The King (James Marsh, 2005) , a small-budget film with Gael Garcia Bernal playing a character named Elvis and William Hurt playing his found-religion-and-became-a-preacher-so-he-can’t-claim-his-illigitimate-son-Elvis father. The father, David Sandow, repudiates Elvis, a 21-year-old just out of the Navy, and hides the truth from his two teenage children and parish as a way to protect his middle-class lifestyle built on a lie of righteousness. As a way of getting close to the family, the son strikes up a friendship with his half-sister, Malerie (played by Pell James). In a moment fraught with doubt and guilt, Elvis crosses the moral line and starts a romantic relationship with his half-sister, resulting in her brother confronting Elvis, demanding that he leave her alone. In a fit of emotion Elvis kills his half-brother, Paul (played by Paul Dano), and sinks him in a swamp. In the meantime Malerie gets pregnant. Elvis tells her that he has killed Paul, and they say prayers at the swamp. In his grief over the “disappearance” of his teenage son, David takes in Elvis, and then in front of his congregation claims Elvis as his son. Malerie tells her mother, Twyla (Laura Herring), as Elvis watches from an upstairs window. He shoots them with his rifle and goes to his father at the church to confess, saying “I need to get right with God.”
This is the last spoken line of the film, followed by a shot of the digital sign outside the church, giving the “Pastor David Sandow” name and announcing the “Worship & Praise,” “Bible Study,” and “Prayer Meeting” schedule. The title of the film comes from a scene in a restaurant, just after Malerie has learned she is pregnant by a man who is her half-brother. In that scene Elvis puts on a paper crown, and his expression is eerily one of innocent ignorance. The film blurs the lines between innocence and culpability and, especially, between transgression and confession, where confession itself has the quality of a transgressive forced innocence.
Concerning the film style, except for the scene where Elvis knifes Paul, the action is quietly presented with subtle religious symbology and little dialogue. Even the murder of the daughter and her mother is represented only after the fact, with Elvis laying their bodies tenderly on a bed and in the process bloodying his shirt and hands. The final scene, where the audience sees the face of David sitting at his desk and Elvis’ back to the camera as he stands before his father, is not subtle, but it is deliberately slow paced. It puts the Christian imagery of the film into full, blatant dissonance with itself: Elvis’ bloody hand is not at his side but raised at a 45 angle, palm facing the father and, thus, turned away from the camera. The effect is a sort of double image, of one standing in supplication before his father but also one taking the stance of a martyr.
