![]() ![]() Bohemian Rhapsody took the formula perfected in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line (2005)-and definitively pilloried in Walk Hard (2007)-and gave it a staid, rote execution, with some awful editing for flavor. Musical biopics have been somewhat en vogue ever since the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody grossed nearly $1 billion in 2018, with mixed results. “Elvis was a hero to most, but he / Never meant shit to me, you see, straight out / Racist-that sucker was simple and plain,” Chuck D rapped on Public Enemy’s “ Fight the Power,” to which Flavor Flav adds, “Motherfuck him and John Wayne!”īut Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis-the best film of 2022-takes a story you think you know, a story of someone so famous you never needed to have it told to you, and turns it on its head. He’s a cultural icon, but, now more than ever, either a joke or a villain of history: a joke when he’s remembered as overweight and barely articulate in a Vegas hotel a villain because, more than any other individual person, Elvis is synonymous with the long, painful history of white artists taking credit for Black music. There are a non-trivial number of people who work full-time as Elvis impersonators even today, nearly 50 years after his death. Even if you’ve never sat down and listened to an Elvis record, you probably know tons of Elvis songs by osmosis. The iconography of his career is deeply embedded in both American and world culture, whether as tribute, such as One Direction recreating “Jailhouse Rock” in the music video for “ Kiss You,” or as critique, such as The Clash borrowing the design of Elvis’ debut album for the “London Calling” artwork, with Paul Simonon smashing his bass in place of Elvis holding his guitar. An ideal world that can be reached by the strength of every single man who will not abandon the desire and hope for a better world, and who will not give up on this difficult undertaking.Elvis Presley is one of the most famous people who has ever lived. The similarity with Martin Luther King’s speech is both in form and content of the text: the meaning of the song consists precisely in the wish for a better world, a world where one can live in peace and harmony, where pain can be transformed into serenity. If I Can Dream: the lyrics and their meaning ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |