EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert shuffles through more aspect ratios than almost any movie that I can remember, outside of the avant-garde.

And, at least at New York’s Lincoln Square IMAX, Baz Luhrmann throws his dimensionally-mutating imagery all over the giant screen, like a honeycomb kaleidoscope. The aspect ratio stabilizes only during Elvis’ musical performances, visually grounding this new documentary in what seems to be its raison d’être:

The King’s live-performance prowess. 

For almost a century, Elvis’ image — both literally and figuratively — has been chopped and cropped and reframed into every shape and size, as evidenced by EPiC’s aspect-ratio-varying archival footage. His legacy has become larded with such media-narrative baggage, that we — or maybe just my generation? Or maybe just I? — can sometimes forget what EPiC appears to want to make clear:

In his prime moments, he was an absolutely elite musical performer.

When he was on, he was humming in a way that stands toe to toe with the best of them. 

And BAAAAZ utilizes his (i)maximalist humming to cinematically honor Elvis’ overlooked artistic bonafides, all while adding IMAX to the long list of aspect ratios that Elvis has been chopped and cropped and reframed into in an attempt to capture him.