Who Was Johnny Cash?

Rating: 6/10 (19 November 2005)

There is a moment in the new Johnny Cash Biopic WALK THE LINE that is so true and honest it stuck with me throughout the whole film. It's a moment that most people will forget, others will scoff and probably say "look at that close-minded Bible-Thumper." But I'll carry that moment with me for a long time. Judith Carter (Reese Witherspoon) is walking around a small five and dime. A former Southern Gospel Child star she has just gone through a horrible divorce. An old sweet women walks up to her and compliments her parents as being great Christians. After Carter thanks her for the sentiment. The old women spews the line "Divorce is an abomination" thus killing Judith with her down-home Christian Charm and in the process putting good ole James 3:9 into practical application "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.(James 3:9 NIV)
Working in Christian Radio I have come into contact with people like this. Hey I was once even accosted by a man in a collar because he didn't like the direction the station was going (and I didn't even make the decisions about that anyway.) But I also remember how easy it is to judge someone for their mistakes. It also allows me to have great admiration for June Carter and her family cause frankly this film allows them to show so much Christian love I'm embarrassed.
.....But before this review turns into a sermon allow me to tell you just what I think I of James Mangold's WALK THE LINE.
There are some people that are so complex, so multi-dimensional, that to try to sum their lives up in a few hours would be impossible. Johnny Cash is that kind of person. He was a man of faith, a man of sorrow, a man fighting his demons, and a man who had a gentle simplicity. When you saw him you thought he was easily figured out. WALK THE LINE tries and sometimes succeeds. Joaquin Phoenix stars as the Man In Black, and does a good job of becoming Cash. I didn't find myself looking at him and saying here's a guy trying to be someone he's not (earlier this week I sat through CAPOTE, and thought "wow that's a great Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing Truman Capote, {in all honesty I was so bored by Capote I fell asleep in the middle of it so that's why there is no review}). It's a good performance because Pheonix tries his hardest to keep Cash grounded. Reese Witherspoon also controls June Carter-Cash with a live vivaciousness. She fills those shoes so well she almost steals the movie away from Pheonix and that's quite okay with me.
What doesn't work is a screenplay by Gill Dennis and Director James Mangold that is so difficult to nail down. It jumps from scene to scene because that's what it feels it needs to do. So while the performances are great, the film is too busy trying to play out events, instead of getting to the heart of the matter: WHO WAS JOHNNY CASH?. It gives us scenes with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and The Man in Black's troubles with drugs, but sometimes forgets that this is a film about a man. It's too pre-occupied with being a bio-pic and not about getting to the heart of the matter: WHO IS JOHNNY CASH? Why must bio-pics be so conservative? Why must we sit through another film about another celebrity that is too busy telling a story to care about the lead characters? (This was the problem with RAY last year. Again a film with great performances, but too preoccupied with getting the viewer from one momentous career moment to the other and not nailing done who RAY CHARLES, really was.) Johnny and June Cater Cash are people with lives far more interesting than this movie.
But then there is the music. T Bone Burnett has done it again. He captured the sound of the times. He nails down Cash's music quite nicely. If there is man out there batting a thousand producing soundtracks it's Burnett. From his work on the groundbreaking "O Brother Where Art Thou" to "Cold Mountian" he makes the music a character in the film. Trying to nail down Cash's music is a monumental challenge because of its rich diversity, but Burnett seems up to the task. I just wonder why he chose to use Phoenix and Witherspoon's voice and not the CASH recordings themselves.
I also liked director Mangold's attention to detail. He has captured a changing America not with the turbulent events but with background details. This is a film about Cash, and I'm glad that he captured it that way. Many films take try to hard to pull us into the time period by saying "alright here's the sixties cut to a group of hippies protesting Vietnam." WALK THE LINE grounds itself by not making statements about society but by showing us Cash.
Then the film eventually ends with a pointless happily ever after moment that steals something from the films final analysis. It feels forced, and leaves us at a place that is too nice and peaceful. It felt like I was watching the end of Leave it to Beaver. Sheer badly paced schmaltz. I wished with film could have ended somewhere else. WALK THE LINE is a fine bio-pic, it has some brilliant acting. But it could have been so much better, CASH was larger than life and WALK THE LINE is too busy immortalizing Cash to let us know him. It's funny that, the small moment with June Cater and the old women struck me so much. It was the moment that felt honest? Who was Johnny Cash? WALK THE LINE doesn't really tell us.