Crasses et Voluptés

THE CRASH OF YESTERDAY’S ART

In 1974 I was writing about Elvis movies. The films were so shoddy, I thought, they seemed to embody a whole new kind of cinema: the 1960 G.I. Blues was my example. “When Elvis strums his acoustic guitar,” I said, “an electric solo comes out. When bass and guitar are seen backing him, you hear horns and piano. When he sings, the soundtrack is at least half a verse out of synch . . . Someday, French film critics will discover these pictures and hail them as a unique example of cinéma discrépant. There will be retrospectives at the Cinémathèque, and not long after Elvis movies will be shown on U.S. public television, complete with learned commentary deferring to the French discovery and bemoaning America’s inability to appreciate its own culture . . .”

Lipstick Traces

Greil Marcus