The King (2017)
Forty years after the death of Elvis Presley, two-time Sundance Grand Jury winner Eugene Jarecki's new film takes the King's 1963 Rolls-Royce on a musical road trip across America. From Memphis to New York, Las Vegas, and beyond, the journey traces the rise and fall of Elvis as a metaphor for the country he left behind. In this groundbreaking film, Jarecki paints a visionary portrait of the state of the American Dream and a penetrating look at how the hell we got here. A diverse cast of Americans, both famous and non, join the journey.
14 June 1946, New York City, New York, USA
21 June 1985, New York City, New York, USA
21 December 1937, New York City, New York, USA
1 March 1927, New York City, New York, USA
15 December 1943, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
25 May 1963, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
9 January 1913, Yorba Linda, California, USA
25 October 1944, Carville, Louisiana, USA
December 27, 1931 in Gadsden, Tennessee, USA
October 11, 2018
Elvis is clearly used as a metaphor by Jarecki. Undeniably progressive in his approach and his politics, the filmmaker still crafts a compelling portrait that reaches beyond simply ideology.October 09, 2018
Elvis Presley's 1963 Rolls-Royce serves as a metaphor for what 's wrong with this country in two-time Sundance Grand Jury winner Eugene Jarecki's new documentary.July 12, 2018
Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki does something rather unusual with The King, which becomes something extraordinary and insightful.September 05, 2018
Jarecki's road-trip never reaches answers or a destination, but it's a curiously diverting ride.June 28, 2018
With an insistence that borders almost comically on obsession, [director Eugene Jarecki] forces the singer's life into a larger theory of national decline-the American dream is dead, and Elvis is the emblem of its passing.July 13, 2018
Provocative and at times unwieldy, The King is something of a stoned CNN Special Report on wheels.June 26, 2018
...the movie does so in painfully simplistic terms, with encyclopedia-style snippets of history, authentically pained but insubstantial musings on "how we got here," and an odd reliance on the comments of celebrities who lack any Presley connection...July 12, 2018
At its best, "The King" is a fever dream of American glory and American weirdness - between which there can be an even thinner line than the one separating love from hate.October 10, 2018
A compelling portrait of Elvis Presley that contemplates what he meant to America and its ever-evolving dream.August 27, 2018
The King is a visual essay - it proposes a thesis, then builds a convincing argument, bouncing between Presley's life and the state of the nation.July 27, 2018
The insistence may inspire a furrowed brow here, a rolled eye there, and a shaken fist or knowing nod over yonder, but there's enough earnest comment and good music to make the effort worth seeing and chewing over.September 05, 2018
It's all rather random, but never dull.