by It is hard to imagine two films more different than Elvis and Priscilla. The first, directed by Baz Luhrmann and released in 2022, depicts the rise and fall of Elvis Presley on an operatic scale, exploiting his complicated relationship with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, and presenting him as the ultimate martyr of the public. The second, written and directed by Sofia Coppola, based on the memoirs of Priscilla Presley and released in the UK this week, is dreamy and personal, focusing on Priscilla’s life as it related to Elvis, her partner of 14 years during his prime his career. But which one came closer to the facts?
You’ll be surprised: an expression of the King
Three Elvis experts I spoke with generally agree that Austin Butler, who portrayed Elvis in Luhrmann’s film, did a better job of capturing the King’s mannerisms. Jeff Schrembs, owner of one of the world’s largest private Elvis collections, says Butler “got a lot of Elvis’ dance and hand movements right”, and Suzanne Finstad, author of Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, says Butler understood the feeling that Elvis was “complex, energetic but compassionate, sometimes tender, but always conflicted”.
Finstad and Schrembs feel that Elvis as portrayed by Jacob Elordi in Priscilla was much thinner. “For me, the character as written was very mild,” says Finstad. “I thought the whole Presley family in Priscilla almost came across as the Beverly Hillbillies, and Elvis was kind of Jethro Bodine’s prey. I didn’t feel the magic, the electricity, the sensitivity that Elvis had.”
Alanna Nash, author of four books about Elvis including The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley and Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women who Loved Him, says Butler was a “knockout stage performer ” but “Elvis’ beauty wasn’t great and he never really got a voice”. Elordi, on the other hand, although very tall, “was quite frightening with Elvis’ low-grade mumble – the only actor who got that right”.
Are you lonely tonight: a performance of Priscilla
Nash says that while Olivia DeJonge, who played Priscilla in Elvis, was “charming”, she ultimately “wasn’t very convincing as young Priscilla”. On the other hand, Coppola’s star, Cailee Spaeny, was “great in capturing that young girl’s wide eye, and also in televising the sense of being ‘caged’ at Graceland and the woman always waiting “.
However, Finstad points out that while Spaeny was “on point” in her portrayal of Priscilla when she arrives at Graceland – after she begins styling herself with beehives and layers-upon-layers of fake flames – Coppola’s portrayal of the pre-Elvis Priscilla does not fit the facts as a fairly smooth, mutton-haired girl that Elvis later achieved in his own image. “Priscilla was really into make-up and had very dark hair when she met Elvis – it’s not like he’d take a little brown wren and put all this make-up on her and take her hair out and she turned into a different person,” she says. Although Priscilla was given a makeover at Graceland to more closely resemble the look Elvis liked, Finstad says she “doesn’t think that can be laid right at Elvis’ feet – which Priscilla was concerned with with him”, and that it is Coppola’s version. of events “distorts reality, and adds to the feeling that something is a little off in the relationship”.
Can’t help falling in love: Elvis and Priscilla’s first meeting
Although Luhrmann only shows the first meeting of Elvis and Priscilla briefly – perhaps so that he would not have to deal with the fact that Priscilla was 14 at the time – Coppola’s film does, showing the moment when one of Elvis’ friends arrives to her at a restaurant and asking her. attend a party at Elvis’s house, an idea strongly opposed by Priscilla’s parents.
Finstad says that according to his research, Priscilla’s parents were “really gung ho” about their daughter’s relationship with Elvis. “Her mother was an Elvis fan before the family moved to Germany and she was excited that Priscilla was dating him,” she says. “She had no problem with Priscilla spending nights in Elvis’ bedroom until midnight, 1am.”
Elvis’ entourage – the “Memphis Mafia” – express no concern about Priscilla’s age in either film, which Nash says was also fiction. “The guys around Elvis were scared,” she says, referring to a section in her book Elvis and the Memphis Mafia in which the singer’s production manager, Lamar Fike, recalls telling Elvis: “We’re going to be in jail for the life.”
Finstad also says that Priscilla’s Elvis fandom at the time is a big part of Coppola’s film. “She wanted to meet Elvis more than anything when she got to Germany. I found a newspaper article from the 1950s, and it mentions that Priscilla said she told her cousin her goal when she was in Germany was to meet Elvis Presley,” she says. “That’s all left out [the film Priscilla]and it seems like a fairy tale where some nameless person comes out of the ether and asks this young girl if she would like to meet Elvis.”
A little less chatty: Elvis and Priscilla’s relationship
Both films portray the pair’s relationship as toxic and deeply fractured, although Coppola’s film, since it focuses on Priscilla, more closely approximates their dynamic. Schrembs says the second film contained “some fine moments” right along with the volatility. “There was a lot of that during their marriage – the way Elvis was oblivious to her,” he says. “There was no doubt that he loved her, especially when she was pregnant with Lisa Marie.”
Nash says that Coppola’s portrayal of Elvis as someone with many relational sexual pathologies – in the film, he largely eschews sex in favor of pillow fights and photoshoots with Priscilla – is “true, according to Priscilla’s earlier accounts, but lost He was only sexually interested after Lisa was born. That being said, he was never faithful to one woman.”
Finstad says that Elvis’ spirituality is exaggerated or mocked in Coppola’s film, which diminishes how seriously he took it. “At a certain point in his career, when he was very famous, Elvis seriously thought about becoming a monk,” she says. “He was trying to deal with fame and a lifestyle that was so different from his upbringing – and the way it’s presented in Priscilla, it’s minimized. The accurate part is that Priscilla had no interest in listening to Elvis discuss this.”
On the other hand, Luhrmann’s film finds that “Elvis was heavily influenced by Black music and gospel music – that was his soul. That is completely missing in Priscilla and as a result we get a superficial version of Elvis and Priscilla.”
Skeptical minds: final thoughts
According to Nash, neither film strikes the right balance in portraying the complexities of the Presleys’ lives. “Coppola’s film shows us none of the good times after Germany – the second half draws on all the negativity, to the point that it’s like she’s never been any fun at all, with or without Elvis ,” she says. “If the Luhrmann film is unfair to Colonel Parker, the Coppola is unfair to Elvis – by omission. Undoubtedly there is a middle ground between the brilliance of Priscilla and the phantasmagoria of Elvis.”
Finstad says that while you come away from Luhrmann’s film “feeling like you met Elvis Presley”, Coppola’s effort “feels kind of hollow, because the character of Elvis is so one-dimensional that you don’t understand who the man is.” “.
“[Priscilla portrayed] the inappropriateness of a relationship between a 14-year-old boy and a grown man, and how she was in over her head as a young girl trying to compete with Ann-Margret and Juliet Prowse,” says Finstad. “I think that part is right.”
