Walk the Line
Much noise has been made about Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s reputation, having been shot nine times, and so on… but that news comes at a time when it’s commonplace to imagine, if not actually see, rappers of his genre being so-called “tough” guys. By contrast, when Johnny Cash was arrested in El Paso, in 1965, singers were placed in a rather different light. At a time when post-war Christian conservatism held heavy influence over airplay in southern states, Cash was the exception that demolished the rule.
Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) and June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) in WALK THE LINE.
Photo Credit: Suzanne Tenner. ™ and ©2005, Twentieth Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.
Much noise has been made about Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s reputation, having been shot nine times, and so on… but that news comes at a time when it’s commonplace to imagine, if not actually see, rappers of his genre being so-called “tough” guys. By contrast, when Johnny Cash was arrested in El Paso, in 1965, singers were placed in a rather different light by the American public. At a time when post-war Christian conservatism held heavy influence over airplay in southern states, Cash’s style was the exception that demolished the rule…
Though the film opens in a manner typical of almost all biopics—at the end to set up the flashback to the beginning—it’s possible to forgive this and several other clichés when measured against the lead performances. So, we begin with Cash’s 1968 concert at Folsom Prison in Represa, CA. Feet stomping, hands clapping, to the beat of the band, as the inmates await the Man in Black at the foot of the stage.
Cash (Joaquin Phoenix), appears to be preoccupied in thought as he rubs his thumb against a sawblade in the corrections facility just prior to taking the stage. The story then shifts to Dyess, Arkansas, 1944—a farming colony. Little J.R. (Ridge Canipe) and his brother Jack (Lucas Till) are listening to June Carter on the radio.
Jack wants to be a preacher some day. Johnny is greatly inspired by his mother, Carrie (Shelby Lynne) who sings hymns all the time from her book of Heavenly Highway Hymns. His father, Ray (Robert Patrick), doesn’t share Carrie’s enthusiasm for song. “We’re not selling daddy’s piano,” says Carrie, “and I’m not the one drinking on the barstool every day.”
One needs to look no further than the instant the camera cuts to Jack using a radial saw to cut up wood in their father’s shop, to understand what Cash was reflecting upon in the earlier scene at Folsom. Ray compounds John’s misery at the loss of his best friend and brother by exclaiming, “They took the wrong son.”
After shipping off with the Air Force, Cash sees a film titled “Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison” (dir. Crane Wilbur) while stationed in Landsberg, Germany. This inspires him to write the fictional, yet eventually infamous, “Folsom Prison Blues.” Every film about a musician has a scene of them early in their career trying to work out the lyrics to a song that will eventually become a hit. This device, however, is used sparingly in “Walk the Line,” and here it’s only to establish Cash’s insecurity which becomes relevant in the scenes that follow.
When he returns to the states, to his wife, Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin), he’s beset by debts and only the prospect of working for her father. That is, unless he can make something of his talent. Proving to be an utterly terrible door-to-door salesman, he pursues Sun Recording Studios’ legendary founder, Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts, playing Phillips more accurately than previous screen incarnations—young, enterprising and trend-savvy).
Dressing for his first audition, black is the only color he and his bandmates all have. “It looks like you’re goin’ to a funeral,” says Viv. Cash replies, “Maybe I am.”
The band tries out a gospel song that Phillips elucidates he’s heard hundreds of times before. When Phillips tells Cash he doesn’t believe him, he’s not saying he doesn’t think Cash believes in god. He’s saying Cash isn’t selling the song. Instead, like the adept Ahmet Ertegun, who founded Atlantic Records, Phillips wants to see something more honest from him, “If you were hit by a truck and left dying… and you could sing one song to tell god how you felt…” Phillips wants to hear that song.
Yes, other musician biopics also contain scenes showing the performer gaining his confidence, but none in recent memory have sold it quite like Joaquin Phoenix does here. At first you can hear an almost falsetto tone emanating from his lungs. Gradually, as he and the band members find their tempo, Cash grabs hold of the song and masters it with the mettle of a hardened convict who’s seen and done all manner of derelict crimes.
As it unfolds, this is not a strict biography like Oliver Stone’s muddled “Alexander.” Instead, Mangold, who has directed a range of films—from the cleverly fascinating whodunit, “Identity,” to the romantic comedy, “Kate & Leopold”—chooses as his focus the love story that slowly ferments between Cash and his idol and eventual stage partner, June Carter (Reese Witherspoon).
The film shares with us the plucky, folksy stage persona of Carter. She explains in one scene that her family always thought of her sister as the better singer, which is why she sells herself through comedy bits between songs. But if Witherspoon’s performance is even remotely true to Carter’s talents (Witherspoon and Phoenix sing the songs themselves remarkably well), then Carter was both a marketing genius and a mesmerizing vocalist—this, coming from a critic who normally can’t stand country music.
Already having alienated some Southern conservative Christians for being a divorcée, Carter’s weary about getting into a serious relationship with Cash, whose marriage to Vivian is definitely failing. Worst of all, Cash had addictions to with alcohol and prescription drugs. The story only skims the surface of this most visceral descent into the trenches of dependency. Is it too much to ask Hollywood to have the balls to tell the story straight? It would have only been fitting for a tribute to this man’s life to dive more deeply into it.
I have my complaints, and apparently the family of Vivian Cash has theirs. Recently it was noted in the news that Kathy Cash, one of Johnny’s children with Vivian, walked out of a family screening of this movie. She disapproved of the way her mother was portrayed in the background. However, Mangold has made a film about Johnny Cash and June Carter, not Johnny Cash and his wife Vivian (née Distin). In that regard, Phoenix and Witherspoon carry this movie through all of Phaedon Papamichael’s platitudinous cinematography—the backslung-guitar stance, the come-around tracking shots of the singer’s face during concerts, the inevitable chart-climbing career montage, etc.
Is it a great film? No. Is it a film I’ll remember deeply? Probably not. Is it a film that pays tribute to the Man in Black? Sort of. Cash’s and Carter’s tempestuous love story is so perfectly captured, in every lyric sung (especially the raucous “Cocaine Blues” and sublime yet ironically lustful “Jackson”) and every look exchanged, between Phoenix and Witherspoon. However, restrained by the revenue-friendly PG-13 rating, it’s too sanitized in its subject matter to be memorable.
I’m not saying they should have sensationalized Cash, but in regard to subjects such as infidelity and drug addiction, studios tend to be very timid in handling such weighty issues that have a wider range of psychological impact than marketing executives believe audiences are capable of handling. We see short cuts of Cash recovering as Carter’s family helps him overcome his addiction, but that’s it. Beyond that, a couple of delirious episodes and passing out once on stage, you don’t really get to understand the psychology of Cash’s addiction from the inside of his mind.
“Walk the Line” is even arguably one in a series of television and film tributes obviously engineered by the motion picture and music industries to mythologize and sentimentalize the origins of the currently obsolete, creativity-stifling distribution monopoly that germinated about the time that Phillips of Sun and Ertegun at Atlantic (see last year’s “Ray”) began to reap enormous commercial success.
But Hollywood is deathly afraid to tell a story with a sad ending. Perhaps that is why they hadn’t the guts to more deeply explore the lifelong anguish and suffering of the man who won a Grammy for the video of his wrenching, personal cover Trent Reznor’s “Hurt”… the same man who, not long thereafter, lost his battle with diabetes just four months after June’s death in 2003.
Walk the Line • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 • Running Time: 136 minutes • MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some language, thematic material and depiction of drug dependency. • Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox