not my Elvis, not an ETA

All "The King" had to offer me were some insights into the life of Elvis Aaron Presley.
At one point, the camera came to rest on the tiny house in Tupelo where he lived as a child.
The neighborhood is quite rundown now and may have been then, sixty years ago.
For whatever misguided reason, the director had brief talks with the current residents in the film.
I have to agree with Richard Brody's review on that point: the director had a political axe to grind and Elvis' name was the attention-grabber he used.

And how did the director manage to work Elvis into the story line of this political diatribe?
He bought one of Elvis' cars to use as a hook: a silvery blue Rolls Royce, from 1963.
But he didn't realize that the car would be more than that for some of the musicians and celebrities and youth allowed to ride in it.
John Hiatt (now 66) teared up while holding his guitar and looking at the world through the right-side window,

as Elvis once did.
Chuck D (now 58) admitted his mistaken youthful assessment of Elvis and his song choices.
Mike Myers (now 55) had deep insights on the deleterious effect of celebrity on personal life, as did Ashton Kutcher (now 40), who has been famous for half his life - much like Elvis was.
Being in the public eye allows no privacy.
The media constantly has microphones and cameras trained to gather information... to feed the public's manufactured appetite and the media coffers.
As Owen Glieberman wrote, " “The King” captures how Elvis, while he was blazing new trails as an entertainer, was being eaten alive by forces that were actually a rising series of postwar American addictions."
Addiction to consumerism, addiction to advertising, addiction to the world of "never enough" - addictions which are reflected to this day in the American economy.



My favorite part of the film, though, is Elvis singing this song.
"Unchained Melody" was released by three different artists in 1955, when Elvis would have been 20 years old and his beloved mother was still very much alive.
I can imagine him and her singing it to each other, just as Mama and I would do for favorite songs on the radio... favorites like "My Girl", that always bring her to mind.
Elvis had never recorded "Unchained Melody" until 1977.
Then at his last television appearance, on June 21 of that year, he performed it for the first time to in public.
That would also be his final performance of that song, as he died six weeks later.
I have to believe he was singing it to his mother.
The nineteenth anniversary of her death was fast approaching and he was tired and he was ill and he was missing her still.
He died on August 16, 1977, four days after that anniversary.
I have to believe he was singing it to his mother.
That's certainly what I would have done...
and may do, as January 2, 2021 nears.

i thank You, God, for this moment of insight.
i am not alone.