The “King” seen by his wife: director Sofia Coppola has chosen to take the point of view of Priscilla Presley, who has remained in the shadows until now, to tell on the big screen “the ups and downs” of this couple of legend. Priscilla, presented in competition at the Venice festival on Monday, is adapted from the book Elvis and me, released in 1985 and in which Priscilla Presley gives her version of her life alongside Elvis, to whom she was married from 1967 to 1973. Elvis and Priscilla formed a legendary couple, but we don’t know much about her and her point of view,” said Sofia Coppola, who won the Golden Lion in 2010 with Somewhere, at a press conference.
Also read: Maestro, Ferrari, Priscilla… Despite the strike, the Venice Film Festival is full of Hollywood films
Elvis met his future wife in 1957 in Germany where he did his military service, then brought her to his Graceland estate where she had to face the entourage, the touchy character and the addiction to drugs of the king of rock’n’roll. The “King” makes her his doll, chooses her dresses, makes her change her hair color… In 1968 they will have a daughter, Lisa-Marie, who died suddenly in January 2023, but that is not enough to seal their union, who ends with the departure of Priscilla in 1973.
Priscilla by Sofia Coppola in 2023, with Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi…
Asked whether her film is feminist, the director of Marie-Antoinette prefers to see in it “a human story” on “the evolution of a young girl in this world and who ends up leaving to find her own place”. The title role is interpreted by the American Cailee Spaeny, while the Australian Jacob Elordi, known for his role in the series Euphoria, embodies Elvis. While Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (2022) focuses on Elvis’ relationship with his impresario, Sofia Coppola favors “Priscilla’s point of view”. The director returned to the guiding thread of her work and the distance she took with her: “I imagined myself in her story and I really tried to make the film from her point of view so that we can live his story by his side. That’s what I love about cinema, the possibility of living the story of someone else who is so different from yourself.
The filmmaker, now 52, also shared how she enjoyed playing with color palettes, such as using “more vivid” shades when the couple travel to Las Vegas, and researching choose the soundtrack of the film, which mixes titles of the time with other more contemporary ones. Sofia Coppola and her actors are an exception at the Mostra, deprived for its 80th edition of its American stars because of the historic strike of actors in Hollywood. The filmmaker justified the reasons for her presence in Venice as follows: “I am here as a director and producer to support independent film and my team, and I fully support the hard work of the unions fighting for fair wages. I hope that we will come to a solution quickly (…) We all want to go back to work”. Priscilla Presley, now 78, was herself very involved in the production of the film, providing her advice and sharing her memories with Sofia Coppola and her actors. Present in the front row at the film’s press conference, she spoke about seeing herself come to life again on the screen: “It’s very difficult to sit and watch a film about yourself, about your life , on his love. I left, but not because I loved him anymore. He was the love of my life. It was his lifestyle that was too difficult for me and I think any woman can relate to that, she said, her voice choked with emotion, recalling her decision to leave the “King “.
“And even after the separation,” she said in conclusion, “we remained very, very close, and of course we had our daughter and I made sure that he could see her all the time. …»