[motorcycle approaching]
This is a Medallion of
Life for you, Elvis.
From the Sioux... Sioux Nation.
[man] Come on, Chris! Come on.
[Chris] Put it in neutral,
pull on the brake.
[man] Pull the foot brake.
[interviewer] Okay, Etienne, you have
to get the shot across the street.
That's an establishing first.
[man] The mic? Mic?
[engine starting]
[radio host] If you could
have anything in the world,
what would it be?
[Elvis] Yeah, well, it's-it's
a logical question.
[radio host] Uh-huh.
[Elvis] Uh,
I suppose the most important thing
in a person's life is happiness.
I mean, not worldly things.
[beeps]
Gee Whiz, I mean you can have
cars, you can have money,
you can have a fabulous home,
you can have everything.
If you're not happy,
what have you got?
Oh, man.
The King sat in this car. Hmm.
[sighs] It's an odd feeling.
Now, this is amazing.
The King's Rolls.
Oh, this is wonderful. [laughs]
- Where are you going to be?
- I'll be up there, driving you. [laughs]
Go and sit on the far right.
[Baldwin] Are we okay?
I-I've never seen more technical
adjustments in my life.
- I would love a glass of wine.
- [interviewer] We'll get you water.
- Oh. Oh, water? Oh.
- Wine.
Where the hell's the bar?
Aha!
We didn't really
drink and drive.
[crowd chanting] We want Elvis!
We want Elvis!
We want Elvis! We want Elvis!
You have no idea of how hard
he hit American culture.
I mean, it was just one
day there was not Elvis,
and the next day
there was Elvis.
Mike Tyson, somebody said,
He hits you so hard it
changes the way you taste.
America never tasted
the same after he hit.
[girls screaming]
[camera shutter clicking]
[Elvis] A little less con verse
lion A little more action
[man] I'm confessing,
I do not understand
the continuing mythic
fascination with Elvis.
[Van Jones] You remember
the great Chuck D line,
Elvis was a hero to most, but
he never meant shit to me.
This is all beyond Elvis.
[man 3] He was the voice of the
country, at its best and at its worst.
- Come on, come on - [backup
singers] Come on, come on
[woman] When you see what has
happened with our country,
I think it's a perfect analogy.
[announcer] Elvis has
left the building.
He left the stage and went out
the back with a policeman
and he is now gone
from the building.
[girls screaming]
[anchor] What is
wrong with America?
[anchor 2] I know a lot of people
are upset about What's going on.
[man] I'm ashamed of my country,
I'm ashamed of my president
[anchor 3] The world just doesn't
know where America is headed.
[man 2] Where does the
country go from here?
[girl yodeling]
" I got the blues
Like midnight "
Moonshining bright as day
I got the blues
Like midnight
Moonshining bright as day
And I wish a tornado
Come blow my blues away a
[yodeling]
[girl] Hey, y'all. My name's EmiSunshine,
and this is my band The Rain.
On bass is my daddy Randall. On
drums over there is my uncle Bobby.
And on mandolin is
my brother John.
[dinging]
[laughing]
Stop it!
You're going to mess my hair up.
Oh, you have messed it up.
Yeah, he has. Yeah, you have.
[EmiSunshine] I feel like Elvis Presley
left a spirit that inspires me,
and I've been singing ever
since I was about four.
[projector whirring]
[host] How does it feel to
be fight up there on top?
[Elvis] Feels pretty good.
It all happened so
fast, so I don't know.
I'm afraid to wake up. Afraid it's
all going to be a dream, you know.
[radio host] The one-percent get
richer and richer and richer.
[radio host 2] We are one
year out from the elections,
Americans will be increasingly
drilling down on this.
[radio host 3] The split between
rural and urban voters.
The urban ones tend to be more democratic,
the rural ones more Republican.
[man whistling]
[chorus] Ride, ride, ride
[Elvis] Just beyond the
mountain Lies a city
[radio host] It was the classic
American success story
Poor boy from a small
town rises to the top.
But to the people of
Tupelo, Mississippi,
Elvis was more than
just a popular singer.
He was representative
of the American dream.
Folks come from all over the world
to see Elvis and his beginnings.
Hello, I'm Terri. Welcome
to the birthplace.
Elvis was born in this house. He
was born January 8th of 1935.
Will I always be A
lonesome cowboy a
[man] I've been
here most my life.
My grandparents lived close to
where Elvis's birthplace is at.
And, uh, some of my family actually
sharecropped with Elvis's family.
Elvis was a champion
for the working man.
My dad was a truck driver for many years.
He worked long hard days.
So, you know, I kinda felt that
connectivity about Elvis growing up.
[impersonating Elvis] Here we go, man.
Hey! Right on in there.
Elvis is a big
moneymaker for Tupelo.
One, two, three, four 4
[singing]
[Davidson] The whole town
revolves around Elvis.
You know, I've got
college behind me.
I've got trade schools behind me.
I've...
But I can't seem to get a
job here in Mississippi.
I mean, I work at The Birthplace,
but I can't live off of it.
If I didn't have my military...
I'd-I'd- [laughs]
I'd be on the streets!
[audience cheering]
[cheering]
[Elvis] The only thing
I've felt is happiness.
That things have
gotten better for me.
That God has blessed me,
and that he's given me a lot of things
that a lot of people would like to have.
I mean, I wish that everybody
could have luxuries in life.
[man] Herman Melville once
wrote very cryptic lines.
He said, The Declaration of
Independence makes a difference.
Life, liberty, and happiness.
Happiness?
No one ever talked about happiness
as an actual component of life.
That is our right.
So Elvis Presley acts out
those lines in our own time.
[man] And if we shall succeed
as by God's help we Will,
America will point the way
towards a better world.
[man] The American experiment,
which begins in 1776,
is a remarkable piece of political
invention and imagination.
The American message
to the world was,
Monarchs, be worried.
Aristocrats, be worried.
A new day may be
dawning in the world.
It was shocking to
people, and inspiring.
Give this man... He's never
had a fried shrimp po' boy.
All right.
So let's do one with
some real love in that.
Okay.
If you look what the promise
of America was 40 years ago,
and what America's
delivered today...
Pretty stunning disparity.
If you look what's happened
to that demographic that Elvis
would've been a part of
a guy could come out of high
school, get a job at the plant,
stay there for 30, 40 years,
send your kids to college.
That was the American dream.
It's doesn't exist anymore.
It's gone.
[man] If you ask me, How
did Elvis become Elvis?
He became Elvis
because he was Elvis.
I mean, because he was
this particular person.
He was the only child of two
fairly solitary people.
And they were like a unit who
traveled together throughout life.
The family lost their
house in East Tupelo.
They moved to Downtown Tupelo,
to one of the three houses
designated for white occupancy.
The rest of the
neighborhood is black.
[interviewer] Hello. I'm wondering
if you can help me out.
I was trying to find the house
that Elvis Presley lived in?
[giggles] Well, it's
not on this side.
He had a house on this street?
- [woman] Who?
- Elvis.
He ain't got no house over here.
[interviewer] I
was hoping, so...
Nah, he had no house over here.
How are you doing? I'm trying to
find where Elvis Presley lived.
Uh, I'm not sure
exactly about that.
[woman] That's the
owner right there.
The lady there in the gray shirt.
That's all I know.
I don't know much about it, but I
know he stayed there a couple weeks
while his dad was incarcerated.
- Yeah?
- That's the story?
Want to check out
the Rolls Royce?
I've never seen 3 Rolls Royce.
So here I go.
[baby whining]
Oh, gosh!
[chattering]
[interviewer] So you
live in Elvis's house?
But we didn't know
it till years ago.
His mama and him lived there
when his daddy went to prison
for writing a bad check.
- [woman] Elvis? Elvis.
- Elvis.
That's all Tupelo
has thrived on.
That's the only thing
keeping it alive.
We have no say.
We have a neighborhood
meeting, what, once a month?
But you know they don't talk
about us or our problems.
[woman] No, we went
to one meeting.
It's always the rich
people over there.
They look down on you
like you're low class.
[interviewer] But I think people hear
Tupelo and they think Elvis Presley.
They think the American dream.
What is the American
dream to you?
They say that anybody can
make it here in America
if you just work hard, you
can be what you want to be.
What do you think of that?
To me American dream is:
peace, harmony, love each other.
- Health.
- Health.
And have your family.
[interviewer] Okay. So
how's it going today?
- [woman scoffs]
- Like shit.
- [laughs]
- Like shit!
- [interviewer] Why?
Because it's gone to hell.
Tupelo's gone to hell.
[reporter] We are looking
er a ridge of high pressure
that is bringing some dangerous
heat for the start of the weekend.
Look at all of those
903 on the map.
[singing blues]
[indistinct]
And then I would a
[continues]
[man] Leo Bud Welch and Elvis
Presley are practically the same age,
and they're both from the
hills of Mississippi.
I am Vince Varnado.
A retired first sergeant of the
United States Army after 29 years.
I was conceived at the Mississippi
State Penitentiary at Parchman.
Parchman Farm. There's been many
songs written about that place.
Oh, well A
[Marcus] You know, here's Elvis.
His father forges a check,
and is sent to Parchman Prison,
when he's a little boy.
[Varnado] Elvis Presley's father
was an inmate at Parchman
and so was my father.
It was basically like
being on a plantation.
I'm going alone a
[Varnado] You can
sing about the blues,
but if you don't live and
experience the blues,
the music comes from a
different depth of your soul.
I'm going alone a
Alone, darling a
I heard Elvis Presley years
and years ago, you know.
He had a style of his own. And I
always have a style of my own.
Going to lay my a
The blues ain't nothing
but a feeling.
Music is music in my books.
But the blues ain't nothing
but a good man feeling bad.
I'm going home with Jesus a
[singing continues]
[Elvis] / get
lonesome sometimes.
I get lonesome right in
the middle of a crowd.
I was an only child but
maybe my kids won't be.
Maybe someday I'm going to have
a home and a family of my own
and I'm not going
to budge from it.
[man] Said I got the blues
[man] Elvis moved to Memphis.
There's a lot of bullshit
going on in Memphis.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Was killed in Memphis.
Trying to say, you
know, I am a man.
Memphis City blues 4
Light up the screen Watch
me light up the room a
Watch me light up the mic
Fat boy be the truth
[female reporter] At a time when racial
tension in America is running high
voters in Memphis, Tennessee are
heading out to cast their ballots.
[male reporter] Candidates for
Memphis mayor turn it up a notch.
Need your vote! I need your vote.
Need your vote.
[man] The problem with
Memphis is poverty.
Where 29 percent of our residents
are below the poverty line.
Everybody's talking about
the same thing: crime.
Y'all in the middle of the hood right now
in South Memphis. Everybody's got it.
[Chuck D] Memphis
was significant
because it was the distribution capital
of the United States of America.
It's the middle of the North,
South, East, and West.
[Guralnick] When Elvis came to
Memphis, Memphis was the place.
It was where all the
traditions came together.
Walking down the street, Elvis
could hear every type of music.
Black, white...
it didn't matter.
Memphis represented the
confluence of all these cultures.
I got the Memphis
City blues 4
Ooh, I could feel it A
- I need your vote now.
- What the hell's going on?
Come on. They're coming after me.
Hey!
- Yeah!
- Thank you, man.
[Wharton] I like to call Memphis
the city of three kings.
BB. King, the king of the
blues, gave us soul.
Elvis, the king
of rock and roll.
And Dr. King, who gave
this nation a conscience.
[King Jr.] ...and he's allowed me to go
up to the mountain. And I've looked over.
And I've seen the promised land.
[shouting]
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight,
that we, as a people, will
gel to the promised land!
[woman] Take my hand
Lead me on a
And let me stand a
My name is Earlice Taylor. I
live in Memphis, Tennessee,
and Elvis Presley lived in the
project across the street.
We used to see Elvis up there, but he
was just like one of us, you know.
Nobody really knew
much about Elvis then.
He was very young.
I think probably what
drew him to the church
was Reverend W. Herbert Brewster,
who would broadcast from the radio.
[Reverend Brewster] We are
living in a sick world...
And a lot of white
people would come
because they knew about him from
being on Dewey Phillips, WHBQ.
That's the first white person
that played black music.
[radio host] Just about
everyone agrees.
The American educational
system is broken.
[host 2] Let's not treat this
like a line item in a budget.
Let's treat it like its
children and their future.
This high school wouldn't be
here, if Elvis hadn't gone here.
It would have been
torn down by now.
See, I went to this school,
and I was president of
senior class the last year.
We graduated with Elvis in '53.
I gotta take a leak.
Back in the day, they had
a smoking room here.
[toilet flushing]
Remember that song,
Smoking in the Boys Room?
Yeah. Did you guys
ever smoke in here?
And here was a guy from our old
high school, that was poor as dirt,
didn't have a pot to piss in, but
man he could sing his ass off.
[radio host] Elvis, do you write
most of the lyrics for your tunes?
[Elvis] No, I've never
written a song.
I've never written a song.
I wish I could.
I did good to get out of
high school, you know.
My name is Jerry Schilling.
Elvis Presley was
my best friend.
I don't know if I was his best
friend, but I know some days I was.
I was really into
Brando and James Dean.
And this guy, he had that...
Charisma is not even
the right word.
He was just totally different.
Oh, that's Elvis's? That's
actually his Rolls Royce?
- [man] Damn straight, it is.
- Oh, my God.
[Taylor] We're going to
get to East Trigg Church.
Which is where Elvis used to
go and sit down on the floor
and listen and look
up to the music.
Right here is the church.
Right here.
I sang at this church from
when I was four years old.
Elvis would come at
eleven o'clock at night.
He would be able to see all of these
great singers that he could learn from,
because he really couldn't sing
when he first got started.
You thought I was
Worth saving a
Yes!
So you came And
changed my life a
You thought I was
Worth keeping a
[man] So blues and gospel are
essentially the same thing.
They are. Just different lyrics.
Soul music is the
marriage of those two.
One, two.
[instruments tuning]
[singing gospel]
Yeah!
[girl] Everything I've got
I couldn't get it, aah
[Merrick] Memphis is the
international beacon of soul music,
and Stax is literally
the center of it all.
Chain, chain, chain
Here, at the music academy,
we're creating the next
generation of soul communicators.
[laughing]
Got the harmonies?
Chain, chain, chain
- [harmonizing]
- [clears throat]
- For five long years
- [vocalizing]
I thought you were my man
All right, all right, all right.
But I found out
I'm just a link
In your chain
I think the story of Elvis
is a very interesting story.
Elvis was the guy that was coming
up here, from South Memphis,
and what he was picking up on
was things that he didn't get
in his own community, right?
You treated me mean a
Oh
You treated me cruel a
Chain, chain, chain 4
Chain, chain 4
Chain, chain, chain 4
Chain of fools
[reporter] The problem with equal
fights for different people
exists all over our nation.
It is a problem in constant
change and in constant solution.
Our national strength lies in our
capacity to solve these problems.
[man] When you talk about
the American dream,
Elvis Presley is born into
an American nightmare.
[woman] Southern frees
Bear a strange fruit 4
I think it's very difficult
for people to accept
that we went from a
settler-colonial slave state
to an apartheid regime.
There's no American dream
under segregation.
[Schilling] Growing
up in Memphis...
Everything from the schools
to entertainment...
Everything was segregated.
We'd go down to Beale Street, if we could
get in, because it'd be black shows,
and then every once in a while
they'd have a white show.
[man] The obscenity
and vulgarity
is obviously a means by which
the white man and his children
can be driven to the
level with the nigger.
[Schilling] I had found it.
Elvis had found it.
But it was forbidden music.
[Chuck D] You know, the
United States of America
has always dealt with anything other
than being pure white with fear.
And this is woven into the fabric of
philosophy and ideology and belief.
When you start looking at the movies
of that time, like King Kong...
I mean, come on, man. There
was no hidden message there.
Going to uphold white
race against the savages.
[Jones] It's an
interesting country.
It inflicts pain on black people,
denies it inflicts the pain,
but then benefits from the soulful
cry that arises from the pain.
For the tree to drop a
[man] I drove cross-country with my
friends once when I was about 21,
and we passed through Graceland.
I wasn't really aware of the young man
Elvis or what made Elvis incendiary.
He was all fat Elvis.
I had a friend who
loves, loves music.
And I was making
fun of Elvis once.
And he said, Hey, you
can't make fun of Elvis.
Have you listened
to Sun Records?
[host] Elvis, boy, tell us, how did
you get to make your first record?
[Elvis] Well, I went
into Sun Records
and there was a guy in there
that took down my name,
told me he might
call me sometime.
So he called me about a
year and a half later.
Sun Records, of course, was
home of the great Sam Phillips.
Sam had had a vision
of rock and roll
long before he opened
his recording studio.
He had had a vision of the
power, the emotional depth,
the sweep of African-American
music overcoming,
breaking down the
walls of segregation.
He'd thought this
music was so powerful
that a mainstream audience would
never be able to resist it.
He saw that in Howlin' Wolf, saw it in 8.8.
King's music,
but he could not cross them over
and he believed the only way he was
going to cross this music over
was if he could find a white
man with a negro sound,
and more important,
the negro feel.
And that's what he
found in Elvis.
- How are ya?
- Ethan, how you doing, man?
My dad was never
about the money.
Of course he had a family
and he had a family to feed,
and a wife, two kids.
But he was always
about the music.
[woman] I brought you
some background.
[Elvis] Yeah? Who's
gonna play it?
[Ethan] Elvis is working
as an electrician.
He's graduated high school.
He's skinny, broke, doesn't
know what to do with his life.
But he does love to
sing and play music
and he has this fantasy that he's
gonna get discovered by Sam Phillips.
[singing]
Okay. I'm ready as I'll ever be.
[man] Stand by, please.
[Ethan] He gets an
audition for Sam Phillips.
Is this interesting? Is
this too, uh, too... Okay.
[siren chirps]
- Oh, shit. Is he pulling us over?
- No. It's somebody else.
No, I don't think
it is our guys.
Anyway, he comes over.
They give him a chance.
And they spend all night
laying down these tracks.
Sam Phillips thinks he's just
another bullshit white kid
who wants to be Frank Sinatra.
Elvis starts joking around
and starts playing what
he really wants to play,
which is Big Boy
Crudup's song...
That's all right, Mama 4
That's all right for you a
Phillips stops. How do
you know that song?
And Elvis, Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Am I playing too loud?
You're not playing too loud.
How do you know that song?
And Elvis is like, Well, that's
the music I really like.
And Sam looks at him and says,
That's the music I like too.
Well, that's all
right, Mama 4
That's all right for you a
That's when the stars collided. You
know, right there in that one song.
[Elvis] That's all fight
That's all right a
" That's all right now, Mama "
[man] Elvis was different.
He had a different voice.
He puts some feeling into it.
From his body. We all felt it.
My dad brought that cut home
to his family and said,
I think I found what
I've been searching for.
[Hawke] So your mom was the
first one to hear that?
And my brother and
I were there too.
Because he gathered
everybody around.
That's so cool. That is so cool.
[Guralnick] Elvis's first record
comes out July 20th of '54.
It's a huge hit.
The record goes on to sell
probably a 100,000 copies or more.
Ms ...one thousand screaming hysterical
youngsters, predominantly teenagers,
worship this gentleman, Elvis
Presley and his rock and roll.
This is hero worship of the highest
order and to the Nth degree.
There was a time when I was growing
up where you turn on a movie,
and you'll get an Elvis movie.
And you turn on the radio you get
an Elvis song. 80 it was just like
he was just the right person to
sell and market to a white country.
Fight the power a
Fight the power
fight the power
Fight the power a
[man vocalizing]
Uh
Come on and get down
[Jones] It's important to
recognize that Elvis as hero
does not rest comfortably in
the mouths of all Americans.
Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant
shit To me, you see
Straight up racist that
sucker was Simple and plain
Motherfuck him
And John Wayne
Elvis was a hero to most but
he never meant shit to me.
Straight up racist, that sucker was simple
and plain. Motherfuck him and John Wayne.
In the song Fight the Power, when I
talked about Elvis was a hero to most,
it was absolutely true.
He was called the king
of rock and roll.
Which I took offense to because
he wasn't no more of a
king than Little Richard,
no more of a king than Bo
Diddley, or Chuck Berry.
I just want to let Everybody
know all about it a
[Chuck D] So who's
anointing him king?
You ain't nothin'
But a hound dog a
Been snoopin' round the door
You ain't nothing
But a hound dog
[man] There's a lot of talk nowadays
about cultural appropriation.
Listen, the entire American
experience is cultural appropriation.
But I ain't gonna
feed You no more
[Simon] Look at Hound Dog.
It's an interesting story.
Leiber and Stoller, two
Jewish songwriters
are in love with R&B, black culture,
and they wrote Hound Dog.
They actually wrote it
for Big Mama Thornton.
And she did not have a hit with a
very great version of Hound Dog.
It later went to Elvis Presley, who
loved it, and did his own version.
Well, they said You
was high-classed a
Well, that was just a lie a
Yeah, they said you
were high-classed
Well, that was just a lie a
It became one of his truly
famous and defining hits.
Well, you ain't never
Caught a rabbit 4
You ain't no friend of mine a
[whistling, cheering]
My father was born
in Memphis in 1944,
and there's probably nobody he
hated more than Elvis Presley.
As a black kid seeing a white man
take black music and become famous
and not do anything for black
people was a horrible offense.
I think it's very hard
to express sometimes,
the frustration that black people feel,
having given so much to the culture.
And that great value,
which really helps to define America,
ultimately benefiting others.
[interviewer] What is
your response to people
who say that Elvis stole
black people's music?
They're not listening
to the records.
Yeah, there's Arthur Crudup and there's
Lowell Fulson and other guys he dug,
and he was listening to black radio, but
there's also Blue Moon of Kentucky,
there's Bill Monroe,
there's Hank Williams.
I mean, you can hear it all.
This guy was on a fucking journey
that we all need to be on.
Why do you care so much about
rescuing Elvis Presley from the...
From the clear charge that he
was a racial appropriator?
You are desperate
to rescue this man.
My conversation never was just, This
white dude stole black music.
I think Sam Phillips
was a business guy
who tried to sell those
records with black folks,
could not get them across.
Found a guy, you know, that's able to
sell a black sound with a white face.
He knew what to sell to America.
[interviewer] Is that in
and of itself a problem?
No, I don't think so.
I think culture is culture.
Culture's to be shared.
You know, you see a black
person playing classical piano,
you can't say, you know, because
he doesn't have German roots,
you know, that he can't play that
classical piano good as anybody else.
If a person is able to do
the twisted stanky leg,
and it happens to be Justin
Timberlake, I think it's cool.
I always felt that way.
Well, shit, the Beastie Boys brought
Public Enemy in so, I mean, damn.
Ms Ordinary Americans, they're
the ones who get laid off first.
[host 2] More Americans than ever are
dealing with earning minimum wage or less.
[host 3] Businessman Donald Trump has
declared he is running for president.
[host 4] This didn't just
materialize over night.
Is this the America
you know and love?
Heading down to Nashville
With my uke by my side
One hundred dollars
In my boot now
[Marcus] There was a
moment when it broke.
When Elvis saw a bigger stage. When
he knew he wasn't going to go back.
Johnny, June, and Jesus a
[Guralnick] He didn't want
to remain a regional star.
He didn't want to
remain just a singer.
He wanted to conquer the world.
Johnny, June, and Jesus
And I'm about to
Make my stand
was Howdy, friends.
Welcome to the capital of country
music throughout the world!
Let her go, boys!
[acoustic guitar intro]
Old king is gone But
he's not forgotten
This is the story
Of Johnny Rotten
Oh. man.
Mmm.
[sniffling]
[sobs]
[sobbing]
Oh, shit.
Sorry. [groans]
[interviewer] Was it
something I said?
No, it was just sitting in this
car, and just getting the whole...
Getting a sense, you know.
Just how... Just how trapped he
was, you know? Just how trapped.
He was just a poor mama's
boy from Mississippi.
And then, you know, he got
caught up with a carnival guy.
[Marcus] Enter the Colonel. Here's
this guy, the ultimate carny barker.
Come on in, come on in. You're gonna
see things you've never seen before.
Promises Elvis the world.
If you turn your life over to
me, I'm gonna make you a star.
This is the temptation
of Christ by the devil.
I don't know anything about
getting bookings, or...
Let me worry about
the business end.
[Marcus] Elvis makes
that Faustian bargain.
And the Colonel,
he did all that.
I made a contract for us. We split
everything right down the middle.
He was the first 50-percent
manager I've ever heard of.
He took 50 percent
instead of 15.
[interviewer] But who
is Colonel Tom Parker?
[Hawke] I've heard that
that's not his real name.
His name was Andreas van Kuijk.
He was an arrogant,
narcissistic son of a bitch.
I've heard that he
killed somebody.
[man] He was the greatest
promoter of all time.
[Guralnick] Colonel negotiated a deal
whereby RCA paid $35,000 to Sam Phillips.
It was the highest price ever
paid for an individual artist.
Now the wind Don't
have to hurry
Blowin' across my bones
Rollin' up the pastures
Smoothin' out the stones
[Hiatt] Rock and roll just meant the
world to so many of us, you know.
Our narrative as a country is
one of bloodshed and violence
and stolen land and slavery.
And I think the music carried us into
a time of revolutionary changes.
Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na
[radio host] 80 rock and roll 119 a
music for teenagers, you would say?
[Elvis] Rock and roll.
It's/us! a music.
It's a craze, but it's
a very good craze.
[radio host] People have been saying that
it's contributing to juvenile delinquency
[Elvis] / do not agree-Not only because
I do it but because it's untrue.
Well, just take a walk
Down Lonely Street
To Heartbreak Hotel
Where I'll be Where I
get so lonely, baby
[man] When Elvis started
recording here in Nashville,
he made most of his biggest
records right there in Studio B.
You know, like any artist, he
went from an independent label
making raw, rough, and ready records to
a major label making slicker records.
And so the records got slicker
the moment he got here.
Yeah.
But they lost the roll
part of rock and roll.
- What's that part?
- It's the backbeat.
It's the way it swings.
You play fat on two and four.
That's rock and roll.
And then rock is just...
[stroking strings]
But...
- Scared your parents.
- [snickering]
- You might dance with a negro.
- You're scaring my parents, Radney.
[chattering]
[woman] Yeah, I've hardly
ever sat in a Rolls Royce.
I thought he only
drove American cars.
- Should we come around?
- Definitely.
Well, this is the lap of luxury.
The way I see Elvis, you know,
there'd never been anyone who became so
popular so fast at such an early age.
He didn't have anyone to talk
to about what was going on.
He didn't have anything
to compare it to.
He was what, 20?
He missed that whole period
of time when you grow,
and you learn from people your own
age and with your own experiences.
To me, he's almost like
a Greek tragic figure.
Alone in that experience.
Maybe he was the king,
but he was doomed.
Elvis was the first artist to really
be what I'd call cross-branded
into different ways to
reach the consumer.
You turn on the television,
he'd be on a TV show.
You go to the movies,
he'd be in a movie.
You turn on the radio, he'd be
on a Sunday morning gospel show.
I mean, everywhere you turned,
Elvis had a piece of product.
Today, you know, big artists will have
a vodka or they'll have a cologne.
Elvis was pounded into
the public's mind
probably more than
anybody up to that time.
You know, I didn't see him telling
the Colonel to back off either.
Because when money comes, it
changes everything, doesn't it?
He had it all, and he had
more of it than anybody.
The charisma was unbelievable.
The physical beauty
was irresistible.
Isn't he just as big
now as he ever was?
I mean, isn't the
brand expanding?
But at some point
you've got to decide.
[engine rattling]
- [man] The car's making a funny noise.
- There goes the car. [laughs]
[man] I think this
one stopped rolling.
[Gauthier] Kind of perfect
in a way though, isn't it?
[chattering]
[Gauthier] If this car was working great,
it just wouldn't be the same, would it?
- Did you hear a pop before?
- Yeah.
Need more oil or something.
[acoustic guitar intro]
No, the other way!
[woman] Traveling north
Traveling north to find you
Train wheels beating
The wind in my eyes
Don't even know what I'll
find When I get to you
Cell out your name, love
Dan '1' be surprised
[both] It's so many miles and
so long since I've met you
Don't even know what I'll
find When I get to you
But suddenly now I
know where I belong
It's many hundred miles
And it won't be long
What do you think I'm
doing with this movie?
I don't know what the hell
you're doing with this movie.
I got a basic concept, but I don't
know if that's really what it is.
I don't know what you're doing.
I'm not sure you know what you're doing.
That's what's scary.
Some comparison between,
uh, I hate to say fall,
but the rise and decline of Elvis
with the rise and decline of America.
Well, do you think
we're in decline?
No.
I think we're stagnant.
That's all.
You think America's
had better days?
Oh, yeah.
Hey!
Eugene, I grew up with the
great lie of all, you know?
Work hard, you can get ahead.
Work hard, you can get ahead.
But that was a lie.
They lied to everybody.
[Hawke] When my
grandfather was a kid,
America's greatest
export was agriculture.
And when my grandfather died, America's
greatest export was entertainment.
I remember he used to say
that when he was a young man,
our identity was as the great
democratic experiment.
Whenever you mentioned America
you mentioned democracy.
But somehow at the end of his
life when you mentioned America,
people talked about us
like we're capitalists,
like that was our
fundamental identity.
Ms Americans want more data.
[host 2] A lot of Americans
want bigger screens.
[host 3] Most Americans
want more security.
[host 4] Americans want
more public transportation.
[host 5] Americans want more
money in their pockets.
[radio host] Elvis, do you mind my asking
how much money you grossed last year?
[Elvis] About a $1,200,000.
[radio host] And What are some of the
big things you've done with your money?
[Elvis] Like I said earlier,
if hasn't changed me.
It's just I can afford things I
never would have gotten otherwise
if I hadn't gotten lucky
in life, you know?
[Marcus] Nobody who
thinks about Elvis
should forget he was always an
embodiment of the American story.
So, if you picture him
coming to New York,
it's a turning point, not
just in Elvis's life,
but in the life of the country.
[man] And now, ladies
and gentleman,
I'm going to show you the greatest
thing your eyes have ever beheld.
He was a king and a god
in the world he knew.
But now he comes
to civilization.
Ladies and gentlemen, the
eighth wonder of the world!
[shouting]
[car honking]
[roaring]
[announcer] Attention
all stations.
Kong is going West.
He is making for the Empire State Building.
Stand by for further reports.
[automated voice] Welcome
and enjoy the View.
[automated voice translating
in foreign language]
[siren wailing]
[roaring]
0 beautiful, for
spacious skies...
for amber waves of grain.
I think of all those people in
those wagon trains going West.
What, indeed, would they think
if they could be up here now?
Seeing what's been built.
And at the same time,
how much we've lost.
[musical intro]
New York, New York
New York, New York a
It's a wonderful town a
[sailor] I've never been
to New York, personally.
This is probably the
furthest north I've been.
[sailor 2] Yeah, this is literally
just like a foreign port.
- Thank you for your service.
- Thank you for your support.
How are you ladies doing?
[man chattering]
Ms Washington is so far removed from
reality. This is such a complex issue.
[host 2] This all
comes just days
after an unarmed man was shot
and killed by an officer...
[woman chattering]
[patron] Oh! Every
other day, man.
He's a moron!
[laughing]
[man] I mean, Elvis
is about to OD.
This is the... in a nutshell.
Elvis is about to OD.
If Elvis is your metaphor for
America, we're about to OD.
If it's out in the open that
people can just buy a candidacy,
we're on the brink of the
destruction of our democracy.
Imagine if America had been exactly
what people said it was, right?
A country where it didn't matter
whether you from Germany or from
Tanzania, from Russia, or Brazil.
You would be treated the same.
And the content of your character
would define what you are.
But the moment that anybody got off a boat
from Europe or from Asia, anywhere else...
They landed in a place where the
indigenous people had suffered a genocide.
And then they built the infrastructure
of a nation with slavery.
Working your whole life
Wondering where the day went
The subway stays packed like
A multi-cultural slave ship
It's rush hour 2:30 to
8:00, non stopping a
And people coming home after
Corporate sharecropping a
So, I think that the American dream
was always someone's fantasy.
And someone else's
drunken nightmare.
How much is that
doggie In the window? A
[barks]
The one with the
waggly tail 4
How much is that Doggy
in the window? a
[dog barks]
I do hope that
dog Is for sale a
[Schilling] New York in the '503 was
really instrumental in Elvis's career.
Maybe more so than
any other city.
In the '50s, we were still
intimidated by the North.
How much is that Doggy
in the window? a
Ladies and gentleman, Lot Number 9, that
is the Triple Elvis, a Ferus type.
We shall start the bidding
here at $48 million.
Forty-eight million, 50 million!
Fifty-five, 58 million.
Sixty million. And we're off.
[man] Like many country
boys before him,
Elvis came to perform
in New York City.
It was a cold,
chilly alien place
filled with fast talking
businessmen, promoters.
Everybody wanted a piece of him.
In the South, I mean, people are
friendly until they're not.
In New York, you never
know where people stand.
I have 63 on my right!
Sixty-four million.
Give me 65 one of you.
You heard it, ladies
and gentlemen, 65.
Seventy million is bid.
Isabel, try 72.
[laughter]
Seventy-two million, 73 million.
And you're out, you're
definitely out.
At $73 million.
Selling here the Triple
Elvis. Fair warning.
With you, Isabel, yours it
is, sold at $73 million.
[applause]
For a country boy like Elvis,
and in some ways like myself,
New York was like landing
on a distant planet.
Just as it is now, it was the
epicenter of capitalism.
Elvis had to be overwhelmed
with the sense:
Yes, you have talent.
Yes, you're different.
But, boy, it's about the money.
It's about the money.
[Elvis] Pretty bad
publicity lately.
I got quite a bit of bad publicity
because of my actions on the stage.
There's people, regardless of
who you are or what you do,
there's going to be people
that don't like you.
If there wasn't somebody
on my side, I'd be lost.
[laughs]
Hi, I'm Mike Myers.
You're probably asking yourself,
What is Mike Myers doing in
this movie? Let me explain.
So I'm here to represent
the Canadian immigrant
view on America and Elvis.
Okay, welcome to Wayne's
World Party on, Garth.
Party on, Wayne.
[Wayne] New York. Hey,
we're in New York.
I've got a gun. Let's
get to a Broadway show.
You know, growing up in Canada,
it's a wholly different experience.
It's like America and Canada are born
of the same mother, which is Britain,
and you guys left home and became movie
stars, and we stayed home with mother.
I'll be here. I'll
always be here.
[Myers] America is fantastic at
creating a mission statement
that you guys are the
keepers of democracy,
and there's a messianic need to
spread this around the world.
In Canada, it's peace,
order, and good government.
Which is not terribly sexy,
but if you look around the
world, it gets a lot sexier.
Get outta here! Get out!
Out, out!
The mission statement is
about the individual.
It's about power
and powering over.
It's almost like Rome ruled the
world with that phalanx formation
and Britain under the
three-masted ship,
America has ruled the world
with the moving image.
And the projection of
image around the world.
This is one more revolutionary thing
that Colonel Parker conceived of.
He conceived of the idea.
He even wrote it into
the RCA contract
that they would promote Elvis's
exposure on national television.
[host] Elvis Presley is the
fastest rising young singer
in the entertainment
industry today.
We think tonight that he's going to
make television history for you.
- We'd like you to meet him now...
- Mr. Elvis Presley.
[Schilling] His first TV appearance
ever, he walked out on that stage.
He was halfway snarling
and halfway laughing.
He grabbed that microphone like it
was some caveman grabbing his woman
and dragged it across stage.
And the place went crazy.
Well, get out of
That kitchen a
And rattle those
Pots and pans a
[screaming]
Get out of that kitchen a
And rattle those
Pots and pans a
Well, I want my breakfast
'Cause I'm a hungry man a
I think Elvis Presley
drives those girls nuts
by shaking and jumping and
laying all over the stage.
It's kinda crazy.
No, it's just all depends, I
mean, on how you look at it.
If you want to think it's
nasty or sexy, you could,
but to me it's just
so limber and loose.
I mean, it's really marvelous.
Elvis Presley was
a truck driver,
who still can't read music and whose
main appeal appears to be sex.
Rock and roll has got to go.
These programs are not for
the good of the community.
[man] We set up a 20-man committee
to do away with this vulgar,
animalistic, nigger,
rock and roll bop.
[announcer] Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen.
Your Mercury dealer and
your Lincoln dealer
present The Ed Sullivan Show!
[Schilling] Ed
Sullivan said publicly
that he would never have
Elvis on this show.
His show was a family show.
[Marcus] So Elvis goes
on The Steve Allen Show.
[Allen] I've got you a very cute
little hound dog right here.
[Marcus] Where he is
in fact humiliated.
He's forced to dress in a tuxedo
and sing Hound Dog to a dog.
At the same time, what
does Ed Sullivan do?
He devotes the entire show to
John Huston's film of Moby Dick.
[sailor] Thar she blows!
[Marcus] You've got
Gregory Peck coming on.
- Hi, Ed.
- John Huston talking about the challenge
of making Moby Dick.
And so Elvis is going
up against Moby Dick.
And he kills Moby Dick.
[shouting]
[Schilling] And then Sullivan has
to go back to Colonel Parker
and pay dearly.
We've signed Elvis Presley to make
his first appearance on our show.
- [girls screaming]
- [singing]
[Sullivan] Last week
with Elvis Presley,
all of the records in our
history were shattered.
It was the greatest audience
that's ever listened to our show
and perhaps to any show.
I can't figure this
darn thing out.
You know, he just does
this and everybody yells.
[girls screaming]
Baby, it's just you
I'm thinking of A
[cameras clicking]
- You know that's very annoying, don't you?
- Wait. W-Wait.
[Baldwin] This was Elvis's car.
- Is it?
- You like my glasses?
Be careful.
Can we have a selfie? Everybody
has a fucking camera now.
So Elvis was the most perfect-looking
guy that ever lived,
in a visual medium where the
way you look is important.
I mean, the guy had it all.
Rich, famous, adored.
Women everywhere.
Admired and talented.
You could have a
list of 19 things
and the 20th one that's missing
is your Achilles' heel.
Hello, Elvis? You know,
less than two years ago
you were earning $14 a
week as a movie usher.
Today you're the most controversial
name in show business.
Has this sudden notoriety affected
your sleep, your appetite,
or the size of your head?
Well, everything has
happened to me so fast
in the last year and a half.
I'm all mixed up, you know.
I can't keep up with
everything that's happening.
[Rather] He rose to an absolute
height, power, and success.
At that moment he was
at his most vulnerable.
[shouting]
- Left, right, shoulder.
- [soldiers] You got it!
- Left, right, shoulder!
- Hey!
[reporter] Elvis Presley no longer
has that rock and roll beat.
The tempo is hup, two, three,
four for Private Presley,
courtesy of the
Memphis draft board.
[man] When Elvis
joined the military,
it was an affirmation of everything
that I had been taught by my father
about the American dream
and protecting the dream.
- [man] I...
- I, Elvis Presley...
[Wilkerson] It was the cold war,
and the country was dealing with this
new, huge amount of power it's acquired
post World War II.
It is, indeed, the new Rome.
And Elvis becomes the poster child of
what a good American boy should do.
[shouting]
[Schilling] Elvis didn't join the army.
The army came after him.
Believe me,
that was the last place in the world,
at that time, he wanted to go.
[Hawke] When the draft came up,
the Colonel thought it'd be a
great idea to go to the army,
and it would tell everybody that
he was a good American boy.
He started putting on this
act of Private Presley.
It started the public
persona, the trademarking.
[Schilling] He was in boot camp
in Texas when his mother died.
- [officer] One, two, three.
- [soldiers] One!
- [officer] One, two, three.
- [soldiers] Halt!
[Elvis] I've experienced uh,
happiness and loneliness,
and, uh, tragedy,
like losing my mother
while I was in the army.
[Schilling] Between losing his
mother and being drafted,
it was the lowest
point in his life.
[newscaster] The
rock and roll king
is about to embark for foreign
service, 18 months in Germany.
Elvis Presley, Private Presley, soldier
nowadays in Uncle Sam's service.
[Barack Obama] Black,
White, Hispanic, Asian,
Native American, gay, straight,
disabled, and not disabled.
We are and always will be the
United States of America.
[newscaster] The avowed goal of the
Communists is world domination.
By force and subterfuge,
the Soviet Union succeeded
in conquering the
people of Bulgaria,
Romania, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, and Poland.
[John F. Kennedy] For too
long, we have fixed our eyes
on traditional military needs.
[George H.W. Bush] Prior to
ordering our forces into battle,
I instructed our
military commanders...
[Ronald Reagan] In Angola, in
Kampuchea, in almost every continent...
[newscaster] Forty-five hundred American
troops are now deployed in Iraq and Syria.
[Jones] If the United States
of America is not an empire,
then there was never an empire
in the history of humanity.
There's never been a
country that even dreamed
of the level of influence
and power that we have.
The cultural imperialism,
the military imperialism,
the economic imperialism
of the United States
is the global fact
of the last century.
And Elvis Presley is at the center
of the center of all of that.
- Do you ever -
[men] Do you ever
- Do you ever get -
[men] Do you ever get
- Do you ever get one
- Do you ever get one
- Do you ever get one them
- Do you ever get one them
[all] Days
- Identified!
- Fire!
On the way!
[Elvis] You ever get
One of them days?
- Ever get one of them days?
- [men] Yeah!
[Elvis] When nothing is right
From morning till night
You ever get One of
them days, boy? a
- Ever get one of them days?
- [men] Yeah!
- [crowd chattering]
- [woman screams]
- Hello, Elvis!
- Hello. I'm happy to be here.
[Jones] He puts on a military
uniform, he goes overseas,
picks up a guitar, that
goes all around the world.
He'd never performed
outside the United States.
And he's still known on every
continent, to this day.
You can't do that if you
don't have an empire.
[ballad playing
over loudspeakers]
[Elvis] For I can help
[crowd cheering]
Falling in love... a
The Americans wanted to place
army units here in the area
to stop the Russians if
they invade Germany.
And that's the reason why we have
so many American installations
here in the state of Hesse.
[Elvis music playing
over loudspeakers]
There was a lot of German-American
community in the late 19403,
early 19503.
It was a very vital thing and
its changing music, lifestyle.
We just grew up like we'd been
living in the States, many people,
at least half of the inhabitants over
here have been American soldiers.
[accordion music]
[man] We can say The King
has been living here.
[Elvis and children
singing in German]
Oh, whoa! Whoa!
[reporter] Elvis! Over here!
[Schilling] If you look at people's
careers, both music and film,
when you're away from the
public for two years,
you come back, it's over.
[crowd screaming]
[Marcus] But what did
Elvis do in the army?
He got to live in his own house,
with all of his Memphis pals.
He goes out to nightclubs.
Wow.
And this is when, supposedly, he developed
a pill habit by doing guard duty.
Probably what he discovered
was incredible boredom.
The tedium in military
service is awesome.
And it is contrasted, of course,
with moments of stark terror.
You seek things like drugs,
you seek things like suicide
in order to escape from it.
And if Elvis was introduced
to drugs in the ranks,
it does not surprise me.
This is what we do to people
when we make them warriors.
[Schilling] Elvis had
a friend in the army.
This guy knew this young girl whose
father was a colonel in the Air Force,
and Priscilla got to meet
Elvis at a critical point.
The loss of his mother, and he
thought the career was over.
So he was very vulnerable.
And she was somebody he could talk to
because she was young and innocent.
And that was the best thing
that happened to him.
[trumpets playing]
[news caster] The most publicized
soldier since Napoleon,
Elvis Presley, with girlfriend
Priscilla Beaulieu to see him off,
was leaving Frankfurt at the
end of his army service.
So it was farewell to military glory
and to 16-year-old Priscilla.
What fame for that girl, to have been a
friend of the Emperor of Rock and Roll.
[Marcus] He comes back as a
mysterious, unknowable person.
He radiates Americanness.
He radiates conquest.
[applause]
[man] Welcome home, guys!
Welcome home!
[crowd cheering]
[man] USA! USA!
[all screaming]
[reporter] Now to get down to
the serious side of it, Elvis,
can you give us some
of your future plans?
Well, the first thing I have
to do is to cut some records.
And then after that I have the
television show with, uh...
with Frank Sinatra.
[audience] We want Elvis!
[women screaming] We want Elvis!
Hmm.
[Schilling] When I saw Elvis
walk on The Frank Sinatra Show,
he was a different Elvis
than when I said good-bye to him
when he was going to the army.
It's very nice
To go travelin'
But if is also
nice 70 come home
Where the heck are
the sideburns?
Well, I'll be a hound dog a
And that's the
opening Friends 4
[reporter] Do you have any
advice for the boys your age
who are now going to have to put in a
certain amount of duty in the service?
The only thing I can say
is to play it straight,
get the people on your side,
let 'em know you're trying,
you... you... as the army would
say, you've got it made.
If you're going to try
to be an individual
or try to be different, you're going
to go through two years of...
misery. [laughs]
[Schilling] He had gone
from this underground rebel
to this accepted major star.
I think Elvis left the city as James Dean
and he came back somewhat as John Wayne.
Women 4 Vietnam... 4
Vietnam is a country which is divided via
civil war which has gone on for ten years.
The dissatisfaction
of many Negroes...
[Wilkerson] To me, Elvis was captured
the same way I was captured:
by the aura of the dream,
by the myth of the dream.
The dream has never been what we,
in our history books, say it is.
The dream has
always been a myth.
What I did was go to a war with
50,000-plus Americans dying
and two and a half million
Vietnamese dying.
And I came to see that it has
nothing to do with democracy
and the spreading thereof,
and everything to do with
commercial interests
and an imperial move
by the United States.
Elvis, Where are you
When I need you most?
White comp sequins... a
[Jones] Let's not forget Elvis
Presley is living in the '608
right alongside the
black power movement,
right alongside a huge revolt of the very
people whose culture he was inspired by,
and I would say stole.
You didn't see Elvis in the middle
of no civil rights marches, did you?
[Eugene] Say that again.
I said, you did not see Elvis in the
middle of no civil rights marches.
He didn't side with Harry
Belafonte, did he?
[Jones] But now, think about
the alternative Elvis.
He goes to the military,
he sees a bunch of stuff.
Imagine him coming home and
marching with Dr. King.
He had peers and contemporaries
who made braver choices.
Marlon Brando marched
with Dr. King.
Jane Fonda met with
the Black Panthers.
[reporter] Mr. Presley, on
the subject of the service,
what is your opinion
of war protestors,
and would you, today,
refuse to be drafted?
[Elvis] Honey, I just tend to keep my own
personal views about that to myself.
Because I'm just an entertainer
and I'd rather not say.
[reporter] Do you think other entertainers
should keep their views to themselves too?
[Elvis] No. I can't
even say that.
[Jones] I don't give Elvis Presley a pass
because I know how much power he had,
and I know what he could
have done with that power.
Sports Former world heavyweight
champion Cassius Clay
refused to take the oath of
induction into the army.
The black, Muslim fighter who
is also known as Muhammad Ali
was immediately stripped of his title
by the World Boxing Association.
The iconic figures of service
in the military by celebrities
are Elvis Presley
and Muhammad Ali.
My conscience won't let me go shoot
my brother or some darker people
or some poor, hungry people in the
mud for big, powerful America.
And shoot them for what?
They never called me nigger.
How can I shoot them poor people?
Just take me to jail.
[Wilkerson] Ali becomes the poster
child for the other side of the coin.
I believe in this country, but I don't
think this country is perfect by any means
and I'm going to stay
here and suffer for that.
I'm going to do my jail time.
You my enemy. My enemy
is the white people,
not Viet Congs or
Chinese or Japanese.
You my opposer when
I want freedom.
You my opposer when
I want justice.
And one has to ask
the question now,
retrospectively, of course,
who was the wiser individual?
Who more understood what was
happening to the republic?
[Bernie Sanders] How can it be
that we have trillions of dollars
to spend on a war in Iraq,
but we apparently
don't have the money
to rebuild the crumbling
inner cities of America?
[Rachel Maddow] This is a Bernie
Sanders rally... 27, 000 people.
Mr. Trump, you've criticized Secretary
Clinton for voting for the Iraq War,
but you yourself
supported the war.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
You're being very mean to me
tonight, Coltrane, very mean to me.
[car door slams]
Hold on a second. All right,
we're taking a little poll.
Donald Trump!
Nobody?
Hillary Clinton!
[crowd cheers]
[Baldwin] Very mild.
Bernie Sanders.
- [men] Yeah!
- Beavis and Butt-Head over here.
[crowd laughs]
People say, Let's make
America great again.
And I say, Well, America is great
when America does great things.
And we have not been doing a
lot of great things lately.
America has been doing
a lot of bad things.
It's not about Declarations of
Independence and Thomas Jefferson.
Because what is the United States now,
really, but a standard of living?
[newscaster] Hillary Clinton
reportedly attracting more money
than any other candidate...
[newscaster 2] Trump is worth
just under $ 9 billion.
You know, we angst
about this now,
but I don't know when this film is
going to come out, or what have you,
but, I mean, Trump's
not going to win.
I mean, Trump is
not going to win.
[Trump's voice] Excuse me.
Excuse me.
Look into my crystal ball.
Many surprises await you in the
future when I'm president.
I'm so glad I finally solved the
issue of Obama's birth certificate.
Because when I'm president,
all my attention is needed
for an issue of much
greater national concern.
Is Elvis Presley still alive?
We have a significant problem as a
democracy with money in politics.
Once upon a time, the
world regarded America
as an amazing experiment
in self-government.
To have a country that thought it could
govern itself was all revolutionary.
The assumption was,
it would fail.
That it would be riven by
dissension and corruption.
People assumed that
the United States
would have to have a king and
a strong man would come in.
[men shouting, indistinct]
The fact that we are a capitalist society
where you use money to buy things,
it is logical that you would
want to use that money
to protect what you have
by having people in office
who will write laws that
benefit your company,
hurt your competitors,
benefit your industry,
and that's, in fact, what
does happen of course.
- [man] You get up and bowl about America...
- [cash register dings]
And democracy.
There is no America.
There is no democracy.
It's a rich man's world a
[man] We no longer live in a
world of nations and ideologies.
The world is a college
of corporations.
The world is a business.
And I have chosen you
to preach this evangel.
I spend my day preppin'
America overseas
Pensions for the workers?
Nigga, please
Embezzlement etiquette
Private settlement 4
I'm better With
confederate rhetoric
From my mansion in Connecticut
Foreclose, evict hoes out of tenement:
I twist words Like a
speech impediment a
I hope you got
Good credit, bitch
If not, better get A
new job with benefits a
While I play golf with niggas
I get cheddar with, new money
Buys brand new carats
My old money bought Your
great grandparents a
You got grills in your
mouth I ain't mad at ya
I own every gold mine
In South Africa a
Thanks, baby You
made me a billion a
Plus I own a building for each
Of my children's children A
That's the shit snort coke in the
whip Miss USA suckin' my dick
Yeah, What! Fuck the law Cause
real jail 129 for suckers
I go to country club prison
You dumb motherfuckers a
I am the one percent
Fucking bitch, yeah
You know my CEO Corporate
steeze, please
Overthrow governments
overseas In a breeze a
Politicians in my pockets
For a few hundred G's A
So if I'm ever in court My
assets will never freeze a
[protesters] Sandra Bland! Michael Brown!
Shut the whole system down!
Sandra Bland! Michael Brown!
Shut the whole system down!
Sandra Bland! Michael Brown!
[fades out]
- [man] I felt it under the transmission.
- [man 2] Yeah, right here.
Eugene, it was between the passenger
and the driver on the front seat.
[man] This is where your
feet are right here.
[man 2] What do I do?
Just stand right here?
- Start the car.
- Start the car?
[man 3] Don't take
off the brake!
[engine starts]
Why didn't you get one
of his Cadillacs?
That would have been poetic.
It's an American-made car.
[playing blues on
acoustic guitar]
I think it's a bad metaphor.
I think the better metaphor
is one of his Cadillacs.
The ones he gave away. You know,
we were making Cadillacs.
- Yes...
- We were driving Cadillacs.
- The future was ours.
- Yeah, I know.
We were masters of
our own universe.
This is sort of...
This is a reach.
This is... He got completely outside
of himself. This is the Vegas.
- Yeah.
- Okay, all right.
[classical music playing]
Pardon me, would you
have any Grey Poupon?
But of course.
I did think it was weird
that Elvis had 3 Rolls Royce
which is very English, very
royal, not terribly American.
- [classical music playing]
- Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?
[laughing]
America made such a point
of not having a king.
I never understood Burger King,
Muffler King, Elvis the King.
I never understood why Bruce
Springsteen was The Boss.
I thought, Don't
we hate the boss?
[man] Consumers said they
would not buy cars...
[woman] GM CEO could not
fully answer that question,
but insisted 25 billion
will keep them afloat.
[man] You could work at General Motors,
and if you didn't like General Motors,
you could walk across the
street and get a job at Ford.
If you didn't like Ford,
you could walk out of Ford
and go over to Chrysler
and get a job.
I got laid off in 2011.
I tried searching for other jobs,
but no call backs, no nothing.
[Schilling] When I think
of going west with Elvis,
I think of Route 66.
West Memphis, Arkansas,
Oklahoma City,
Flagstaff, Arizona...
Up the snowy spires a
Where the air Is
thin as glass 4
Once a year The
cold mists clear a
You can see
inside the earth a
[Marcus] Anytime you
go on Route 66,
whether you're going east
or you're going west,
it's overwhelming 'cause it's
just so big and it's so flat.
And the country
looks uninhabited.
It looks empty. It looks like it's
still waiting to be discovered.
Mast and wheel Of
polished brass a
[Schilling] Those were
times on those trips
where he really talked about
important things in his life.
[Elvis] / read a lot of
philosophy, some poetry.
Have you ever heard of a
book called Leaves of Gold?
It's different men's philosophy on
life, death and everything else.
I set velocitations
[Marcus] This country is so
much bigger than we thought.
Its story is so much more complex
and deep than we thought.
Set careful calibrations
[announcer chattering, muffled]
Ever inward ever in
The United States of America!
I sailed deep
Into the hollows a
Deep inside the earth
[Jones] The politics of today are
politics of grief and nostalgia
and lament for something that
seems to be slipping away.
This is an empire in decline.
[woman] Everyone I know, they're stuck in
like restaurant jobs and stuff like that.
It's not really like a
good job, a career.
Something that they love, they just do
it because they have no other choice.
Back in the day, minimum wage was
what, $2 an hour, $2.15 an hour?
Yet, you would get a soda pop
at that time for 10 cents.
Nowadays, minimum wage
is $7.50 an hour.
Yet, you go and get a soda for
$2 in a soda pop machine.
So, if that doesn't give you
a comparison, what does?
[Elvis] You never stood
in that man's shoes,
or saw things through his eyes.
Or stood and watched with helpless
hands, while the heart inside you dies.
80 help your brother along the
way, no matter where he starts.
For the same God that
made you, made him too.
These men with broken hearts.
I'd like to sing a song
along the same line.
['603 rock music playing]
[Elvis] If I could be
you If you could be me
For just one hour a
If we could find a way to get
inside Each other's mind a
Oh ho, walk a
mile In my shoes
Walk a mile in my shoes 4
Yeah, before you abuse
Criticize and accuse a
Just walk a mile
in my shoes 4
Now you may find Hollywood
to be a lonely town.
You're new here and good
friends are hard to find.
Just as in any other industry.
And I want you to know that you may feel
free to regard my home as your own.
[group vocalizing]
Well, it's been building
up inside of me
For, oh, I don't
know How long
[Hawke] Elvis the actor.
It's interesting that right when he
was changing the world with music,
some part of him
wanted to be an actor.
I mean, nobody wanted to hear anybody
else play more in the world.
And what's this guy start doing?
He starts acting in movies.
Why don't you stick
to what you know?
- You mean stay where I belong?
- You might say that, yes.
Well, thanks for the advice. I hope
you won't mind if I don't take it.
Don't worry, baby
[Schilling] Elvis
loved Hollywood.
He liked being the star. He
liked being Elvis Presley.
Don't worry, baby
- Don't worry, baby
Ooh ooh
Anybody ever tell you
you're very handsome?
Only girls.
When I first started dating Elvis,
there was a little bit of trepidation.
This is Elvis Presley, you know, and
he has dated movie stars and models.
There were moments when
I was even awestruck
by the magnitude of who he was, his
fame, and how he was idolized.
[man] So right now
we're in Hollywood.
We're about to go see the legendary
man himself known as The King.
We're about to see his star.
It's over here.
Absolutely, I've seen
the celebrities.
Katy Perry, Quentin Tarantino.
The Kardashians
live in that area.
Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis.
I can go on forever.
Cameron Diaz, Jack Black.
I've seen Johnny Depp, Billy
Zane, big names like that.
God, it's so endless.
[man 2] Next on your
left, across the street,
you will see the
mansion of Jack Benny.
[man 1] You'll mainly probably
see them if you're lucky enough
to drive by as their gates are opening
and you look into their windshield.
[man on bus] Hi, Ashton!
- [man] Think about driving the least.
- Okay.
Let's do it.
- Hey, guys.
- [woman on bus] Oh, hi!
- [man on bus] Say hello to Mila!
- [woman on bus] Love you!
[tourists shouting, indistinct]
[Kutcher] I never really
wanted to be famous.
It wasn't like something that
was like on my sheet of things
that I want to
accomplish in my life.
I wanted to be an actor
because I like acting.
Fame came with that. It was fairly
awesome for a good portion of time.
[crowd shouting, indistinct]
You look at Elvis, was anybody ready to
be in a world that everyone's watching?
[woman] This is America,
not the 80 Wet Union!
[man 1] The US is entering its
own version of the Dark Ages.
[man 2] This is the
time for real Wisdom.
[riders screaming]
[Fraser] I think what happens
when you rise very quickly
to a position of enormous,
overwhelming power
is that you don't
know how to use it.
And in fact, it can use you.
I think something similar
happened to Elvis in the sense
that he became the creature of
other forces in American life.
Corporate forces, the
forces of popular culture.
Making all of us worshippers of
things not worth worshipping.
Around here, there's just one
reason the show must go on:
the gross.
That's why I'm here.
[Hawke] So the Colonel signs
him up to this, at the time,
the biggest movie contract
in the history of movies.
And everybody thinks that's a good
thing, that he signed the biggest deal.
Well, what it did, is it totally
sabotaged him as an actual performer.
Really, I give credit
where credit is due.
When Elvis was young, he was
a bad motherfucker, boy.
Elvis was bad.
Singing his ass off.
He sang so good they let him do movies.
He couldn't act.
[audience laughing]
They said Fuck it, let him
sing all his dialogue.
You get the sandpaper
You get the pails
You get the hammer, bah
You get the nails
You don't even have
to be able to talk.
Just sing and get famous.
[Chuck D] Elvis got absorbed
by the rules of Hollywood.
A very powerful structure that will not
bend to anything from the outside.
Hollywood is... [grunts]
You put out movie
posters, right?
Are they horizontal or vertical?
- [man] Vertical.
- All the time?
- Yes.
- Why?
To fit in the little glass
box outside the theater.
Exactly.
So all that
outside-the-box shit...
[acoustic blues music playing]
Oh, I went to the doctor 4
And I said, Doctor, please
What do you do When
your true love leaves?
He said, The hardest thing
In the world to do...
I got a feeling I'm
heading for disaster.
...Is to find somebody
Believes in you
[Marcus] He becomes, essentially,
an employee in his own factory.
Don't make a sound... a
He does what he's told over
and over and over again.
Is that the beginning and the
end of the world for you?
Is there no emotion left in
you but the lust for money?
And begins to curdle.
[Hawke] So, you understand,
this is Elvis Presley.
It's like he's put on the bench doing
these shit-ass movies for like ten years.
Their lives are not worth that.
Then I went to the whale and I
said Killer whale, please 4
[Elvis shouts, indistinct]
What do you do When your
true love leaves? a
He said, I only have
One trick up my sleeve 4
I sing it over and over
Till she come back to me
Elvis Presley... Right
beside the Beatles.
[girls screaming]
[reporter] What do you
think of the comment
that you're nothing but a bunch
of British Elvis Presleys?
It's not true! It's not true!
[crowd laughing]
I'm... I'm an Elvis
Fan, you know.
You know, you went to see those movies
when we were still in Liverpool.
And you'd see everybody
waiting to see him, right?
And I'd be waiting there too.
And they'd all scream when
he came on the screen.
So we thought,
That's a good job.
I believe in yesterday
When the Beatles came to
California to visit Elvis...
Suddenly
he was a '50s relic.
I'm not half the
man I used to be
What Elvis had meant to John Lennon as a
young man was he lit the world on fire.
[Lennon] Poor old Elvis.
Somebody said today he sounds like
Bing Crosby now, and he does.
[crowd laughing]
Here are the Beatles!
I'm reminded of a famous story
about Colonel Parker and Elvis.
That at the height of Elvis's popularity,
he was doing these movies at Paramount.
And there were so many girls at the gate,
that the Colonel put a blanket over Elvis
so that the girls wouldn't see him and
go crazy, and they'd let the car in.
But then when the Beatles came,
it was all Beatles all the time,
Elvis was still doing movies at Paramount,
but there weren't any girls there.
And the Colonel still put
a blanket over Elvis,
so that Elvis wouldn't see
that there was no girls there.
When I heard that story, it really
did open my heart to Elvis.
He went from a comic
figure to a tragic figure.
[Kutcher] I think people
get trapped in fame.
Yeah, it's been
good for my life.
It's also been bad for my life.
You know, started to feel,
at a certain point,
where... my fame was
outstripping my talent.
Based on what I've
done professionally,
I should not be getting
this much attention.
- [man in van] Love you, Ashton!
- [tourists] We love you!
I think in some people's case, they reach
a point in fame that is so large...
that they have to be able to afford a
kind of living to protect themselves
from the very fame that
they've created, or go away.
[Elvis] I walk along
A thin line, darling
- Darling - Dark
shadows follow me
[Schilling] You know, Elvis, at a point,
thought about going into a religious life.
The time when he was
unhappy with the movies,
he actually wanted to go in and
have us live in a commune,
and just kind of do
a religious thing.
[man] I am submerged
in eternal light.
[congregants] I am submerged
in eternal light.
[Marcus] LA has been a place of crackpot
religions since at least the 1880s
Scientology is just one
more version of the cults
offering transcendence, making you
the being God wanted you to be.
Making you God.
The age of reality a
[man] A few miles from
where we are right now,
Elvis had the most dynamic
experience of his life.
We were driving through the Arizona
desert on the old Route 66.
And Elvis was just transfixed
looking at the clouds.
Elvis, all of the sudden, said,
Look! What the hell is Joseph
Stalin's face doing in that cloud?
It was unmistakable
Joseph Stalin.
The eyebrows and the
mustache and that hairline.
He pulled the bus over. He
said, Larry, follow me!
We run into the desert and Elvis
turns around, and he said,
A lightning bolt came out of
that cloud and pierced my body.
And now, Larry, I don't
believe in God anymore.
I don't have to. Now I know.
God is love.
Elvis said, That's it, man.
I'm done. I'm quitting
show business.
How could I go back and make one
of those teenybopper movies
that don't mean a damn thing?
I've gotta do something
meaningful in my life.
[Schilling] When I went to
work for Elvis in the '60s,
I felt I missed out on
all of the excitement.
The rock and roll
part, if you will.
Because we were
doing the movies.
But then there was the
'68 comeback special.
Elvis hated that word,
the comeback.
He said, Look, ain't no comeback
because I ain't been nowhere.
I've been making movies. So I just wanted
to show them I could still do it.
He said he was a little nervous
because he didn't want to flop.
[Marcus] Colonel Tom
wants 25 Christmas songs
because it's a
Christmas special.
And Elvis actually says no.
[man] Singer, maker of the world's
finest sewing machines, presents:
ELVIS, Starring Elvis Presley.
In his first personal performance
on TV in nearly 10 years.
[crowd applauding]
[rock and roll playing]
Warden threw a party
In the county jail
The prison band was there
And they began to wail a
He burnt the house down. It was the
most rockin' thing you'd ever seen.
But the best part of the whole thing
was he and the original band.
That's all right, mama a
Just any way you do
That's all right 5'
And just played all those Sun Record hits.
I got chill bumps thinking about it.
I was like, That's rock and roll!
That's it! That's the Elvis I like!
Well, since my baby left me I
found a new place to dwell
This is a man breaking
out of a prison.
Well, bless my soul
What's wrong with me? a
I'm itchin' like a
man On a fuzzy tree
[Sante] He's got this full
black leather outfit.
He's in control of his body,
he's in control of his voice.
He's direct, he's
relaxed, he's funny even.
I was... a
[laughs]
Hold it, hold it, man.
Ho! Ho! Hold it.
I got my lip hung
on this microphone.
[audience laughing]
You remember that, don't ya?
You know that...
Did 29 pictures like that, baby.
And at one point, he just lifts up the
microphone stand. He lifts it up.
And he holds it like a harpoon.
And he says Moby Dick.
Moby Dick!
[Marcus] I thought, My
God, he's Captain Ahab.
He's saying, I'm
going for it all.
It's just one of
these epiphanies.
Where thousands of meanings
come crashing down all at once.
He is a living metaphor for any picture
of America you might want to draw.
That's the American fantasy.
Not untold riches. Not
power over other people.
Life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
I know you'll have me a
And I know I'll have me too 5
4 Don't be cruel a
- I Ah ah ah a
To a heart that's true a
I don't want no other love a
Baby, it's just you
I'm thinking of A
[Eugene] It looks to the world like in the
comeback special, there you are again.
- Yeah for that one night.
- [man] Yeah.
- That's all.
- [man] That's it?
- That's it...
- [man] That was it.
I said, Elvis, you're back, man.
You're back.
He said, Yeah. And he said,
And I'm going to stay back too.
He said, I ain't gonna make
no crappy movies for a while.
The '68 special was so hot with great
ratings, that Vegas started calling.
[loud explosions]
[Myers] They did so many
nuclear testings under Vegas,
that in many ways, Vegas is like a
radioactive mutation of capitalism.
[man] Most people don't understand Las
Vegas. They understand it backward.
They think it's a city of fantasy and
deceit when, in fact, it is probably
the most pure and honest expression of
the prevailing values of our society.
[acoustic blues playing]
[man] And where the only thing
that counts is the money.
Never know How
much I love ya
Never know how much I care a
When you put Your
arms around me
I get a fever That's
so hard to bear
You give me fever 4
When you kiss me a
Fever when you
hold me tight 4
Fever 4
In the morning a
Fever all through the night a
Heather, go see if she's
got any better wine.
- Want me to tell you a story?
- [Eugene] Please.
Casino. They filmed it here.
True story.
I know where the bodies are
buried, some of them anyway.
[Eugene] How come?
Because I'm Jewish. I move
in the right circles.
I kiss the right ass.
Elvis came into town in 1969.
In those days, all the
characters hung around here.
Presidents, ex-presidents,
stars, the boys.
They're all friends of mine.
And I take good care of them.
[man] If you look at vintage Las Vegas,
from the Rat Pack to Elvis Presley,
the casino was the king.
It's a place that the mob staked
out as a playground for adults.
It was sin city.
The takeover of Las Vegas
from being owned by the mob
to being owned by the corporations
marked a radical turning point.
The Hilton International was the beachhead
of corporate control of Las Vegas.
And Elvis was a very
conscious choice
to clean up the image because he's
about as American as apple pie.
Here's hoping you have a very successful
opening and that you break both legs.
[men laughing]
Signed Tom Jones.
[Cooper] I can only imagine
the deleterious effects
that this city had
on Elvis Presley.
You could rent anything here.
It's all you can eat.
[newscaster] Last year
alone, this hotel had some
seven million pounds
of leftover food.
That's right. Pig slop. Made
from sushi and roast beef.
[Klein] Money, money, money.
That was it.
Money, money, money.
He got big money in Vegas
because of the Colonel.
Colonel lost a lot of money gambling.
Millions.
Elvis sang for it.
Bring your cameras over here.
I like to live up to my
reputation of being a nice guy.
This is it, folks.
[Hawke] The story is, after
the '68 comeback special,
Elvis is screaming he
wants to go on tour.
And the Colonel's like,
Let's jut play Vegas.
I'll make the world
come to you, Elvis.
You don't have to
go to the world.
Well, why does the
Colonel want to do this?
Because he's a lying sack
of shit is my opinion.
[Klein] See, the Colonel was
not an American citizen.
We found out later that he
wouldn't take Elvis overseas
because if he did, he'd
have to have a passport.
I'd like to go to Europe. I'd like
to go to Japan and all those places.
I've never been out of this
country except in the service.
[Schilling] I think if you
look at the first year or two,
Elvis was a fan of Vegas.
But as the years went by...
[acoustic blues playing]
[no audible dialogue]
[Schilling] You know, we
were there two shows a day,
40 days at a time.
[Schilling] You know, it's easy to get
prescriptions for sleeping pills.
It's 4:00 in the morning
And I'm turning in my bed I'
[Schilling] You get immune to one
thing, you get something stronger.
And it's just a vicious cycle.
You know, you just drop
a pill and drop a pill,
and then you double it,
and you triple it.
5:00 in the morning And
I'm wishing it was 1:00 a
Celebrity is the industrial
disease of creativity.
And it's toxic. And then
when you get to Vegas,
it's the condensed soup version of
any idea that human beings have had.
It's the sludge
of making things.
[clearing throat]
Excuse me. I can't take
this fresh air, man.
I'm used to the back...
The garbage can at the
International Hotel, man.
[crowd laughs]
If I can't smell some garbage, I don't
feel at home, man. I'll tell ya.
[woman] We were awake all night
and asleep during the day.
We lived like vampires.
[Elvis] Four hours 3 might.
Something like that,
if I'm lucky.
Tough to relax.
Just walk around, swallow and...
[group laughs]
[Schilling] I knew
he had a problem.
But I never looked
at him as an addict.
[acoustic blues playing]
[Glusman] The insecurity of being
an entertainer is the worst.
You go on the stage, you're in dream land.
Then you crash.
[man] Down a very deep hole info a
strange place called wonder/and.
[Elvis] / get things
in my mind and /, uh,
I get a little confused and a
little, about half mad, you know.
You get in moods sometimes
Where you're very happy,
you get in moods where
you're very sad...
[beep]
[Elvis] Where everything
looks dark and gloomy
and it looks like there's
nothing for you in life.
I guess everybody
feels that way.
I ask him, What do you think
your biggest flaw is?
And he said, I'll only say this once, and
I'll probably never admit to it again,
but I recognize that
I'm self-destructive.
[Klein] It's like one of my relatives
was dying right in front of my eyes.
But I didn't know what to do.
[Elvis] From three different sources
I heard I was strung out on heroin.
It was just prescription
medication,
but you're an addict just
like a street addict
if you're addicted Percocet
and Dilaudid and Demerol.
In his mind, he was
able to rationalize it.
[Richard Nixon] America's public enemy
number one, in the United States,
is drug abuse.
Didn't Elvis want to be the
head of the FBI or something?
[Eugene] He wanted
to be the Drug Czar.
Might that go into the
irony hall of fame?
Yeah, Elvis, that'd
be a great idea.
Go talk to Nixon
to run the DEA.
[Elvis] Rumors that you
hear about me are trash.
I'm an eighth-degree
black belt in karate.
I am a federal narcotics agent.
They don't give you that
if you're strung out,
if you're... [mumbles,
indistinct]
[audience laughing, cheering]
Thank you very much, ladies
and gentlemen, thank you.
Pure products of America go crazy,
said William Carlos Williams.
[Jones] That's where
we are in America.
That's basically where we
are in the movie, okay?
We're in the second act where
it's just all gone to hell.
Let's deregulate the banks.
The bankers are oppressed.
[laughing] What could possibly go
wrong if we deregulate Wall Street?
These towers got knocked down.
Let's go start a bunch of
wars in the Middle East.
Somebody's using crack cocaine.
Build prisons from
coast to coast.
I mean, just ridiculous failure
after ridiculous failure.
[newscaster] There's
a new report out.
Gender pay gap won't close
for another 170 years.
[man] America ls going to be
guided by Christian values.
[woman] Have you ever taken the time
to talk to somebody Who ls homeless?
[man 2] How should we
handle immigration?
[woman 2] The legislators
are not doing the/Hobs.
The fact is, it's a disaster of the
first order on the world stage
for seven billion people to see,
and there's no escaping that.
[newscaster] This election is gonna
be Who can get their supporters
to come out and vote.
[newscaster 2] Trump got his final
digs in on Hillary Clinton.
[newscaster 3] Presidential candidates
are making their final pitch to voters.
[Hillary Clinton] They marched for
civil rights and voting rights
for workers' rights and women's
rights, for LGBT rights...
[audience cheering]
[Trump] What do you have to
lose by flying something new?
[man] And here we go.
[man 2] It took us a long time to get
here, but it is the final countdown.
[newscaster] Big voter
turnout is expected.
I'm a Southern belle.
I voted for Trump.
[man] This is a fuming point.
It's going to change the
course of this country.
I want my daughter to grow up
seeing a woman lead our country.
- I'm not voting.
- [woman] And that's a perspective...
If the Democrats lose, you are
so fucked, you have no idea.
[newscaster] Pennsylvania
goes to Donald Trump.
[woman] This is one of the
most stunning results...
[man] No one saw it coming.
[man] From Pennsylvania...
Gets Trump to 260.
[newscaster] We can now project
the Winner of the presidential...
[newscaster 2] The son
of 3 Queens millionaire.
[newscaster 3] The
president-elect
of the United States of
America, Donald Trump.
[newscaster] And here we go.
[man] Go right ahead, sweetheart.
That's it.
Right around that.
How are you? Hi.
[man] And in one second,
we'll be ready to roll.
- Isn't she pretty?
- [man] She's pretty.
She's beautiful.
- Monique.
- Isn't she pretty?
- Hi, Monique.
- Hi.
This is a Medallion of
Life for you, Elvis,
from the Sioux... from
the Sioux Nation.
Oh, that's lovely.
Thank you, sweetie.
Thank you.
The look that he gave my daughter
Monie was such a serene look.
[Monique] All I remember when
I met him, he kept saying,
Who's this beautiful little Indian girl?
Isn't she beautiful?
- It, like, touched his heart.
- Yeah.
[Monique] This is sacred
land that we're living on.
[Sharon] It's our land.
It seemed like he just
knew he was going home.
And just that quick it was over.
They hustled him out.
He put his head up and took a deep breath,
and then he turned and he was gone.
[crowd cheering]
[singers vocalizing]
I wonder if you're
lonesome tonight.
You know someone said
the world's a stage and
each of us play a part.
[mumbles, indistinct]
Plus tax.
You read your lines so Le...
cleverly. [laughs]
I saw the CBS special and
I called the Colonel.
And I said,
How could you let him be
filmed looking like that?
[Thompson] I just remember standing
and looking at the television set
and thinking, Oh, my God,
this is not even the same man
that I said good-bye
to eight months ago.
It was horrifying
to me to watch.
[crowd cheering]
[Thompson] But the power that he had
on Unchained Melody that night
was just gut wrenching.
This is a song that
I just recorded.
And, uh, it's an old song
called Unchained Melody.
And I'd like to play the piano
so it'll take just a second.
[playing piano]
[man] That song brings him pain for
some reason. I don't know why it does.
But it was just...
It was like it was the greatest
performance he'd ever done.
[dog barks]
[woman] You put the
butter in the skillet
and do it like you do a
grilled cheese sandwich.
When he was home, I would
fix his breakfast.
That day, I was gonna
make him some bacon...
an egg omelet, some coffee.
[barks]
But when she called
down, she was crying,
saying something
bad has happened.
So, I went upstairs.
When I saw him on the
floor in the bathroom,
one of the body
guards was there.
He was standing looking at me, and I
went to screamin' and just hollerin'.
Don't look at me. Do something.
Don't look at me. Do something.
[Hawke] Elvis, at every
turn, picked money.
Should I stay at Sun Records
or should I go to RCA?
Well, there's more
money at RCA.
Should I take this big
giant movie contract
even though I don't have
any creative control?
Well, it's the biggest movie
deal ever, let's take it.
Should I go on tour
like I want to?
Or should I take the biggest offer
a live performer's ever had?
Which is what he got in Vegas.
Every chance, he
prioritized money.
And where did it put him?
Dead and fat on
the toilet at 42.
[Baldwin] You know, Ronald Reagan was
really the person that lit this fuse.
Ronald Reagan said, Would you
like to have a new swimming pool?
Or will children be able
to get testing for AIDS?
And what Reagan
basically said was...
You want the swimming
pool, don't you?
And you should have
the swimming pool.
[Schilling] You can take
lessons from a lot of things.
We are vulnerable, our
heroes are vulnerable,
our country is vulnerable.
[Hiatt] Addiction leaves
a spiritual void.
As a nation, we seem to be addicted
to so many things, you know.
I think man's inhumanity
to man went wrong.
We have to make sure that art and culture
stays honest and true as much as possible.
It can protect human
beings from dogma,
and brings human beings
together for our similarites
and knocks aside
the differences.
That's why, you know,
you make films.
We make music. We do art.
And those are the three things that
governments always want to control.
But they're too slippery.
[piano music playing]
Oh, my love a
My darling a
I hunger for...
[newscaster] Elvis Presley,
the Mississippi hay
whose country rock
guitar and gyrating hips
launched a new style of popular music,
died this afternoon at Baptist Hospital.
Presley was 42 years old.
[newscaster 2] I! didn't
even matter a great deal
whether you liked Elvis or
not, he changed our lives.
[newscaster 3] The King is dead.
[Elvis] I'll be coming home
Wait for me A
My love a
My darling a
I've hungered
for your touch a
A long lonely time
Time goes by a
Really.
So slowly a
And time can do so much a
Are you still mine? a
I need your love
Ooh
I need your love
God speed your love
ETC:
Me
[crowd cheering]
[EmiSunshine] Heading
down to Baton Rouge
To ease my worried mind
I'm heading down
To Baton Rouge
Maybe I go tonight
[scat singing]
Oh
[scatting]
[continues scat singing]
[gospel music playing]
On the Memphis train
To Heaven, hey
I'ma take it From
Beale Street to LA
I'ma make it
On the Memphis train
To heaven, hey
[rock music playing]
You want to ride off
Into the sunset
You want the White horse
To come and save you
You want the white horse
To come and save you
[acoustic guitar playing]
Once upon a time
When I was in high school
I was in love with a lady
And you treated me so cool
I was driving
A Chevy '73
Had four on the floor, girl
120, it would be me
And I remember Marvin Gaye
Singing
Let's Get It On
I hope you got it, brother.