I recently happened upon this short and relatively unknown 1984 documentary by Tom Corboy about fanatical Elvis fans whose lives revolve the King in one way or another. After the King’s death in 1977 they ave all experienced some loss of purpose and direction that they cannot seem to resolve. One man  named Artie Mentz is an Elvis impersonator who sees himself as a priest in some ways. The same way a real priest represents an invisible but present God so does Artie represent Elvis. At one point Artie explains how he was bewildered when, during lean times, his daughter said he should basically get a ‘real job’. Artie is driven to do what he does by a higher calling  it seems. Another woman story seems almost tragic as she talks about how her marriage failed because her husband did not share her fervor for Elvis and even felt she was a bit insane. She left her son to finish high school in New Jersey so she could travel south and live closer to Memphis and Graceland. She feels any red blooded American woman would have to desire to have sex with Elvis but she is appalled that a friend of her’s claimed that Elvis singing for her would be enough. She say she would like Elvis to sing for her too but while he is making love to her at the same time of course. She talks about a daughter of hers who loved Elvis as well and who Elvis once took upon stage at a concert and hugged and gave a scarf to as a gift.  Tragically the little girl is one day abducted and murdered and the distraught woman causes a controversy in her family by playing an Elvis song at the funeral service. My God, let the woman play what she wants are her own daughter’s funeral. Another pair of super fans are twin girls who believe that they Elvis’s daughters and one proof is that their mother has never said that they weren’t. The girls and Artie see cosmic significance in adding up the date of Elvis’s death, 16 August 1977, and getting the number 2001 which was the song (used in the the Stanley Kubrick film) Elvis used to open his act with in his last years. Well they call the song 2001 but actually the piece was  Also Sprach Zarathustra, a tone poem by Richard Strauss inspired by the book by Friedrich Neitzsche  but who the hell knows that anyway.

I read an unnecessarily  scathing commentary on IMDB. Not of the documentary but the people in it. A couple short quotes are:

“… these people are fanatics in every sense of the word. Much of what they say leaves you utterly dumbfounded and aghast. I still laugh out loud after all these years, and I still feel the sorrow of seeing this undeniable aspect of the human condition so colorfully and powerfully presented in such a way that it needs no additional comments from the film maker.” And “If you like black humor and are fascinated with the underside of the American working class psyche, you can’t go wrong with this one.”

There is no doubt that a man who resembles Elvis in no way whatsoever and then goes and changes his name to Elvis Aaron Presley because some friends say he resembles the real Elvis is a bit strange. But that the film will leave anyone aghast or that it supplies some insight into the human condition (whatever that is) and underside of the American working class is open to debate. I was living in the south, in Lexington Kentucky, when Elvis died and even had ticket for a show he was going to give in Rupp Arena. He died about a week before the show and in an act I would later regret in the form of bad retroactive karma I took the ticket stub and refunded it and bought a 2nd hand copy of led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, a couple William S. Burroughs paperbacks and a dime bag of marijuana. I was hardly a fan at the time of Elvis (the tickets were a gift to my cousin and I by my Elvis haircut sporting dad) and I was in the thick of the hysteria in Kentucky where people held the man up in godlike esteem. Of course as time went on I began to admire Elvis and his music and charisma and I have nothing cynical to say about the man or his rabid followers. And nor does this documentary. I feel in no way that Tom Corboy is making fun of the people I sketched out above and nor is he seeking to ridicule Elvis. You’ll never find insults or jokes about Elvis or his fans here at the Café. Elvis was indeed the King of Rock-n-Roll (much to Little Richard’s chagrin) and he represents a story out of Americana of near mythic proportions. The man abused drugs and cheese burgers but still retained his mystery and power to the end. And, lest we all forget, he made a truck load of great cheesy movies with some of the hottest women in the history of Hollywood. And  that is why Elvis has a tag here at The Uranium Café and Kurt Cobain and Michael Jackson never will.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 26th, 2009 at 7:03 am and is filed under Documentary, Movie Makers, Actors, Artists, Musicians and Personas . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.