Q&A: Baz Luhrmann on his tragic, razzle-dazzle ‘Elvis’

By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer

CANNES, France (AP) — Baz Luhrmann was first in Cannes exactly 30 years ago with his debut “Strictly Ballroom,” which he recalls barely making a sound at the festival. That’s emphatically not the case for “Elvis,” an operatic opus about the larger-than-life music legend that premiered Wednesday in Cannes with all the clamor of a carnival. For a mythologized icon often recalled either in “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” camp or as an epitome of cultural appropriation, Luhrmann’s “Elvis” seeks to make alive Presley’s power as a radical artistic force forged in Black blues and gospel whose unconventionality posed a threat to mainstream America.