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Growing up in Yonkers, many weekends I would sit on the wood
floor in the living room, play with my toys and listen to the
albums, the vinyls if you're under 25, that my dad would put on.
Cat Steven's Tea for the Tillerman, Tower of Power, Eric Clapton
and very often, Johnny Cash. My father would play At
Folsom Prison, Ride this Train, and make sure to make me pay
special attention to songs like Boy Named Sue, Folsom Prison
Blues and Ring of Fire. Ring of Fire I remember
particularly clearly, the trumpets always resonating through my
head, some of the best music I've ever heard. As the years have passed,
my buddy and fellow HugeReviewer, Mike Flanagan, and I have
rediscovered Johnny Cash together, making sure that the CDs
of At Folsom prison and At San Quentin were with us on every
road trip we've ever taken. We've laughed with Johnny,
mourned with Johnny, and most of all sang our deepest
baritones with Johnny. When he died on September 12th,
2003, we both wore black. |
DVD
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I was ready for the
movie, I was thrilled about the casting of Phoenix and
Witherspoon, and I must say I'm thrilled with the results.
Having read one of Johnny's autobiographies in preparation,
Cash by Johnny Cash - a terrific book that I highly
recommend, I knew a lot of the story and couldn't wait to
see how an extremely competent director like Mangold would
handle it. Walk the Line does a great job of
telling the story of one of the most influential country
artists to have ever lived. Joaquin Phoenix, probably
channeling much personal loss and grief regarding the death
of his own brother River, makes Cash truly human, deeply
flawed and deeply good. We believe his goodness, as
well as his faults and care, despite our personal
associations with the real man, very much for Phoenix's
Cash.
Meanwhile, on a path toward continually
amazing me, Reese Witherspoon floored me as June Carter,
bringing the woman who so captured the heart of Johnny Cash
for so many decades, making sure that the audience can't
help but fall in love with her as well. The chemistry
between these two actors is nothing short of what it should
have been, which was a very high bar to live up to.
Mangold does a great job also of pacing the story into it's
almost two and half hours, filling it with almost forty
years of a life time. At times, especially early on,
the movie does seem episodic, clicking a bit too fast
between experiences in his life. This is somewhat of a
necessary fault, maybe the only way to show the growth and
spirit of Mr. Cash and the nature of his relation ship with
his first wife. The film pulls no punches
about who made what mistakes, what mortal sins were
committed by who, and the fact that no one's perfect.
We see wrong done and love given, we see addiction, so much
addiction that it's difficult to watch. The hardest
parts of the movie are when Johnny falls his farthest into
his addiction, and Joaquim does an incredible job making it
hurt. Mangold's Walk the Line is a great
biopic, one that Cash himself would probably have liked, as
much as it would have hurt him to watch the hurt he caused.
Toward the end of his life, Johnny made much out of being as
honest about himself as he could, a sort of penance and
promise in his writing, hoping others could learn from his
mistakes and celebrate in his successes as sort of
inspiration. Mangold's movie accomplishes and tells a
great damn story in the meantime.
READ about The Legend of Johnny Cash
Walk the Line: Cool
by Michael Flanagan
Super
Walk the Line is cool. Very
cool. The movie is just damn cool. Johnny Cash is and
always will be cool. Joaquin Phoenix is cool for playing
him so well. Reese Witherspoon gives her best performance
I’ve seen, and she’s so cool it hurts. The music is, as
always, excellent, but the actors all do such a great,
convincing job with it that it’s just freakin’ cool.
I’d write a more serious review, but
just see the movie. Johnny Cash fan or not, country fan or
not, music fan or not, it’s a great movie. I’m reading the
autobiography Cash now, and the movie is a little bit fairy
tale, but it’s, yup, a damn cool one. |
