Pinpointing Elvis Presley’s true persona can depend on when and whom you ask
In Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis there’s a scene based on actual conversations that took place between Elvis Presley and Steve Binder, director of a 1968 NBC television special that signalled the singer’s return to live performing. Binder, an iconoclast unimpressed by Presley’s recent work, had pushed Elvis to reach back into his past to revitalise a career stalled by years of mediocre movies and soundtrack albums. According to the director, their exchanges left the performer engrossed in deep soul-searching. In the trailer to Luhrmann’s biopic, a version of this back-and-forth plays out: Elvis, portrayed by Austin Butler, says to the camera: “I’ve got to get back to who I really am.” Two frames later, Dacre Montgomery, playing Binder, asks: “And who are you, Elvis?” As a scholar of southern history who…
