Elvis Presley is the singer the whole world still calls the King of Rock n’ Roll. He changed music back in the 1950s and filled the biggest stages for years after. His home at Graceland in Memphis is still one of the most visited houses in all of America. He passed away in 1977, at 42, but his music never slowed down.
Now there’s a new film that drops fans right back into the crowd. It’s called “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,” and it opened in theaters earlier this year. The director is Baz Luhrmann, the same filmmaker who made the big 2022 movie “Elvis.”
This one is different though. It isn’t a story acted out by a cast. It’s the real Elvis on stage, built from footage almost nobody had seen.
The team dug through 59 hours of film from the Warner Bros. vaults, plus pictures and sound from the Graceland archive. It covers his concert years, from 1969 until he passed away in 1977, at 42.
Here’s a scene from the film, with the real man singing and not an actor.
Elvis performs “You Were Always On My Mind” in the film
Last night the film got its reward. On Sunday, “EPiC” won Best Music Documentary at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, a big gala held in New York City. The film went in with four nominations and took home this one. In the music category it beat “Man on the Run,” the new film about Paul McCartney of the Beatles.
Then came the part that caught people off guard.
When the award was called, the man who walked up to accept it was not Baz Luhrmann. It was Jonathan Redmond, the film’s editor and Luhrmann’s closest partner on the whole project. He’s the one who shaped all those hours of old footage into the film fans are watching now.
And what he said about Elvis is the line fans are passing around today. “It’s one thing to listen to Elvis’ music,” Redmond said, “but it’s another to see him perform.” He called Elvis “a force of nature,” then added, “as is Baz.” He said the film was a passion project for the two of them, and a joy to make.
Redmond doesn’t step in front of a camera very often, so this sit-down is a nice look at the work behind the film.
The film’s editor talks about making “EPiC”
It’s a rare thing for an editor to get the spotlight on a night like that. But anyone who has watched the film understands why it mattered. The whole picture rests on how those concert moments are stitched together, and that was his job from start to finish.
You can hear more of his story and see Elvis back on stage in the clips above.