Director Thom Zimny has made music documentaries for Bruce Springsteen where he has access to interviews with the Boss and members of his band as well as those closest to him.Here Zimny has been granted access to footage, photos and archived interviews from his estate. There are no talking heads but you have narration from Springsteen, Tom Petty, Jon Landau, Priscilla Presley, Emmylou Harris and childhood friend Jerry Schilling.This is a sprawling two part documentary that clocks in at 4 hours. It is very long, telling a story that could had been done in half the time. The involvement of Priscilla also makes me thing it was sanitised in parts. There is no mention of Elvis's karate lessons and each other's infidelities.The first part is more interesting, Elvis singing country, gospel, bluegrass that will eventually lead to rock n roll under the guidance of Sam Phillips of Sun Records.Colonel Tom Parker is the villain of the piece, a malignant influence who ultimately enriched himself and held back Elvis who wanted to see the world but could not as the Colonel was an illegal immigrant.The documentary comes alive when it plays interviews from Elvis, Sam Phillips and those who were there with him at the time. When Tom Petty talks about how Elvis was bored when he was in the army in Germany and how he took uppers to keep awake, you think 'how do you know?'

I'm not a huge Elvis fan, but the lovingly in-depth, full scope of this 2-part documentary got me closer. I of course knew about much of it (his days at Sun Studios, the unfulfilling Hollywood years, his "larger"-than-life Vegas swan song), but it shined a light on so many things I didn't know. The rock lifestyle didn't get him addicted to pills; the army did. His extreme stage fright after getting back to music. His entire relationship with malicious Tom Parker.

This documentary is mainly about Elvis as an artist and the information about his personal life that is brought up is information that influenced his career. This isn't about Elvis and women, prescription drugs, his marriage, Elvis who gained weight in the end etc., it's about Elvis and his talent, his influences, his dreams, his inspirations, where he came from, his motivation, how life influenced his career, how Colonel Parker influenced his career, how he felt about his career en why career choices were made etc. Elvis was an incredible talent and the first of his kind and this documentary is about all of that that we should remember about Elvis and what Elvis is about. People who actually knew him speak about him and the talented Bruce Springsteen speaks too. Not a second is wasted by showing the people that are being interviewed, you hear their voices over new and old videos and images of Elvis. The documentary itself is very well done. The overall style and the footage filmed at Graceland and atmosphere shots at places he has lived and he has been really give you a feeling of the vibe of the era and time the documentary speaks about.Part 1 is more uplifting, part 2 is darker. The documentary won't give the die hard Elvis fans a lot of new information, but it's still worth watching as I find it the best documentary on Elvis because it's about him as an entertainer and his talent and it tells about his true feelings about his career. It's a documentary that is respectful towards Elvis.

It's amazing how many people now think of Elvis only as a caricature, with a few hit songs and girls screaming in front of him. This documentary goes a long way in helping those who don't know why Elvis was a pioneering artist, why he was so much more than just an early rock and roller, how he re-imagined the blues, country and even bluegrass into a form uniquely his own. Much like his life, the pre-Army years are the most interesting. I wish they had interviewed more contemporaries - surely there are people still alive who were actually at some of these concerts, tapings, etc.? I so appreciate the film-makers making it clear that Steve Allen was attempting to humiliate Elvis and kill rock and roll - he definite deserves "credit" for that attempt. The doc also gives a good view of Colonel Parker - why Elvis picked him to manage him, why that absolutely was a great idea early on but how it turned disastrous at the end and how, for all the great things he did for Elvis early on, he ruined his career, and perhaps his life, at the end. What a shame that, at the time of this doc's release, the 1968 Comeback Special isn't available on DVD (unless you are willing to pay someone almost $100 for it) - this doc made me so hungry to watch it again (haven't seen it since a NYE broadcast in Germany back in 2007 or so).