I Feel Better All Over

I refuse to start this review/recap of the new Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line with some lame play on the words "walk the line, "ring of fire," or "Folsom prison" as that's what every review I've read thus far has done. Instead, I'm going with a song title from Cash's Now There Was a Song album because, well, "that's exactly how I feel."

The question everyone seemed to be asking me in the past few weeks was, are you ready for Walk the Line? Because of that, I'm going to spend a good amount of time on the answer.

I was terrified to see this movie. After waiting nearly two years for the film to finally hit theaters, I watched in horror as the media blitz started two weeks prior to the movie's opening. Every clip seemed to be worse than the previous one, each dripping in Hollywood conventionality and common-man sentimentality. I shouldn't have been surprised, this was after all a major studio picture, designed to score at the box office as well as with the Academy.

Needless to say, there was a lot of work to do when I took my seat at a preview screening last Thursday night. I was certain that something very dear to me was about to be massacred. (Imagine having a preview of the Bill Callahan era at Nebraska, and that's pretty much how I felt.) But if Walk the Line was this year's Huskers, it would be Big 12 North champions. Not a marvel, but better than expected.

The film centers around the relationship between Cash and his savior, June Carter. After a not totally cheesy framing device followed by a flashback sequence to Cash's youth (there's your Hollywood conventionality), the film begins to document the rise and fall of Cash during the late-50's-early 60's. But one of the beautiful aspects of the picture is the time it takes with each step along the way. Sure there are cuts and combinations of events that, while not entirely accurate, ring true enough, but the movie feels long. This is important when you consider this is a biopic, drawn from two different autobiographical sources, where the tendency is to jam as many recognizable events into the story and generally losing it in the process.

Instead, Cash's downward spiral into addiction and his upward leap towards love with June conflict nicely throughout much of the second act, eventually reaching J.R's redemption at Folsom Prison in 1968. But I've had enough of this conventional review stuff, you can read that anywhere, instead I'm going to give you three things I absolutely hated about the movie, followed by three I absolutely loved, as well as a quick look at the music in the movie.

3 Things that went Horribly Wrong

1) June Carter's singing of Jukebox Blues - This is the first scene where we see June, and after some embarrassing filler when she gets caught in Cash's guitar strap, she comes on stage and drops this pantomime of hillybilly stereotypes on us. I don't quite understand how Reese Witherspoon, a Nashville native, can't fake a passable Southern accent, but when she breaks into Jukebox Blues, her forced twang sounds like a parody of country music. Granted, the song itself is a true moonshine jig, but I'm sure June didn't make it sound like a joke.

2) "Ya'll can't walk the line." - At number two we have Reese again. After June rebukes one of Cash's first advances, he takes off on an amphetamine fueled rampage that results in a trashed dressing room and culminates in an all-night picking session with his tourmates. When June walks in to find the guys drunken and rowdy, she throws a couple empties at them and utters the above line, which is horrible for two reasons: a) It's a needless repetition of the famous song title, that would've seemed ridiculous at the time and reeks of sentimental repetition now, and b) It's not really an effective slight, as none of these guys were particularly interested in "walking the line" at the time. They were young,superstars doing what they had wanted to do their entire lives, writing and performing music while enjoying the creation of cliches that would come to define our idea of the out of control rock star. Remember, it's "because you're mine" that Cash walks the line, and with June refusing to allow that, I doubt Johnny really gave a damn at the time.

3) The Shooter Jennings Metamorphosis - Shooter Jennings plays his real life father, Waylon, in the film and, while in the scene mentioned above, they did clean him up and give him a greaser hair cut to portray the pre-outlaw Waylon, the next time we see him, he just looks like Shooter. Waylon and Cash were Nashville roommates in the mid-60's and while I enjoyed seeing them strung out, living in a trashed apartment, the fact that Shooter looked exactly the way he looked when I saw him two weeks ago detracted slightly.

3 Things that Worked Frightfully Well

1) The Opening Sequence - The movie opens with a montage of Folsom Prison shots with no sound beyond that trademark boom-chicka-boom bass line. It's a great juxtaposition of the stark grey stone of the prison with the signature element of Cash's sound. I had chills in the first minute.

2) Humanizing Addiction Scenes - I have never had the opportunity to talk to a Cash fan from the 50's so I don't know what perceptions were then, but the fact that Cash was addicted to amphetamines is either largely forgotten or largely exaggerated by many people. Add to that the largely mythic status Cash has achieved and it made for a nice departure from expectation to see the man at his worst, intolerable, self-destructive and totally desperate. It's a side of the Cash persona that he never shied away from, but still most current Cash fans have never had the opportunity to see it. This was perhaps the most valuable asset of the film.

3) Charlie Feather's "Defrost Your Heart" - This is dipping in to the music section a bit, but I cannot describe to you the delight I felt while watching Cash and Carter's first real conversation in a cafe while my favorite Charlie Feather's song played in the background. If you've heard of Feathers, it's probably due to one of the two songs that appeared in Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2. He was on Sun Records briefly and if you listen to his music, it's hard to know why he wasn't the next Elvis at best, the next Carl Perkins at worst. Apparently only Hollywood holds Feathers in such high esteem as it's the only place you ever hear Charlie Feathers. Check him out at http://www.charliefeathers.com

Perhaps the most controversial and covered element of the film is the fact that all the performers sang their own songs. Again, you can read all about the job Joaquin and Reese do elsewhere, instead I'm going to give you the five best and worst songs from the film.

Best Songs
5) Ring of Fire - Hearing this song early gave me hope of Phoenix as a vocalist.
4) Home of the Blues - An oft-forgotten early Cash gem. Melds well with Phoenix's take on Cash's bass.
3) Wildwood Flower - This solo ballad featuring June on the autoharp mercifully gets Witherspoon out of the forced twang she adopted on other numbers.
2) I'm a Long Way from Home - This is from the great apartment scene with a slightly t00 modern Shooter, but he does the best job replicating his daddy's moan I've ever heard.
1) Cocaine Blues - This is the apex of the film and I was shocked and awed that the director opted for this song at Folsom Prison rather than the much more popular title track, but it fit perfectly. It gives you a better idea of how Cash was able to strike a vein with the Folsom population than any other song on the album.

Worst Songs
5) Lewis Boogie - I've never liked Jerry Lee's music and that's that.
4) Get Rhythm - In this scene, they introduce Cash as the artist behind "Cry, Cry, Cry" but then he comes out and sings this, a far inferior song. "Cry, Cry, Cry" does appear on the soundtrack, but I don't recall it in the film.
3) It Ain't Me Babe - You're able to suspend disbelief when Phoenix or Witherspoon sing on their own, but put them together and it becomes too much to handle.
2) Jackson - In addition to the above statement, June had a guttural growl that pushed this song over the top. Reese doesn't.
1) Jukebox Blues - We won't go into this again.

Thanks for sticking with me through what has turned into an epic examination of the movie. I figured I owed it to all six of you who may have been waiting for me to post something. Please forgive me, I am entertaining guests from faraway lands.