Will Elvis Win Catherine Martin Another Oscar?
If you watch Elvis, the new Baz Luhrmann-directed spectacular, you might not even realise how much it owes its feel and look to producer, production designer and costume designer Catherine Martin, who also happens to be Luhrmann’s wife of 25 years.
The change in the flooring at Graceland from floorboards when Elvis bought it to red carpet when The King entered his Vegas years? That was CM, as she is known. The Prada-designed concoctions that Priscilla Presley (played by Olivia DeJonge) shimmies across the screen in? Martin was behind those, too. Luhrmann might be the captain of the film ship when they embark on a rough-seas journey together, but Martin ensures their boat looks like a glorious cruise liner.
Although Luhrmann was a long-time Elvis Presley obsessive, Martin was not. “When I met Baz, 30 years ago, he was really fascinated with Elvis. I’m like many of the audience [members] in that I knew of Elvis as an icon and knew his music, but that was about as much engagement as there was.
“What excited me about Baz’s interpretation was it wasn’t going to be a biopic; it was going to be a story that was told through the difficult relationship of two men, the tussle between art and commerce, against the backdrop of enormous social change in America, the civil rights movement.”
In the movie, Tom Hanks plays Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker – the singer’s sometimes father-figure, sometimes nemesis. Throughout the movie, it’s easy to forget that well-known actors are in it, so easily do they transform into their characters.
Much of the story is told through the visual details. When Elvis first gets on stage in front of a big audience, he is wearing a hot pink suit, a black lace shirt and eyeliner; so much about the core of Elvis’ personality is conveyed through his wardrobe and look, and Martin’s extensive research played a major role in the storytelling.
“We’re leaning into those 50s looks, because it was what they kept talking about at the time: Elvis was a rebel, a punk. His overt sexuality was shocking. It was considered vulgar. His look was really challenging the mores of the 1950s, and it’s difficult for a modern audience to understand that because the world is so sexualised now.
“We needed to find a way of selecting from what historically existed, and we knew there were things like that, that Elvis had worn – like lace shirts, bolero jackets, pink jackets. We talked about how the clothes needed to be sensual and sexy and show the body and not hide the movement. We worked a lot of on the pants to get exactly the right kind of wiggle in the fabric. And the jacket to get the fluidity.
“So that was a process of discovery – to get the movement, sexuality and clothes to intersect and to choose the things that would make the audience go, ‘Wow!’ That out-of-the-norm pink suit and lace shirt on a man has been championed by so many performers today – that Gucciesque approach or Harry Styles look – and it is still very affecting. It was leaning into the things that allows an audience to understand Elvis’ effect on the crowd.”
Although the movie is not intended as documentary, there was so much focus to ensure that details would be correct and not alienate true Elvis fans. (Even Priscilla Presley has given it her seal of approval.)
“You had to work within the context of the historical reality. We were still trying to tell a story, so we also compressed certain things, like the life of Graceland, which Baz wanted to show as an example of Elvis’ meteoric rise. It starts off as a working farm and undergoes a renovation, and he wanted to show it as people hadn’t seen it before: the ‘50s incarnation with the blue paint. And then as a symbol of Elvis’s complete success.”
““I think it’s up to all of us – women working in the industry – to mentor as many women as we can. It’s a changing landscape and it’s important that women are included across all the departments.” ”
Martin’s own rise has been meteoric too. Born to a French mother and Australian father in Lindfield, New South Wales, her parents were academics who exposed her to a different perspective early on.
She met Baz when they both studied at NIDA, and their collaboration soon won her AFI awards. Since then, she has won four Oscars for Moulin Rouge! (receiving two awards), Australia and The Great Gatsby, recognising her achievements in art direction, costume design and production design, all of which she did alongside Luhrmann.
But the mother of two says there is still a long way for women to go in Hollywood.
“I’ve been very lucky, because I’ve worked for Baz exclusively, so I’ve been very sheltered from a lot of the slings and arrows that many of my fellow women colleagues have endured.”
Representation, she adds, needs much improvement, especially when it comes to female directors “and there’s a way to go for integrating women in the industry in positions of responsibility.”
She is also hoping that young women are encouraged to take on non-traditional roles in the movie business, such as work on the technical side.
Ultimately, she adds, she has to take some responsibility herself: “I think it’s up to all of us – women working in the industry – to mentor as many women as we can. It’s a changing landscape and it’s important that women are included across all the departments.”
There’s no doubt she’s a role model for the next generation of film-makers.
Elvis is playing nationally in theatres