WALK THE LINE by James Mangold
by Andre Soares
Walk the Line (2005)
Director: James Mangold. Screenplay: Gill Dennis and James Mangold, from Johnny Cash’s The Man in Black and Cash: The Autobiography. Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin
SEX , DRUGS AND COUNTRY MUSIC
First of all, I must admit that before watching Walk the Line I knew nothing about Johnny Cash’s music. In fact, I used to think of Johnny Cash as a Las Vegas act in the style of Tony Bennett or Neil Diamond. If nothing else, James Mangold’s overlong and more than a tad melodramatic biopic — which he and Gill Dennis adapted from two Cash autobiographies — made me realize that Cash was a Nashville (not Vegas) act who became a cultural phenomenon of sorts as a result of both his onstage persona — a rebel dressed in black — and his revolutionary blend of rock, country, and gospel music.
Cash’s life story is dramatic and complex, but Mangold and Dennis were clearly intent in creating a by-the-book crowd pleaser - (untrue) fairy-tale happy ending and all (see synopsis). At times, in fact, Walk the Line feels like a remake of Taylor Hackford’s successful and highly conventional Ray of the year before. In both films, a gifted 20th-century music artist, as a result of a childhood trauma involving the accidental death of a brother, leads a dissolute life of casual sex, booze, and drugs before finding redemption and inner peace.
Something that Ray has that Walk the Line lacks is Ray Charles’s frequently superlative music. Cash’s rhythms are catchy, but they — at least those played in the film — become repetitive rather rapidly. On the other hand, Walk the Line offers something that Ray sorely lacks: star power. In Ray, Jamie Foxx does a convincing imitation of Ray Charles’ mannerisms, voice, and quirky walk, but Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, as Johnny Cash and fellow country singer June Carter, go beyond mere imitations to create full-blooded, vitally compelling characters. (Also, while Foxx only lip-synched to original recordings of Charles’ songs, it’s Phoenix’s and Witherspoon’s singing voices we hear in Walk the Line.)
Together, Phoenix and Witherspoon lift Walk the Line above the level of the myriad musical biopics that Hollywood has been cranking out since movies started to talk (and sing). As June Carter, Cash’s friend, professional partner, part-time lover, and future wife, Reese Witherspoon displays an engaging combination of inner strength and vulnerability that adds some much needed complexity to her subordinate role. For his part, Joaquin Phoenix – though he looks nothing like the much taller and meaner-looking Johnny Cash – imbues his talented but disturbed singer with such verve that he makes one forget how poorly delineated his character truly is. For these non-trained ears (after watching the film, I listened to Cash recordings online), Phoenix sounds remarkably like the actual Cash. As a plus, the two stars exude great chemistry in their scenes together, especially those onstage, thus making their (mostly) platonic romance feel more genuine than what is offered in the screenplay.
Had the filmmakers decided to leave sentiment aside to focus instead on the grittiness of Cash’s life and music, Walk the Line would have been at the very worst a solid, good film. Unfortunately, they opted for the safe way out. As it stands, Walk the Line is a must-see movie not because it is an example of quality filmmaking but because it offers two capable performers in top form.
Late 1960s: While at Folsom Prison for a concert, rock/country/blues/gospel singer Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) sees a circle-saw that triggers disturbing memories from his childhood.
1930s: Living in a small cotton farm in Arkansas with his sharecropping Christian family - music-loving mother Carrie (Shelby Lynne) and mean-spirited father Ray Cash (Robert Patrick) - the young boy then known as J.R. (Ridge Canipe) was already a big country music fan. His older brother Jack (Lucas Till), however, wanted to become a Christian minister. A fatal accident while working with a circle-saw not only ended Jack’s chances of a religious life, but it nearly ruined J.R.’s future as well, for Ray consistently blamed the boy for the accident.
Several years later, J.R. – now renamed Johnny - starts composing music while serving at an American military base in Germany. Back in the U.S., he begins selling appliances door-to-door, and in his free time forms a small band with a couple of ragtag musicians. The trio spends much of their time singing and playing gospel songs off-key much to the irritation of Johnny’s wife, Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin), who is frustrated because her husband is incapable of supporting their growing family.
An audition for Sun Records impresario Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts) changes all that. Johnny starts singing songs from the heart and dressing all in black, and rapidly becomes a musical sensation. In one of his many tours, he befriends folk singer June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), but they are unable to consummate a romantic relationship because both are married. Although their respective marriages eventually crumble, Cash’s worsening addiction to booze and drugs keeps the singing duo apart. Ultimately, however, Carter helps Cash to regain his bearings so that a way to happiness can be found.
Notes:
Johnny Cash’s 1955 song "Folsom Prison Blues" was inspired by the 1951 Warner Bros. B-movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison, which Cash saw while serving at a military base in Germany. "It was like imprisonment," Cash later recalled. "I was locked there on that base, three years without a furlough to come home. The only way they would have let me come home was if there had been a death in my immediate family. I was not only isolated from my loved ones, but there was nowhere to go, no one to reach out to." Source: Acoustic Guitar.
Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison was directed by early silent film star Crane Wilbur, and it stars Steve Cochran, David Brian, and Philip Carey. Folsom Prison is located in Sacramento County, Calif.
A photo of an irate-looking Johnny Cash with his middle finger sticking straight up at the viewer was taken in 1970 at San Quentin Prison, Calif. The photographer allegedly asked Cash to send a message to the prison’s warden. (That photo resurfaced in a 1998 Cash ad that read: "American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support." The ad was reportedly placed by Cash’s producer, Rick Rubin, as a protest against the mistreatment of music veterans by the country music industry.)
According to his CNN obit, Johnny Cash recorded more than 1,500 songs during his four-decade career. He won 11 Grammys, including a lifetime achievement award.
June Carter co-wrote with Merle Kilgore the 1963 song "Ring of Fire," which depicts the early mutual attraction between Carter and Johnny Cash.
June Carter acted in a handful of films, including Robert Elfstrom’s Gospel Road: A Story of Jesus (1973), which she co-produced with Johnny Cash (who co-wrote the screenplay with Larry Murray). Elfstrom played Jesus while Carter played Mary Magdalene. She had another role in a Christian-themed film, Robert Duvall’s The Apostle (1997). Both Carter and Cash also acted in several television productions. Cash had his own show, The Johnny Cash Show, from 1969-71.
In 1980, at the age of 48, Johnny Cash became the Country Music Hall of Fame’s youngest living inductee. He received a Kennedy Center Honors award in 1996.
In the 1980s, Johnny Cash entered the Betty Ford Clinic after another series of drug problems, reportedly related to his use of pain killers. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1997, and was later said to be suffering from Shy-Drager syndrome, a degenerative nerve disease akin to Parkinson’s. According to Kenny Berkowitz in Acoustic Guitar, both diagnoses were later retracted. (Cash did suffer bouts of pneumonia and bronchitis that prevented him from singing for months at a time.)
On Sep. 12, 2003, Johnny Cash, 71, died of complications from diabetes at the Baptist Hospital in Nashville. June Carter, with whom he had been married for 35 years, had died the previous May 15, following complications from heart surgery.
"My roots are in the working man," Johnny Cash told Music City News in 1987. "I can remember very well how it is to pick cotton 10 hours a day, or to plow, or how to cut wood. I remember it so well because I don’t intend to ever try to do it again." Source: CNN.
Walk the Line Awards and Nominations
VOCES INOCENTES / INNOCENT VOICES
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