“Austin shot all of these live sequences in full (…) One day I’ll put them back on film.
Elvisfrom Baz Luhrmann, has been doing well in theaters since its unveiling at the last Cannes Film Festival. Excellent news for the Australian director, who, after the good critical successes of Ballroom dancing (1992), Romeo + Juliet (1996) ed Red Mill! (2001), early in his career, had seen his later projects, Australia (2008) et Gatsby the Magnificent (2013) be less well received. Since its release, however, the director repeats that the version released at the cinema is not the definitive one: he counts edit his film in a 4-hour version, to add everything he had to cut and that was close to his heart. Particularly concert scenes, shot entirely on set, but ultimately cut for the most part in this first cut.
Elvis: a flamboyant fresco that explodes the codes of the biopic [critique]
“It’s a director’s recut, not an edit, now emphasizes IndieWire. There’s a lot to show in this 4-hour release, but I’ve already said I won’t do it now, or tomorrow. Eventually I will. Why Austin (Butler, his interpreter of Elvis Presley, ed) shot all of these sequences live in full. He did all these musical numbers. It was a great experience to see him play all those concerts, so I’ll put them back in the film one day. We had all these different cameras, so Mandy Walker, our cinematographer, could reproduce the ways of shooting from the 60s, 70s and 80s, and that worked throughout the film.”
For now, Baz Luhrmann is resting: he explained it previously to ScreenRant that he really wanted to dive into this montage again, but that the Elvis experience had worn him out (as its main actorby the way) and that he wanted to take a break before starting again.
