Baz Luhrmann directed, co-produced, and wrote the screenplay for the 2002 acclaimed biographical drama, Elvis, with Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, and Jeremy Doner.
Luhrmann emerged from the documentary world in 1983 when he conceived and appeared in the television movie Kids of the Cross.
He and I spoke in 2001 for a story in Hits magazine (it was reprinted in 2014 for Baz Luhrmann Interviews, published by University of Mississippi Press, edited by Tim Ryan).
At the time, Luhrmann was promoting his award-winning theatrical feature, Moulin Rouge. I asked him about the importance of music soundtracks in films and documentaries.
“That’s why we’ve got audiences who clap and cheer at the songs in cinemas,” Luhrmann replied. “They are not cheering the projectionist. What they are doing is communing with everybody else in the room. Nothing is more powerful than that in doing music. If you can shackle music to story—I know it sounds dramatic, but if you can do that—you unleash an unstoppable force.”
In late 2024 Baz hinted he would soon return to the music documentary universe.
“We’ve found reels and reels of never-before-seen footage of Elvis on Tour [1972] and That’s the Way It Is [1970],” Luhrmann posted on Instagram in October 2023.
“Stay tuned.”
He showed an accompanying video of a cardboard box with a Warner Bros. label that had “Elvis outtakes box” written on the side.
Meanwhile, in November 2024, Netflix streamed Return of the King: The Fall & Rise of Elvis Presley (2024), a documentary directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Jason Hehir. Interviewees included Luhrmann, as well as Priscilla Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Corgan, Robbie Robertson, Jerry Schilling, and Darlene Love.
I saw the December 1968 Elvis: The ‘68 Comeback Special on NBC-TV. Afterwards, my father and mother went to see one of Presley’s August 1969 shows at the International Hotel in Las Vegas and gave an enthusiastic review.
On November 14, 1970 I took three buses from West Hollywood to Inglewood to see Elvis Presley’s debut at the Forum, his first concert in Southern California in 13 years. In 1968 I saw the Doors at the Forum, the Rolling Stones twice in 1969 at the same venue and now Elvis. It was a devoted beehive hairdo crowd like a casting call from another era. Thousands of cameras clicked and flashed when Elvis emerged on stage. Presley’s voice sounded terrific as I sat in the colonnade section.
Between 1972 and 1976, Grelun Landon, the veteran and well-respected head of public affairs at RCA Records in Hollywood on Sunset Blvd. arranged for me to attend a slew of Elvis 1972-1976 concerts as a music journalist and briefly meet Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
“I have a feeling in 10 years or sometime in the future you may still be writing about Elvis,” suggested the USC graduate.
Around October of 1972, Grelun invited myself, Rodney Bingenheimer of GO! magazine, and Canadian music journalist and Hit Parader magazine contributor Larry LeBanc to a screening of Elvis On Tour, which chronicled Presley’s ’72 US personal appearances and concerts. It was directed by Pierre Adidge and Robert Abel and released by MGM in November 1972. That same month I heard the filmmakers speak at an RCA Records college seminar.
“I was there at the MGM screening in Culver City,” LeBlanc emailed me in September 2025.
“Grelun invited me and he introduced me to Parker. Huge theatre with maybe 35 of us with incredible sound and picture. I knew Rodney a bit and I said hello. Parker was at the concession stand handing out popcorn.”
Landon later made sure I viewed the first live broadcast of Elvis’ Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite in January 1973, along with RCA Records employees. Imagine hearing Elvis Presley and that TCB band through those Altec 604E Super Duplex monitors inside RCA Studios…
My only personal sighting of Elvis Presley locally was on a Saturday afternoon during the summer of 1967. I was a teenager, in Dr. Morris Feldman’s Picwood Dental office in West Los Angeles near the MGM studio in Culver City. Presley arrived in a Rolls-Royce, flanked by two guys and immediately into the dentist chair. Dr. Feldman told me Elvis broke a tooth during the filming of a movie called Speedway.
Last century I interviewed the legendary songwriting and production team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller about working with Presley. Their tunes are covered on Elvis On Tour, including “Hound Dog.”
“Hound Dog” was initially written at the request of Johnny Otis, the bandleader and A&R man for Big Mama Thornton, who wanted Leiber and Stoller to listen to his acts and see if they could write some songs for them.
“Elvis knew the Big Mama ‘Hound Dog’ record, because he was a student,” underlined Mike Stoller. “And it was a woman’s song. Jerry wrote the lyrics for Big Mama and I think we recorded it in 1952, and it was released in early ’53. It was a big R&B hit. In 1956 Elvis heard a lounge act doing it in Las Vegas.”
“Jerry and I actually produced, without credit, the records, our songs in particular, that were in the M-G-M film Jailhouse Rock,
“He asked for us to be there. We had never met him before. He was a very good-looking young man, very energetic. I mean, he just kept going and going in the studio. He’d say, ‘Let’s do another one!’ And it would go on and on until he felt he had it. The studio was booked for the day, and we were used to three-hour sessions.”
“He loved doing it,” reinforced Jerry Leiber. “He wasn’t someone who was doing it and wanted to go home, like a lot of people. He had more fun in the studio than he did at home. He was very cooperative and a workhorse.”
“I ended up spending a little more time with him than Jerry,” added Stoller, “because I played the role of his piano player in Jailhouse Rock, which Jerry was supposed to play, but he had to go to the dentist that day,” Mike volunteered.
“He had ‘The Memphis Mafia’ around him. They were his boys. he would be nice to other people but did not interact that much. We met him in the studio. He had seven or eight guys hanging around. He had his entourage, Lamar, Red, and his cousins. He traveled with his environment. And The Colonel was smart. He let him travel with his entourage and it kept him insulated. And nobody could get to him, by the way, if you tried to lay an idea on him just because he was there.”
“I thought he was the greatest ballad singer since Bing Crosby,” Jerry testified. “I loved to hear him really do a ballad, because we were writing rhythm & blues, torch ballads. As far as I’m concerned, nobody cuts Little Richard on rhythm tunes. You have to go far and wide. But Presley was the ultimate in the ballad. It was just his singing. Pure talent.”
“It was just his singing,” added Mike. “Later, when he was in Las Vegas, when he was so large, he was poking fun at himself, and he would do this thing with the scarf, tossing it back to the audience. He would do 20 of those. That was the show. Sure, he could still sing, but it wasn’t like it was before and it was clouded by all this show biz. I mean, there is nothing wrong with relating to an audience, but it was mannered.”
“He’d become somewhat of an imitation of what he was,” summarized Leiber, “coupled with some show biz schtick that he thought, and some of his managers thought, and the room owners thought, would go down.”
In 1976 and 77 I reviewed two Elvis Presley concerts for Melody Maker. My 1977 article was headlined “The King Has Lost His Crown.” Presley was now forgetting lyrics and dropping the microphone in performance. This was a man who was sick and should have been off the road. In my story I suggested hospitalization.
I didn’t think Grelun and Colonel Parker in 1977 had any real idea how ill and troubled Elvis was in the mid-seventies, although the well-kept secret in summer of 1977 was finally let out of the bag when Presley confident and bodyguard Red West published Elvis What Happened? His book based on intimate accounts of Elvis' former bodyguards detailed the singer’s medical condition and alleged drug-use.
And, it slowly dawned on me, as 1977 unfolded, and the first wave of punk rock music and a number of original acts and unique singer/songwriters were emerging, that Elvis was basically a guy stuck doing cover versions, formulaic movies, and Las Vegas residencies, and wishing and hoping he could improve his live act, tour the world or really stretch out as an actor.
I was subsequently taken out to lunch at The Hollywood Ranch Market by a concerned Grelun Landon after my pieces were published. It was Grelun who had introduced me in 1974 to Vernon Presley at an Elvis concert in Anaheim. Vernon and guitarist James Burton could walk around the Convention Center during intermission and not be recognized. The crowd came to see Elvis but I came to check out his band, too.
In 1976 I interviewed Emmylou Harris in Studio City for Melody Maker before she did her first show at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. Glen D Hardin and James Burton were at her rehearsal. At the time I was driving a 1959 Cadillac with big fins. Burton’s ride was a new Cadillac El Dorado. James was delighted to chat about Elvis and the Shindig! television series. He was in the house band where I attended tapings at the ABC-TV studios on Prospect Ave.
During 2007, I conducted an interview with Jerry Schilling, author of Me and a Guy Named Elvis, published by Penguin/Gotham Books. Jerry was a longtime Presley insider and a trusted employee.
“Something happens when Elvis got to be in front of a live audience. He decided to put a band together and do a month at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. I became involved in what was happening around him, even though I wasn’t working for him. RCA studio in Hollywood. Colonel Parker is never there for rehearsals or recordings.
“I watched a guy put a rock ‘n’ roll band together. That’s what he does. He started by picking James Burton. That’s where Elvis was a genius. That’s where he was the most underrated producer in musical history. Whether it be in the studio or putting the band together. Whether it was ‘I hear voices here,’ ‘play this line here.’ The guy was a great producer.
“The ’68 special inspired him but he was doing what he had not been able to do for years. He was doing his thing and he was doing it being able to choose the people he was able to do it with. Being able to choose what songs and not being told what has to be in the soundtrack. What he had to wear. He was out of prison, man.
“I remember being at Elvis’ house with a list that Joe, maybe Charlie Hodge a little bit, ‘here’s some of the musicians that people are suggesting.’ What do you think of this, this and this? Elvis pretty much picked and chose. He knew who James Burton was. He knew who Ronnie (Tutt) was. Ronnie was the guy who did what DJ had come in and done. He could accentuate Elvis’ moves, but more importantly, when there were bigger name drummers in the audition, like Hal Blaine. I remember what Elvis told me and Joe. He would come over and we both thought he was gonna go for Hal Blaine. It was the obvious choice. And he said, ‘watch this guy’ (Ronnie). Elvis came over and he said, ‘I need one guy on stage that has my temperament. Ronnie Tutt. That’s why Ronnie Tutt has the job.’”
In 2007, I was interviewed for MGM Home Entertainment’s deluxe DVD edition of Presley’s film, Jailhouse Rock. During 2008, I penned the 5,000-word liner notes for the fortieth-anniversary edition of Elvis: ’68 Comeback Special.
Elvis may have left the building, but we’re still watching.
On September 5, 2025 at The Toronto Film Festival. Luhrmann premiered EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert. Luhrmann teamed with Sony Music Vision and the Authentic Brands Group for the venture.
Baz Luhrmann is a pioneer of pop culture working across film, opera, theatre, live events, fashion, and music. His singular cinematic language continues to captivate audiences through a unique fusion of classical artistry and bold, contemporary style that has ignited imaginations around the world and made Luhrmann the most commercially successful director in Australia with four of the country’s top-ten grossing films.
In his director’s statement provided to me from Sony Music Vision, Luhrmann detailed his new endeavor.
“During the making of Elvis (2022), we went on a search for rumored unseen footage from the iconic 1970s concert films Elvis: That’s the Way It Is and Elvis on Tour that had reportedly been lost. My initial thought was that, if we could find it, we may be able to restore the unused footage and use it in our Elvis feature, starring Austin Butler. I had researchers go into the Warners Bros. film vaults buried in underground salt mines in Kansas and, to the astonishment of all, we uncovered 69 boxes (59 hours) of film negative that hadn’t been seen. In addition to this, Angie Marchese (VP of Archives and Exhibits, and curator at Graceland) was able to unearth some never before seen Super8 from the Graceland Archives. It has taken over two years to restore the footage to a quality that it has never been projected at previously.
“Whilst some of the negatives had been printed and used in previous productions, there were many ‘never before seen’, shots, sequences and performances; so, if portions of these cuts were out in the public realm, they were generally poor-quality bootlegs. The team had to meticulously restore sound from the many unconventional sources that were also unearthed. Throughout this incredibly detailed process, one of the great finds has been unheard recordings of Elvis talking about his life and his music: from the 1970 Vegas show, on tour in 1972 and even precious moments of the 1957 ‘gold jacket’ performance in Hawaii. I knew that we could not pass up this opportunity. It was these discoveries that gave the inspiration for the new film. What if, instead of reduxing the previous works, we made a film that wasn't a documentary and wasn't a concert film?
“What if Elvis came to you in a dreamscape, almost like a cinematic poem, and sang to you and told you his story in a way in which you haven’t experienced before? And what if we were able to work with the likes of Peter Jackson and the team at Park Road Post Production and other high-end technicians, and bring this original footage to a quality, to be seen on the big screen in a way in which it could not have been realized until now?
“What if we took both known recordings of Elvis telling you about his life and could reconstitute his own personal voice at a sonic level never before heard? Sonically, what if we could both reconstitute and remix the original orchestrations but at the same time imagine what he might do with his classic musical works through a contemporary prism? And what if in a world where Artificial Intelligence can make all sorts of illusions, the illusions were made from authentic and original material and restored with meticulous human craft? We asked the what ifs and answered them in what we presented at Toronto International Film Festival’s 50th Edition.”
In EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, Elvis takes the audience through the journey of his life, through both classic and contemporary musical prisms, weaving unseen footage with iconic performances.
After serving abroad in the US Army, Elvis Presley continued to an acting career and became one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors by the 1960s. In the meantime, the Beatles as well as phenomena such as the Summer of Love in San Francisco and the anti-Vietnam War movement had a huge impact on music and culture. A year after the Summer of Love, Elvis put on his ‘68 Comeback Special, which was his first appearance on TV in front of a live studio audience in over eight years and a visual and musical presentation that cemented his reputation as one of the great performers of all time.
Sony Music Vision promotional materials further touted EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.
“Elvis returned to the stage in Las Vegas at the International Hotel on July 31, 1969. The Vegas residency was hugely successful. When he was in residency, he typically played 2 sold-out shows per day, 7 days a week, 4 weeks straight, for approximately 7.5 years (July 1969 - December 1976). He sold more than a million tickets throughout the residency. The footage Luhrmann uses in EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert was collected by large MGM cameras over various nights of his Vegas residency in 1970 - shot in 35mm anamorphic.
“In 1970, Elvis embarked on his first concert tour since 1957. His 1972 Summer tour included 4 sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. In EPiC, Luhrmann utilizes footage from tour engagements captured in 1972 alongside recordings from 6 different Vegas residency shows. Together, the Vegas and tour footage constitute Elvis Presley’s return to the stage at the height of his career and reinvention as an artist at the start of a new decade. When producing his feature film Elvis, Luhrmann discovered that there were reels of footage from Elvis Presley’s concert performances in Las Vegas during the 1970s. With the assistance of Warner Brothers, his team was able to locate the lost footage as well as many 16-track audio recordings.
“Luhrmann first met Jonathan Redmond when editing Moulin Rouge! and they have since formed a longtime creative partnership through various projects, including Australia, The Great Gatsby and Elvis. Jonathan, whom Luhrmann refers to as “Jono,” is both an editor and executive producer for EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert. As Luhrmann likes to credit, Jono is the driving creative force on the project.
“It took two years to locate the negatives which Luhrmann’s team then worked with Warner Brothers to scan in 4K. They also found Super8 footage that has never been seen before. Enter Peter Jackson and his team at Park Road Post Production, who worked to restore not just the 8mm but the 16mm and 35mm anamorphic, as well. Ultimately, Luhrmann worked with over 59 hours of rare footage, including anamorphic 35mm, as well as 8mm from the 1950s.
“Many of the audio tracks did not sync to the footage, so the team utilized lip reading to match the tracks to specific footage. Warner Brothers provided over 2,300 rolls of Elvis archive material to assist in the process. While Luhrmann's hands-on work in music is well known (he is credited as executive music producer) he’s identified Jamieson Shaw, a longtime collaborator of Luhrmann’s, as overall music producer, bringing together new material that was recorded for the project with the classic audio.
“There are over 70 pieces of music in the film performed by Elvis, either in Las Vegas or on tour as well as in rehearsals and some classic recordings from his life-long catalog. The film captures covers from notable artists such as the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Ray Charles, Dusty Springfield, Bob Dylan, Del Shannon, Three Dog Night, Brenda Lee, Edwin Hawkins and the Righteous Brothers.
“During the making of Elvis, Luhrmann had an office at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee for 18 months. While living in Memphis, Luhrmann was introduced to Angie Marchese, VP of Archives and Exhibits and curator at Graceland, who provided the production with newly discovered 8mm footage of Elvis performing in Hawaii. Luhrmann’s time at Graceland and the people he met there informed both the production of Elvis and EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.”
At the movie premiere in Toronto, Luhrmann explained to the audience about Presley’s residency at the International Hotel from 1969 to 1976. “It’s not a documentary, not a concert, but ‘a tone poem.’”
On stage, Luhrmann mentioned he had heard about some "mythical footage" that he wanted to research. Baz had the funding and the resources to go into "the salt mines in Kansas" where Warner Bros. had kept their negatives and found 59 hours of footage. 15 hours of it had no sound at all.
"Elvis said, 'I need to show the audience what I can do. I need to get back to being Elvis.' And that is what drove him," stated Luhrmann. EPiC footage implements revealing segments of Presley speaking to his band for 45 minutes, "about his life and he was so unguarded.”
“There's a lot being said, but I'd like to have the opportunity to tell my side of the story,” remarked Elvis.
Reviewer Owen Gleiberman in Variety praised EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.
“Think back to the greatest concert you ever saw - it could be Springsteen or U2 or the Stones, or Lady Gaga or the Ramones, or Taylor Swift or Radiohead, or (in my case) two concerts from the '80s (Prince and X) and one from the 2000s (Madonna on her Confessions tour). Now think back to the greatest moment in that concert, the one that gave you chills you can still feel. That's the kind of experience I predict you'll have watching EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, an extraordinary new documentary directed by Baz Luhrmann, the director of Elvis.
“Diving into this treasure trove of unseen performances, working with the editor Jonathan Redmond, Luhrmann has fashioned a streamlined and exquisitely paced concert film…And when the movie is over, you want to applaud the showmanship: Elvis's, and also Baz Luhrmann's. He reveres Elvis too much to let any excessive flash get in the way. There's a purity and natural-born dazzle to EPiC. What you see is what you get: Elvis in the raw, driven by the awareness that it doesn't get any better than that.”
(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love. Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 the duo wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.
Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) is scheduled for 2025 publication.
Harvey wrote the liner notes to CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.
During 2006 Kubernik appeared at the special hearings by The Library of Congress in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. In 2017 he lectured at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in their Distinguished Speakers Series. Amidst 2023, Harvey spoke at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles discussing director Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz music documentary.
In 2014, Kubernik was a consultant and interviewed about the musical legacy of Los Angeles for the Australia television series Great Music Cities for Australian subscription television broadcaster XYZnetworks Pty Ltd (www.xyznetworks.com.au). Slash, Brian Wilson, Steve Lukather and Keith Richards were also lensed for producer Wade Goring’s project.
Kubernik appeared as an interview subject for director Matt O’Casey in 2019 on his BBC4-TV digital arts channel Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird. The cast includes Christine McVie, Stan Webb of Chicken Shack, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Christine’s family members, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, Mike Campbell, and Neil Finn.
Harvey was lensed for the 2013 BBC-TV documentary on Bobby Womack Across 110th Street, directed by James Meycock. Bobby Womack, Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones, Regina Womack, Damon Albarn of Blur/the Gorillaz, and actor Antonio Vargas are spotlighted.
Kubernik served as Consulting Producer on the 2010 singer-songwriter documentary, Troubadours: Carole King/James Taylor & the Rise of the Singer-Songwriter, directed by Morgan Neville.
Kubernik is in a documentary, The Sound of Protest now airing on the Apple TVOD TV broadcasting service. https://tv.apple.com › us › movie › the-sound-of-protest. Director Siobhan Logue’s endeavor features Smokey Robinson, Hozier, Skin (Skunk Anansie), Two-Tone's Jerry Dammers, Angélique Kidjo, Holly Johnson, David McAlmont, Rhiannon Giddens, and more.
Harvey is interviewed along with Iggy Pop, the Beach Boys’ Bruce Johnston, Love’s Johnny Echols, the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs and Victoria Peterson, and the founding members of the Seeds in director Neil Norman’s documentary The Seeds: Pushin' Too Hard. This November 16, 2025, a DVD with bonus footage of the documentary is scheduled for release via the GNP Crescendo Company.
The New York City Department of Education will be publishing in 2025 the social studies textbook Hidden Voices: Jewish Americans in United States History. Kubernik’s 1976 interview with music promoter Bill Graham on the Best Classic Bands website Bill Graham Interview on the Rock ’n’ Roll Revolution, 1976, is included).
