Film Review: 'The King'

Documentarian Eugene Jarecki is a thought-provoking, some might even say radical, filmmaker. His award-winning 2005 documentary, “Why We Fight,” is a detailed exploration of America’s military-industrial complex, which President Eisenhower warned the nation against in his Farewell Address delivered in January,1961.

“The King,” in select theaters now, takes a look at the American empire through a different lens. That is, through the prism of the meteoric rise to fame of country boy Elvis Presley in the mid-twentieth century to his status as a singular cultural icon, and through his decline and demise as the bloated, prescription-drug addicted parody of the image he held as the King of Rock ‘n Roll.

With a myriad of talking heads – from political consultants, comedians, actors, musicians, and work-a-day minions – interviews and points-of-view are in no short supply here. Juxtaposing and paralleling Elvis’s rise and fall with the rise and (apparent) fall of the American Dream (after all Elvis was thought by many to be the very embodiment of that dream) is the not-so-subtle purpose of Jarecki’s film.

Having somehow obtained Elvis’s 1963 Rolls Royce (occasionally compounding the metaphor of “the fall” with its own break downs), Jarecki travels the country taking-in current visions of the glitter and the litter of American capitalism, interspersed with vintage clips of Elvis then and thin and later as obese, obtuse, and out of touch.

Jarecki also makes use of film images, underscoring the historical distortions made by American cinema, including the whitewashing (no pun intended) of the genocide of native peoples in the westward movement, the implicit racism of landmark movies such as “King Kong,” and the trove of propaganda inherent in war movies.

A point emphasized is how Elvis was made a tool of the entertainment industry from the marketing hype of his Elvis the Pelvis sexuality to the fulfillment of his “patriotic duty” as an Army draftee – to his more neutered movie-star image of the 1960s – to his remarkable ‘68 “Comeback Special,” and finally to his final stage as a Vegas showcase attraction. The side epiphany is how a naive country boy, Elvis, was exploited by his long-serving, self-serving personal manager Tom Parker (who took an unheard of 50% of Elvis’s earnings).

At 107 minutes in length the film tends to meander and too often loses focus of its theme. But with a wide spectrum of perspectives from poltical pundits such as James Carville and Van Jones; actors Alec Baldwin and Ethan Hawk; musicians Chuck D. and Emmylou Harris; as well as some surprisingly insightful commentary by comedian Mark Myers contrasting Canada (Myers’ home country) with the United States, the time spent with the documentary makes for a worthwhile examination the American empire’s probable trajectory – that is, if the filmgoer doesn’t mind being confronted with the despair of decline. Elvis has left the building and after watching the film be prepared to be left feeling the empty weight of a culture of celebrity in a state of disrepair.

Check local listings for theaters and On-Demand and cable TV for show time options.

ben@beachcomber.news