live In") hops in the driver's seat of that very vehicle for a new documentary "The King" (in theaters Friday in New York and Los Angeles, expands nationwide throughout July and August), which puts the singer's life in a modern context. The film looks at how Presley's rise and decline mirrors that of the USA — a lofty premise that works better in theory than execution, but still makes for a fascinating portrait of an icon by one of the documentary genre's most accessible directors.

"King," which USA TODAY saw when it premiered in 2017 at Cannes Film Festival as “Promised Land,” has been re-edited and fundamentally changed to take into account the current political climate. It starts in Presley’s birthplace of Tupelo, Mississippi, where he grew up in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood. Flash forward to 2015, and tourists and Elvis impersonators are the last surviving industry in the once-thriving town, which disenchanted working-class families bemoan is "going to hell.”

Jarecki then travels to Memphis, Tennessee, where Presley was introduced to soul and blues music, and launched as a “white face with a black sound” by Sun Records’ Sam Phillips. In one of the movie’s most thoughtful passages, Public Enemy's Chuck Dand others mull Elvis' complicated history with race and cultural appropriation, scoring early hits with covers of black artists like Arthur Crudup ("That’s All Right") and Big Mama Thornton ("Hound Dog").

But it was Presley’s signing with manager Colonel Tom Parker — an undocumented Dutch immigrant born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, whom “Donald Trump would throw out of the country in an instant” — that kick-started his downfall. Traveling to Presley landmarks nationwide in the singer’s sometimes faulty Rolls-Royce, Jarecki talks with famous Elvis fans including Ethan Hawke, Alec Baldwin, Emmylou Harris, Mike Myers and Ashton Kutcher about the perils of celebrity and being an all-American icon.

When Elvis Presley returned to the U.S. after serving two years in the Army in Germany, he was never seen marching for civil rights, despite his success in a style of music created by black artists.

It’s in these sections that "King" is at its most political. Returning home after his two-year Army stint in Germany, Presley never marched with civil-rights or war protesters, which reinforced the idea that celebrities should keep their personal views exactly that, rather than risk alienating fans. Baldwin takes it a step further, suggesting that it was Presley’s simplicity — acknowledging in interviews that he never read or wrote his own music — that helped make him so beloved.

Later in his career, Presley became more brand than artist: appearing in scores of ad campaigns and teenybopper Hollywood movies, and playing residency shows in Las Vegas, where his struggles with substance abuse apparently spiraled. He was found dead in the bathroom of his Graceland mansion in Memphis on Aug. 16, 1977, at just 42.

Did Trump’s similar need to be liked, and ability to resonate with Middle America, contribute to his election? And is Presley’s version of the American dream — hard work equaling success — no longer a viable path for most Americans? "King" suggests the answer is yes, going so far as to say that the U.S. is now “Fat Elvis,” on the brink of self-destruction.

It’s a grim thesis from Jarecki, whose attempts to draw parallels between Presley’s life and today’s fraught political climate are often a stretch. But it’s a noteworthy effort that will certainly provoke conversation.