Behind the scenes
Beale Street, Memphis
It was incredibly important for my team and I to become familiar with Elvis’s Southern experience. We visited both Tupelo [Presley’s birthplace] and Memphis, and also followed Elvis’s touring itinerary to absorb the topography of the landscape. We were particularly sensitive to re-creating an environment that wasn’t culturally our own.
Travelling to Beale Street to experience it firsthand was invaluable. Nothing replaces actual experience when trying to tap into the spirit of a location. While Baz is always meticulous with research and detail, it was especially so with Beale Street. He wanted it re-created truthfully but also in a way that amplified its part in Elvis’s story.
My team delved through countless Memphis archives to ensure every detail of the set was as historically accurate as possible. We analysed each block in terms of businesses and their shopfronts, everything from signs, street lights and cornice details. It’s rather like being a detective. Beale Street needed to be pieced together, not only from photography, town-planning documents and written history, but anecdotally from documentaries and video interviews of people who experienced it in the ’50s.
One of the highlights of going to Memphis was meeting Hal and his daughter Julie Lansky, the son and granddaughter of Bernard Lansky who famously fitted
