Exploring the Life of Priscilla Presley: A Cinematic Journey by Sophia Coppola

2023-09-05 16:06:40

There’s a lot to love regarding Priscilla of Sophia Coppola. Like the best films of this author beloved by the public (the dreamlike The Virgin Suicidesthe neonizer Lost in Translationthe hedonist Marie Antoinette and the gloriously delicate Somewhere) his latest film, which has just been presented at the Venice Film Festival, is a sensitive meditation on the secret life of adolescents and young adults, on their boredom and their restlessness, but also on the small details that make up their daily existence . This is a more than decade-long account of the life of Priscilla Presleywife ofElvis, always impeccably dressed and groomed. He examines the accessories of his childhood (miniature porcelain tea sets, wallpaper printed with roses, the military jacket thatElvis offered to her at the beginning of their relationship…) and of her adulthood (cherry red nail polish, lipsticks, a tiny bottle of Chanel n°5…). In these sequences, as in most of the film, we want to frame each shot.

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What you need to know regarding Cailee Spaeny, the Priscilla Presley of Sofia Coppola’s biopic

Amanda Richard

While PriscillaSofia Coppola’s biopic regarding Elvis Presley’s wife, airs today at the Venice Film Festival, zooming in on Cailee Spaeny, the actress who plays the title role on screen.

Jacob Elordi and Cailee Speany to headline

Fortunately, the age of Priscilla (the fact that she was only 14 when she met her 24-year-old future husband while he was in Germany in 1959 doing his military service) is not something Sophia Coppola sweeps with the back of the hand. We understand it when we meet Priscilla (played by actress Cailee Spaeny) for the first time, as she sits at the counter of a restaurant and is suddenly approached by Terry West (Luke Humphrey), a friend of the king of rock and roll, who invites him to a party at the house of the man who will become a music legend. There’s something vaguely sinister regarding the offer, but Priscilla, visibly disillusioned by her new life in Europe (following the transfer of her father-in-law, an American Air Force officer, from Texas to Wiesbaden), is intrigued. She convinces her parents and does not take long to meet him in the flesh. Elvis (the dashing Jacob Elordi) asks her if she is in senior or first, and she whispers in her angelic voice that she is only in third class…

Sabrina Lantos

Cailee Spaeny’s Priscilla Beaulieu, as we first meet her in the film Priscilla.

It explains the way – endearing and so helpless – in which she falls in love with him, eager for every expression of affection, quietly wary of his adventures with other women, and utterly devastated by his return to the United States. After his departure, a magnificent montage shows the passing years and Priscilla who waits, who buys the new discs ofElvis and who follows his escapades from afar. Then, without warning, he calls her and invites her to Memphis. It is then that this Alice in Wonderland with the mischievous big eyes enters the skin of a rabbit. Her and Elvis grow closer, but don’t consummate their relationship – what he does, however, is give her a pill to help her sleep – a pill that knocks her out for two days. But Elvis doesn’t seem worried, and once she wakes up, he takes her to Las Vegas for a glamorous trip. He ends up persuading the parents to Priscilla to let her move to Graceland indefinitely.

Jacob Elordi is, without a doubt, a Elvis less flashy thanAustin Butler, who worked his way up to an Oscar nomination earlier this year (he’s softer, more humble, but also more introverted and clumsy in his movements). But the actor flourishes onceElvis has complete control over his future trophy wife. At her new Catholic school in Memphis, where her parents have enrolled her to graduate, the girls amuse themselves by befriending her for the sole purpose of gaining access to her suitor. She distances herself from them and, soon following, from the outside world itself, the father and the stepmother ofElvis constantly telling her that she cannot continue to “show off”. The result is a creeping boredom that sees her delicately walking around her new home in impeccable heels, doing nothing, reminiscent of the Princess Diana apathetic toEmma Corrin in the fourth season of The Crown (this is another biopic that I would like to see directed by Sophia Coppola).

Ken Woroner

L’Elvis Presley by Jacob Elordi and La Priscilla by Cailee Spaeny.

When Priscilla said Elvis that she plans to do a few hours of work in a local shop for fun, he opposes her a firm refusal. “It’s a career or me, baby,” he says simply, and Priscilla slowly begins to realize what she’s gotten herself into. She settles into a routine of classes, taking pills and endless waiting, interspersed with shopping sessions initiated by Elvis : he forces her to dye her hair black, wear more eye makeup and tells her what to wear (bright colors, no prints and no brown, because it reminds her of the army ). Over time, he becomes more and more whimsical (and toxic): he throws a chair in a fit of anger, then blames it on his mother’s temper, which he claims to have inherited. When Priscilla confronts him with a love note from another woman, he begins to pack for her, making her realize how quickly she might be kicked out… She cries, he picks her up in his arms and takes everything away who said that.

Of course, it’s coercive control wrapped up in a pretty package, all adorned with a glittery pink bow. But the film is careful not to reduce the musical icon to a misogynistic caricature: he is a man of his time who, following the death of his mother, seems to be in search of a devoted and undemanding partner, who stay home to take care of the household. It presents the (disturbing and often terrifying) facts as they are (or at least as Priscilla she herself mentioned them in her memoirs of 1985, Elvis and me). Jacob Elordi, meanwhile, sells us his charisma with aplomb. It should be added that his size also helps him – from the height of his ninety-six meters, he dominates the small Cailee Spaeny in every sense of the word, nicknaming her “little one”.

Sabrina Lantos

The Priscilla interpreted by Spaeny with her homework in Priscilla.

When Priscilla leaves school and becomes more independent, Elvis does not take his requests – and his complaints – seriously. He has affairs that he first denies and only admits following they’re over, then proposes in the most unromantic way possible, presenting a ring to Priscilla and saying to her: “We are going to get married”. It is from this moment that the film loses its footing a little: their marriage scrolls by in a breathless montage, Priscilla becomes pregnant and gives birth to their daughter, Lisa Marie, Elvis leaves for an extended tour, and soon the couple are leading separate lives. Before we even realize it, Priscilla ditched her cat eyes and let her hair fall in loose curls, she embarked on a new chapter in LA where she learns karate, has lunch with new friends, and (finally) finds out who she is without her husband.

Sophia Coppola ignores the brief affair of Priscilla with her dance teacher during this period, an affair which she herself revealed in her book, as well as her adventure with her karate teacher, Mike Stone (the latter appears in the film, played by Evan Annisette, but nothing more than a friendship is suggested). In his memoirs, Priscilla writes that following this period of their marriage, Elvis sensed some commotion in his wife, demanded to see her in her hotel room and “forced love to me [en disant] ‘This is how a real man makes love to his wife’” (she would later add that she regretted her choice of words). In the movie, Elvis does indeed ask to see her and recites this sentence while kissing her passionately, but when she refuses, he backs off.

A pleasure to watch

In the next scene, she decides to leave him, but the omission of so many crucial details makes her motives a bit muddled. The truth Priscilla, who served as executive producer on the film, did she want those parts of the story removed? Or Sophia Coppola did she want to present her young heroine as someone pure, entirely devoted to Elvis ? Either way, an exploration of her other relationships and what drove her to maintain them might have helped us better understand her needs and frustrations.

These sequences are also less efficient because Cailee Spaeny seems somewhat overtaken by the more dramatic material. Her outbursts do not always ring true, and she is sometimes served by replies that seem too direct (“Would you rather another man?”, asks her Elvis, to which she replies “I prefer a life of my own.”) In the quieter moments of the film, however, she is captivating: when she brazenly cheats on a test, when she understands the bluff ofElvis when he asks her to separate from her while she is pregnant or when she calmly puts on a pair of false eyelashes before being rushed to the hospital to give birth. It’s these slower, more intimate parts of the story, when the film isn’t galloping through its protagonist’s biography, that give Priscilla its unique texture and make this film a pleasure to watch.

The movie of Sophia Coppola definitely looks like Marie Antoinette : both feature frenzied gambling montages, incredible costumes, shots of our protagonist walking down the halls as gossip and teasing surrounds him and, above all, are centered on teenagers who have been thrust into center stage and then left to their own devices. It’s a worthy successor to that game-changing masterpiece, and is perhaps the director’s best film in over a decade. As Pablo Larrainthe director of Jackie et Spencerconcludes his unofficial trilogy on beautiful and tragic personalities with an ode to Maria Callasperformed by Angelina Jolielet’s hope that Sophia Coppola has a third biopic regarding a complicated and highly mythologized woman up its sleeve: it’s sure to be as lovely as this one!

Translation by Julie Rodhon

Article originally published on vogue.co.uk

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