What crosses your mind when you read the words ‘American royalty’? Perhaps you picture the Kennedys, or the Clintons or the Obamas or even the Trumps. The Kardashians, maybe. You may think of the Presleys, as in Elvis Presley, who had the pop, if not the power, of traditional royalty.
Priscilla movie: Oscar-winning director Sofia Coppola on her new epic
By Tom Augustine
NZ Herald·
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Sofia Coppola, right, with Priscilla star Cailee Spaeny, is celebrated for her cinematic explorations of the lives of teenage girls and young women. Photo / Supplied
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“I have a slight impression of the difference between public and private life but nothing to the scale of living with Elvis Presley,” she demurs. “I do have an idea of how people act around fame having grown up around that. People have misconceptions of what that’s like.”
Few would argue that the life of Priscilla Presley is uniquely suited to the Sofia Coppola treatment.
For decades now, Coppola has been perhaps the leading cinematic voice capturing the experiences of teenage girls and young women, from her debut feature The Virgin Suicides, through to her Oscar-nominated Lost in Translation to the controversy-courting The Bling Ring.
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Her new movie Priscilla, released in New Zealand cinemas on February 1, most closely resembles her other biopic, the masterful, anachronistic Marie Antoinette, which told the story of another young woman thrust into a palatial world that is at once a source of liberation and a gilded cage.
“I’ve been curious how people turn into the people they become, what they go through. This story was interesting to me, to hear about that generation of women, my mom’s generation of women,” Coppola explains.
“When I read Priscilla’s story I was struck by how relatable it is, how there’s a universal aspect to the things all girls go through as they grow up.“
Spanning roughly 10 years, from 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu’s first meeting with Elvis in West Germany, through to their eventual break-up and divorce, Coppola’s distinctly subtle, ornate and resolutely feminine style offers a daring perspective on not just Priscilla, but the King of Rock and Roll as well.
Much has been made about the fact that the film vehemently foregrounds Priscilla’s perspective, one that has received little coverage over the years, and one that presents Elvis himself in an occasionally less-than-flattering light.
“I think he definitely fashioned her as his ideal woman. She had a lot of pressure to be a reflection of him. It’s interesting to me that she found her own identity, being so young,” Coppola says. “She grew up and became more interested in herself.”
The relationship between the two has always been complex, with Priscilla’s youth and voicelessness being tempered by the very genuine intimacy and love the two shared. For Coppola, this was the most significant element of putting Priscilla’s life on screen, and one which made the risk of a less palatable depiction of Elvis one worth taking.
“I just tried to focus on her story and not think too much about how people are gonna take it. It was important that we didn’t make Elvis into a villain. He had some behaviour that wasn’t commendable but it came from his own struggles and flaws. [I wanted] to show him as a multi-dimensional human instead of a god on a pedestal.”
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Much of the power of Coppola’s vision is bolstered by the strength of her collaborators. Drawing from Priscilla Presley’s own autobiography Elvis and Me, Coppola also ensured that Presley was intimately involved in the creation of the film version, serving as an executive producer and close consultant during the production.
Where the presence of the actual person in the creation of a biography can at times sanitise the drama and dilute the less likeable aspects of the persona, Coppola found Presley’s presence produced a grounding effect.
“I felt like she really trusted me and gave me the space to do it my way,” she explains. “I wanted her to feel comfortable with everything. That was a challenge in a new way, to balance what I wanted while also being considerate of how she wanted her story to be told. I felt like I was able to express what I wanted to tell while also honouring her.”
This real-life perspective also proved invaluable for the film’s two young stars, up-and-comers Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi (of Euphoria fame), who each in turn produce remarkably nuanced, deeply human reproductions of the pair.
“Jacob watched Elvis movies. We [all would] talk about the book and spend time with Priscilla. Priscilla describes [this] intimacy [she and Elvis had] and we were trying to go for that. It’s scary to take on those characters - they really had each other’s backs in trying to convey what Priscilla told them.”
It was a collaboration that had a profound effect on the subject herself, too, culminating in Priscilla joining the cast and crew on the film’s red carpet premiere in Venice. “She was emotional, she cried, said ‘this was my life’.”
Anyone who has watched a Sofia Coppola film will tell you that part of the deep pleasure of watching it is in its immaculate design and art department choices.
A formidable aesthete, Coppola channels her taste into immaculate frames, drawing the drama out of the characters’ surroundings.
This is true of Priscilla, too, which lingers on the trinkets and outfits that Priscilla collects during her years with Elvis, but also in the recreation of the iconic Graceland location, which Coppola transforms into a sweeping fantasy castle (or an eerily isolating prison anytime Elvis disappears on tour or off to shoot a movie, which is often).
“I wanted Graceland to feel how she described it, to contrast it from West Germany, where it’s drab and wintery,” Coppola explains. “Graceland was like Oz, a lot of colour and everything is alive.”
This involved an in-depth recreation of the space, crafting something impressionistic, rather than hyper-real. “We had the original plans of Graceland and it’s built to scale,” says Coppola. “Growing up in Graceland, it was this fantasy mansion, and Elvis’ bedroom was meant to be very intimidating, this man cave.”
The long sequences of the movie, in which a lonely Priscilla wanders from room to room of this empty, gauzy bubble of a sanctuary, are some of the most striking in the film.
“She made such an effort to come to Graceland [convincing her parents at 17 to let her move halfway across the world with a rock star] and then he was always leaving her behind while he’s off doing things,” Coppola says.
“I imagined what that must have felt like. Her isolation struck me. She wasn’t allowed to have friends, couldn’t express her feelings, couldn’t work. When Elvis is there there’s a lot of energy and when he’s gone it’s so still and quiet. I wondered how that must have felt for her.”
Though her filmography is dotted with classics and her influence unimpeachable, Coppola has still found it a struggle to get her films financed. In recent years, a range of projects died on the vine.
Her Apple TV+ series adapting Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel The Custom of the Country was nixed by Apple execs because, she says, “the idea of an unlikable woman wasn’t their thing”. She left her Little Mermaid remake because Universal execs wanted it to be more appealing to older men. Coppola plays such setbacks with trademark cool, however.
“It’s important for me to make the stories I believe in, care about, connect to. I’m happy to figure out how to make them any way I can,“ she explains.
All of which makes Priscilla something of a comeback story. Simply because of her visibility, and presence in pop culture, Coppola has become a filmmaker whose womanhood is often unnecessarily conflated with a political angle.
Coppola is resolute that her storytelling is first and foremost about character and drama, though concedes there is a notable feminist angle to her work - Priscilla in particular, with its story of a silent, background figure in the life of a rock star finding her own path to self-actualisation.
“It’s really about her individuation and liberation as a woman. She was so confined and then had the strength to make her own way,” Coppola explains.
“I’m really glad she didn’t come off as a victim. She could’ve been thought of as a doormat, but I’ve always felt she has this inner strength, and Cailee was able to convey that.“
This is typified in the song Coppola selected for the end of the film, Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You. The song has a lengthy history, including the fact that Elvis himself was a fan and tried to buy the rights, only for Parton to turn him down.
“There’s a whole history around that song. I wanted it to be a woman’s voice [at the end of the film] because it’s about [Priscilla] coming into her own at the end. And also Elvis wanted ownership over that song and Dolly said no. The lyrics feel so connected to how she was feeling in that moment. That song is so touching. I’m so glad we got to use it.”
Priscilla is in New Zealand cinemas from February 1
