Why Lisa Marie Presley Slammed ‘Priscilla’

A perennial figure in pop culture, the appetite to explore the glitz and glamour of Elvis Presley has increased in the last year. In 2022, Baz Luhrmann‘s biopic of the King of Rock, orchestrated by the director’s trademark maximalist visual and thematic style, was a box office hit and garnered a Best Picture nomination. A year later, a vastly disparate companion piece to Elvis was released in theaters with Priscilla. The Sofia Coppola film follows the life of Priscilla Presley and tracks the inscrutable domestic version of Elvis Presley from his wife’s perspective. The couple’s daughter, the late Lisa Marie Presley, a year before its release in November 2023, had a few choice words for Coppola’s film and the depiction of her father.

Based on Priscilla Presley’s memoir, Elvis and Me, Priscilla chronicles the titular figure (Cailee Spaeny) as a guileless teenager who attracts the eye of Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi), who soon begins a long-term relationship and starts a family amid the star’s overwhelming fame. Where Luhrmann’s film embraces the god-like aura and mystique of Elvis, Coppola’s film is its antithesis, showing him as a fractured man whose celebrity persona is truncated at home. Priscilla is indebted to Coppola’s fascination with the Gilded Cage — stories about melancholic and dispirited women belonging to a privileged society. When factoring in the director’s personal kinship with the story, as she is the daughter of the Elvis of cinema, Francis Ford Coppola, Priscilla soulfully observes alienation and the fleeting grasps of independence against the backdrop of the celebrity whirlwind.

Priscilla

When teenager Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who’s already a meteoric rock ‘n’ roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, and a gentle best friend.

Release Date

November 3, 2023

Runtime

113 minutes

Genres

Drama , Biography , Music

Lisa Marie Presley Slammed Sofia Coppola’s ‘Priscilla’ Script

In September 2022, following the success of Elvis and A24’s release of Coppola’s film, Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis and Priscilla, got hold of the script. As reported by Variety, Presley, who passed away in January 2023, did not mince words, calling the script “shockingly vengeful and contemptuous.” She pleaded to the Oscar-winning director to reconsider the vision of her father, believing that the film would subject her family to increased public scrutiny and humiliation. “My father only comes across as a predator and manipulative. As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father in this character,” Presley wrote in a message to Coppola. She also dismissed the film as an accurate interpretation of her mother’s perspective. Upon its release, she admitted how she would publicly disavow Priscilla, despite her mother’s full support of the film, who is also credited as an executive producer. Four months after sending these messages, Presley died on January 12, 2023.

Changes to Priscilla‘s script, according to sources from Variety, indicate that production was susceptible to Presley’s vehement criticisms. An insider close to the film claimed that “efforts were made to ‘tone down’ some elements of the book (Elvis and Me) regarding the couple’s courtship that would have been shocking to contemporary audiences.” The script that she read was trimmed down by 10 pages upon the beginning of principal photography. The report alludes to the age gap between Elvis and Priscilla, with the latter being 14 when she began romantically seeing the former. Presley was concerned that her mother wasn’t “seeing the nuance here or realizing how Elvis will be perceived when this movie comes out.” Recognizing that age gap panic is prevalent in contemporary culture, she envisioned a scenario where she would have to partake in damage control regarding the Presley family name.

Lisa Marie Presley Was Protecting the Presley Family Name

Lisa Marie Presley’s condemnation of Priscilla seems harsh, but her concerns come from a sympathetic place. In the internet age, attributed to the machinations of “cancel culture,” the public image of stars is highly precarious. Presley viewed Coppola’s vision as flagrant character assassination — the degree to which it would affect the livelihood of herself, Priscilla, and her daughter, actress Riley Keough. Presley’s tone suggested that she was indifferent towards the director’s opinions and feelings about Elvis. Rather, she was fixated on how the public would be tempted to ostracize the rock star from his established legacy. This conflict, which is ultimately unresolved due to Presley’s death, is an insightful study of how the estate of eminent figures manages their image via the media. It also signifies the increased sensitivity surrounding the cultural reexamination of historical icons in the 21st century. Finding the balance between neglecting the faults of the past and callously dismantling one’s character and legacy is an intricate process, and it has shaped the fabric of social media behavior.

As Coppola’s film shows, perspective is key. In Priscilla, Elvis is not viewed as a monster by his titular wife. Instead, he is an unknowable figure whose disconnect from his charismatic theatricality in the public eye causes a disarming sensation. Presley’s frame of reference would have easily caused her interpretation of the film to be skewed. She might have seen her mother, Priscilla, as a powerless woman who bows down to the domineering force of Elvis. Where critics of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis lambasted its boisterous cinematic language and cliche-riddled story beats, Presley found it honorable. According to Variety, she praised the 2022 film starring Austin Butler, saying it made her family “so proud because it was a true depiction of who he really was.” She likened the film to a “ray of light,” helping heal the trauma of her son, Benjamin Keough, dying by suicide in 2020. Elvis is rooted in extravagance, if not pure farce, while Priscilla prides itself on its minimalism, yet it is the former that is viewed as the rational text in Presley’s eyes.

Lisa Marie Presley’s Criticism Reflects Sofia Coppola’s Films

A nuanced perspective is something that Lisa Marie Presley hoped Sofia Coppola would have. “I would think of all people that you would understand how this would feel,” she wrote in the emails, citing Coppola’s familial connections to fame. More than most filmmakers, Coppola has insight into what it is like to be immersed in a world of constant glamor and public scrutiny. Presley’s frustrations could stem from an understanding of Coppola’s films and their minute meanings. Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, and Priscilla all reflect the plight of privileged people, and, despite the inherent skepticism of this sentiment, demonstrate the genuine melancholy that emerges from these comfortable settings. Presley’s comments towards the director suggest Coppola’s script disregarded Elvis as a complex, three-dimensional human being.

For those who watched Priscilla, Lisa Marie Presley’s scathing reaction to the film during pre-production might leave some on the fence. While her actions are something we might never fully understand following her untimely passing, Coppola’s delicately observed storytelling is in full force. Elvis is not the larger-than-life entertainer immortalized in pop culture, but interpreting Jacob Elordi’s performance as a cynically revisionist take on the star is misguided. Rather, he is a flawed man whose fame has distorted his worldview. Furthermore, Cailee Spaeny’s gracious turn as Priscilla Presley breaks the real-life figure’s historical image as merely Elvis’ wife. She is a woman who can be simultaneously enchanted and maladjusted by the baggage that Elvis brings. Perhaps audiences saw a completely different story compared to what Presley read, but there is no doubt that the film is ultimately a piece of subjective art, especially when projected from the life of someone who lived in the action on screen.

Priscilla is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

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