What can even be said about Ethan Coen’s hilariously anonymous, cheerfully banal documentary about Jerry Lee Lewis? You’ve seen hundreds of these things screening on any TV channel at 8:30 pm on a Tuesday, prompting your grandfather to observe: “He was lively, wasn’t he? That Jerry Lee Lewis. What was the name of his song? Turn the sound up.”
Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble In Mind is nominally “by” Ethan Coen, but readers are hereby defied—defied!—to find a single instance of the singular brother’s personal input. Sift through the endless archival footage of Jerry playing a rousing boogie-woogie on a variety show, or sitting sideways to his piano at home and reminiscing about Sun Records, or playing another slice of hair-raising boogie-woogie in concert, or reminiscing about his switch to country music, or playing some more boogie-woogie, and try to find the influence of the man behind half of The Big Lebowski. You can’t. There is a confounding lack of viewpoint on display here, in almost every scene: you could get the same effect from reading JLL’s Wikipedia and watching some clips on YouTube.
In fact, you might get a rather more complete picture of the artist if you took that tack, as Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble In Mind is almost comically uninterested in sounding out the more difficult elements of Lewis’ life—such as his marriage to his 12-year-old cousin (which is briefly skirted over here, when it isn’t played for laughs) or his shooting of one of his back-up musicians, or his possible involvement in the death of one of his wives. The film doesn’t totally avoid the first two of these subjects—it couldn’t possibly—but the way they are dispatched is of the order of hagiography. Instead, the movie depicts Lewis as a charming, happy-go-lucky rebel—a narcissistic, lovable extrovert who loves to live life to the fullest. This may be partly true but is clearly far from the full picture, and the film’s inability to go further is frustrating.
