Elvis' Rolls-Royce tours Trump America in Cannes doc
A documentary premiering at Cannes Saturday takes a road trip through Donald Trump country in Elvis Presley's old Rolls-Royce, depicting the King's rise and fall as a symbol for a vanishing American Dream. Set against last year's toxic presidential campaign, "Promised Land" by award-winning director Eugene Jarecki shows America in what one protagonist calls its "fat Elvis" period -- spiritually wrecked and bloated by greed for money and power. The ambitious two-hour film puts one of American pop culture's most successful products under the microscope, as it unpacks the myths and broken promises that have left the country dejected and divided. "We had been beautiful once, and we rose to a height too young too fast, and then we got addicted and we got convenient," Jarecki told AFP. "So I started to talk about this metaphor because there were so many parts of the American story that I could express that way." Jarecki sets "Promised Land" around travels in a "ghost car" -- a Rolls-Royce Phantom that Presley owned before his sudden death in 1977 after a battle with drug abuse. Along the way he picks up passengers including Alec Baldwin, Ethan Hawke, Ashton Kutcher and "The Wire" creator David Simon to reflect on Elvis' legacy, fame, race relations and the fate of the American republic. The documentary is also a musical journey with backseat performances by stars of soul and gospel as well as country and bluegrass -- American musical forms that Presley appropriated and blended. - 'Cry for help by America' - Jarecki cruises through depressed communities in the Deep South, talking to struggling white and black working class families, before hitting the other stations of Elvis' life including New York, Los Angeles and finally gaudy, vice-ridden Las Vegas. He interweaves late-era rhinestone-jumpsuit Elvis performances with Trump speeches from the campaign trail, drawing parallels between what he calls hollow pledges by the Republican candidate and the pitfalls of casino capitalism. "The most vulgar, Vegas expression of America took over the democracy without any filter anymore, in the most brazen, unmitigated way ever," Jarecki said. "Trump is a cry for help by America, as it would've been if (French far-right presidential candidate Marine) Le Pen had gotten in here." Jarecki also drops in on Public Enemy star Chuck D, who famously rapped "Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me". The rap legend spins out the metaphor even further, seeing Trump's America as seized up by its moral failings and on the road from republic to failing empire. "Who anointed him King?" he asks about Elvis. Jarecki's documentaries critique what he sees as the potentially fatal flaws of the US system including "Why We Fight" about the military industrial complex and "Freakonomics" on economics and human nature. He said he came upon the idea of the Elvis metaphor when he was travelling across the country to promote 2012's "The House I Live In" on the drug war. "Audience after audience of Americans just looked heartbroken about the system and about the death of the American Dream," he said. "Promised Land" is screening out of competition at the Cannes film festival, which runs until May 28.
