Rent The King (2017)

The King (aka Promised Land) review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Coming into The King cold, I assumed the picture would be little more than a retrospective on Elvis and his influence through the ages of the south. And while the documentary certainly starts off in this direction, it takes a startling and interesting turn towards something deeper. It’s as though director Eugene Jarecki were assigned the task of spinning a story on Elvis Presley and delved down a deeper rabbit hole of not just Elvis but how the populism of a musical icon created an unhealthy vision of the future.

Perhaps a better perspective of the film is that Eugene was so overwhelmed by the current world he tried to find some link between the messy state of modern politics and the idolism of Elvis through the ages. Yes, the film is referring to Donald Trump in the connections of fame’s toxicity, going so far as to call it out directly. None of these troubled times BS. He knows where the trouble lies and tries to tie the current climate to that of the old. Strange as it may seem in the many long strains of playing six degrees of Elvis, there’s something here.

There’s the obvious encountering of stories from those who knew Elvis and the towns where he grew up and visited. We hear from the Native American girl who once presented Presley with a token of appreciation, how she saw his heart warm and his mind open to this culture. She doesn’t seem to be doing so well now. And I think that’s where the film derives most of its drive. Sure, Elvis had some odd stories, including a story told by those who knew him about looking at a cloud and finding his disbelief in God, but the film urges us to look to the now more than relish the past.

To a degree, I understand where this film is coming from. It’s easy to look back on the silly and rocking days of Elvis, where you couldn’t turn on the radio, TV, or go to the movies without him popping up, and lament on how times were different then. Some old codger or a culture war weirdo is probably looking back on that footage and saying “Man, things sure were easier back then.” Here is a film that grabs those viewers by the shoulders and shakes them to shout the obvious, that “No, things were not great back then!”

In particular, they were worse for African-Americans. A lot of black icons speak out in this film about how Elvis had such power and refused to use it to further civil rights. Some centrists would argue he didn’t have to, that this is not his job, favoring entertainers not be political. But when rights are being violated by consumers of one’s music and nothing is being said, can you really blame the community for calling Elvis out as part of the problem? He didn't target the black community but he didn’t help either, a concept of action through inaction that still seems at a loss from many clueless centrists today.

The King echoes an important lesson that has been pushed for ages but still needs to be instilled now more than ever; the past has warts that are better to remember and learn from than cast aside. Elvis wasn’t perfect, obviously, but his legendary icon status may have sown some sensation of worship that has not bred a better world. His films are laughably bad, his merchandise tacky, and his legacy is left on such a troubling note I recall growing up in the 1990s noting him as an embodiment of rock n’ roll at its grossest. We need to recognize Elvis as a human and also ourselves to figure out when we grow wrong. Because if Eugene’s film is anything to go by, we haven’t graduated yet.