Image: courtesy of A24
For his first directorial debut, Ethan Coen offers up a vibrant and often exhilarating look at the turbulent life of a true rock’n’roll legend, dealing with the demons that drove Jerry Lee Lewis. To an extent this is a non-judgmental film that is as much about his determined resilience as it is the scandals that haunted his life, but it is also tight and lean, brimming with mesmerising footage and illuminating interviews.
There are a smattering of archive interviews with folk who knew or worked with him, but on the whole Coen allows Lewis himself to do most of the talking. He is refreshingly frank and open, as well as absolutely unrepentant. The archive interviews dip back and forth from varying points of his career, and while Coen offers up some straight-forward moments in terms of detailing his career, the film is really driven by Lewis’s frank comments linked to striking performance clips.
Lewis talks warmly about his parents support for his piano-playing and musical ambitions; his early years studying ay Bible college in Texas (where he was thrown out for playing a boogie-woogie version of ‘My God is Real’) and recollections of his early recordings for Sun Records in Memphis. His solo career exploded in the late 1950s with songs such as ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and ‘Great Balls of Fire’.
Lewis, a devout Christian, was often troubled by the sinful nature of his own material, but at the same time his sheer energy and love of performing saw him become a star – and hailed as “rock & roll’s first great wild man” – with a series of hits. He also refined his stage act, often hitting the keyboard with his heel, kicking the piano seat back and even sitting on the keyboard for good effect.
The film does not shirk away from the key moment of controversy that impacted on Lewis’s career. He has been married seven times, but it was his third marriage to 13 year-old Myra Gale Brown, his first cousin once removed, that hit the headlines when it was revealed by a British journalist when Lewis was on a British tour in 1958. It impacted on his career for a while, but he eventually reinvented himself as a mainly country-and-western performer.
When it comes to talking about his marriage to Myra, Lewis is unrepentant and certainly uncaring about the opinion of other people. To an extent it seems to reflect his attitude to music – just keep on going; getting out there and performing and rarely worrying about the consequences.
Unlike recent epic music documentaries, Coen’s film is lean and brash (again perhaps reflecting Lewis) never really attempting to delve too far into those demons that Lewis and his friends mention, but rather allowing more film space for the vibrant performances. Certainly it is a film that reinforces the sheer wiry dynamism that Lewis embodied, and allows space for his striking voice alongside the verve of his live performances. Jerry Lee Lewis – “The Killer” as he was often referred to – led a life of controversy and challenges for sure, but as a performer he was unique.
US, 2021, 74mins
Dir: Ethan Coen
Production: Live Nation Productions, Jagged Films, Shangri-La Entertainment, Inaudible Films
Producers: Steve Bing, Mick Jagger, Victoria Pearman, Peter Afterman, T Bone Burnett
Editor: Tricia Anne Cooke
