The Times - UK (2022-05-23)

10 Monday May 23 2022 | the times

News

Alicia Vikander, Woody Harrelson and

Jerry Lee Lewis:

Trouble in Mind

Cannes Film Festival

HHIII

Of the three much-hyped rock’n’roll
profiles playing at Cannes, this spin
through the life of Jerry Lee Lewis
was the first to be shown and is also
the most disappointing.
The others are Baz Luhrmann’s
biopic Elvis and Brett Morgan’s Bowie
documentary Moonage
Daydream. This is also a
documentary, and the
work of a single Coen
Brother, Ethan,
operating on his own,
alas, less successfully
than big brother Joel
— see his masterful
solo venture The
Tragedy of Macbeth.
Size is the first
problem. At 73 minutes,
the film seems cursory and
casual. Coen, introducing the
film before the premiere, said he
“really enjoyed cutting it together”. It
feels like a clips job conceived during
the pandemic (it was) by a film-maker
charged with making a “tone poem”
about Jerry Lee Lewis — it is the
brainchild of the music producer T
Bone Burnett. The result is a movie
that’s layered with dizzying amounts
of the Killer’s old TV interviews and

MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

Coen fails to ask the killer questions

buttressed by archive performances of

iconic tracks such as Whole Lotta

Shakin’ Goin’ On and Great Balls of

Fire but is otherwise devoid of

argument or even curiosity.

Coen has said an inspiration was

Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse

documentary Amy. Yet that focused

on deconstructing the Winehouse

story and finding the truth in her

tragedy.

Coen’s film, in the name of “letting

the artist do the talking”, too often

becomes a platform for Lewis’s self-

aggrandising statements from the

past. In between choice sequences of

Lewis rocking out to High School

Confidential, or playing duets with

Tom Jones and Little Richard, we’re

treated to daft soundbites about how

he invented rock’n’roll, how he was

tougher than Elvis, and how he loved

being around young women.

“And how did their mamas feel

about that?” asks one tentative

interviewer. “I never met their

mamas!” Lewis says, coldly, half

smiling, self-satisfied, evasive.

Coen does address Lewis’s marriage

to his 13-year-old cousin, Myra Gale

Brown. Or, at least he includes

footage of Lewis addressing it, and

boasting: “I knew what I was doing!”

Most of Lewis’s other controversies

are carefully sidelined while the film

stumbles towards a shoulder-

shrugging climax that delivers

nothing more meaningful than a shot

of our subject, in his prime, saying,

“I’m really a good boy.” Well, that was

one way to spend lockdown.

Released in the UK later this year.

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Jerry Lee Lewis rocking his audience in Los Angeles in about 1957, and in 2018

Film Kevin Maher