On its surface, the stylistic choice seemed designed to coax fresh emotional reactions from Lewis, who’s told his life story innumerable times over the years. However, Porter was specifically inspired to use the screens after visiting the Legacy Museum in Alabama with Lewis, who was featured in one of the exhibit videos. The Congressman was so moved by the footage that he turned to the person next to him, a local high school student, and shook his head in disbelief.
“He turns to this kid and says, ‘I just can’t believe that’s me,’” Porter recalled. “And he starts telling this story about that day that I never heard before, so I got the idea to make a number of small archive films and use that to hopefully bring him back in time. I wanted to recreate that moment in the museum for him.”
With a subject like Lewis, there’s a bevy of historic clips and photos to choose from, from his work organizing and participating in Freedom Rides and sit-ins, to his speech at the March on Washington. “I didn’t remember that he spoke at the March on Washington,” Porter said. “When you line those things up one after the other after the other, it’s just like, Oh my goodness,” she added, at a loss for words for Lewis’s achievements. Perhaps that sounds hagiographic, but there is probably no contemporary figure more deserving of this treatment than Lewis, especially at this particular moment in history.
Considering the enormity of Lewis’s political work, Good Trouble focuses largely on his activism and his career, treading carefully around a range of difficult topics, like Lewis’s contentious 1986 5th District race against fellow activist and former colleague Julian Bond. It also shies away, somewhat, from certain aspects of his personal life, like his marriage. While filming, Porter found that Lewis struggled to discuss his late wife, political adviser Lillian Miles; the pair married in 1968, and remained together until her death in 2012.
“I think it’s still extremely painful for him,” Porter said, noting that the Congressman worked around his pain by talking about things Miles loved, like certain works of art around their home. “He really couldn’t talk about her loss.”
“I know people want to know certain things from him, but my job is not to torture people,” she continued. “You do the best you can with what your subject is willing to do, and I was perfectly happy with what he was willing to do.”
In the last few months, Lewis has stepped out of the spotlight to take care of his health after announcing in December that he was battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer. In June, he told New York magazine that his health is improving. “I have good days and days not so good,” he said. “But I feel good today.”
Porter was luckily able to fly to Lewis’s Georgia home and show him the documentary in person, prior to the pandemic. “I didn’t really know what to expect, but he answered the door and he was all dressed up,” she recalled, noting Lewis’s penchant for looking sharp, no matter the occasion. The pair sat down in his living room and huddled around her computer, watching his life play out onscreen. “He just kept saying, ‘So powerful, so powerful,’” Porter said. Her response to him, she says, was simple: “Your life is powerful.”
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