Walk the Line is a
2005 American biographical drama
film, directed by
James Mangold
and based on the life of
country
singer-songwriter Johnny Cash. The film stars
Joaquin Phoenix,
Reese Witherspoon,
Ginnifer Goodwin, and
Robert Patrick.
The film focuses on Cash's
younger life, his romance
with
June Carter, and his
ascent to the country music scene,
with material taken from his autobiographies.
Walk the
Line's production budget is estimated to have been
US$28,000,000.
The film previewed at the
Telluride Film Festival on
September 4,
2005, and went
into wide release on
November 18. This
film was nominated for five
Academy
Awards including Best Actor (
Joaquin
Phoenix), Best Actress (
Reese
Witherspoon) and Best Costume Design (
Arianne Phillips). Witherspoon won the
Oscar for Best Actress, the film's sole Oscar winner.
As of
August 22,
2006,
the film had grossed a total of $186,438,883 worldwide. On
February 28,
2006, a
single-disc
DVD and a two-disc collector edition
DVD were released; these editions sold three million copies on
their first day of release. On March 25, 2008 a two-disc 'extended
cut' DVD was released for region one. The feature on disc one is 17
minutes longer than the theatrical release, and disc two features
eight extended musical sequences with introductions and
documentaries about the making of the film.
The film has been
released on Blu-Ray Disc in France
and the
United
Kingdom
, with a United States
Blu-Ray release is slated for early
2010.
Plot
The film
details Johnny Cash's life from his
growing up as the son of a cotton picker in Dyess, Arkansas
, dealing with the death of his brother, his drug
addiction, subsequent rescue by future wife June Carter, and his famous concert at Folsom State
Prison
.
The film
opens in medias res with an exterior
shot of Folsom State
Prison in 1968. An audience of inmates cheer for
Johnny Cash's band, which is playing a
vamp. Johnny Cash is sitting near a
table saw, reminding him of his youth and
particularly of the death of his brother.
In 1944, Johnny (then known as "J.R.") and his brother Jack are
listening to a young June Carter on the radio. The brothers discuss
their respective strengths and weaknesses with regard to the
Bible and
hymns. Jack, who
is training to become a pastor, and therefore "needs to know the
Bible front to back," is much better at recalling the words and
stories of the Bible. J.R., who can sing well like his mother, is
adept with the hymns they sing at church. Jack is sawing wood on a
job for a neighbor with J.R. when J.R. leaves to go fishing. He is
later taken home by his father, Ray, and they find out Jack has
been fatally injured in an accident with the saw. J.R.'s
relationship with his father, already strained, becomes much more
difficult after Jack's death.
In 1952,
J.R. joins the Air Force and is posted to
Germany
. He seems not to enjoy his time there, but
finds solace in playing a guitar he buys and writing songs - one of
which will become "
Folsom Prison
Blues," inspired by a B-movie shown to the troops,
Inside the Walls of Folsom
Prison. Following his discharge, he marries his girlfriend
Vivian Liberto. In 1955, Vivian and
John (as he is now generally known) live in Memphis in relative
poverty while John works as a door-to-door salesman to support his
growing family (Cash's eldest daughter
Rosanne is an infant, and Vivian mentions
"another one on the way"). One day, he walks past a
recording studio and has an inspiration to
organize
a band (made up of
guitarist
Luther Perkins and bassist
Marshall Grant, whom his wife
describes as "two mechanics who can't hardly play") to play
gospel music.
Cash's band auditions for
Sam Phillips,
the owner of
Sun Records. As they play a
pedestrian gospel song ("I Was There When It Happened"), Phillips
interrupts and asks Cash to play a song that he really
feels. As a result, Cash and his band play "
Folsom Prison Blues," and Phillips
accepts it. The performance results in a contract, in fulfillment
of which Cash begins touring in 1955 (as Johnny Cash and the
Tennessee Two) with other young Sun
artists. Among those he meets on the tour - along with
Jerry Lee Lewis,
Roy
Orbison,
Carl Perkins,
Waylon Jennings and
Elvis Presley - is June Carter, who performs
as both a singer and a comedian.
Cash's career expands, and he finds himself spending more time with
June, who divorces her first husband,
Carl Smith, at this time. Cash
is offered drugs and alcohol after his romantic intentions backfire
and soon begins to behave erratically. The erratic behavior peaks
one night when Cash invites June on stage to sing a duet. Cash
suggests a love song ("Time's A Wastin'") which June recorded with
Smith. She feels uncomfortable performing it with Cash, but he
ignores her protests and kisses her in the middle of the
performance. She storms off the stage and they go their separate
ways, despite Cash's protest that "it was only a song." Soon
afterwards June tells him (and many of the other artists on the
tour) that they can't "walk the line," prompting Cash to write
"
I Walk the Line".
In 1964, Cash (Ray tells him that he would do well to start
"sleeping at night...or eating...or both") takes Vivian to an
awards program which June also attends. Despite his wife's
objections to the level of interest he is paying her, Cash
persuades June (who is divorcing her second husband, a stock car
driver) to come out of semi-retirement and tour with him. The tour
is a great success, but backstage, Vivian is critical of June's
influence. After one Las Vegas performance in 1965, Cash and June
sleep together in her hotel room. The next morning, as June is on
the phone with one of her daughters, she notices Cash taking
several pills and begins to doubt the wisdom of continuing the
previous night's relationship. At that evening's concert, Cash,
upset by Carter's apparent rejection, behaves erratically and
eventually passes out. June disposes of Cash's drugs and begins to
write
"Ring of Fire", describing
her feelings for Cash and her pain at watching him descend into
addiction.
On his way
home, Cash travels to Mexico to purchase more drugs and is arrested
in El Paso,
Texas
. Vivian is upset and the tensions in Cash's
marriage rise when he tries to put up his band's pictures at their
house despite her objection (especially over one of June). After a
final violent dispute, the pair eventually separate and Cash moves
to Nashville, where he shares living quarters with
Waylon Jennings (played by Jennings' son
Shooter) in 1966.
Cash attempts to reconcile with June, which involves a long walk to
her house (his car is in the shop and he has no cash to reclaim
it), but he collapses in the rain.
Later, he sees a large house near a lake
in Hendersonville,
Tennessee
, and promptly buys it. His parents, and the
extended Carter family (June, her daughters and her parents,
Maybelle and Ezra) arrive for
Thanksgiving, at which time Ray
dismisses Cash's achievements and behavior, citing as an example of
Cash's carelessness, an expensive tractor stuck in view of the
house. After a tense meal, Cash decides to prove his father wrong
by freeing the tractor. June and her family watch in concern as
Cash struggles with the machine; June's mother, apparently aware of
her daughter's true feelings toward Cash, encourages her to go help
him, because "he's mixed up." June helps Cash when the tractor goes
into the lake. After a long detoxification period, June sits with
Cash. He wakes up and she gives him some fresh fruit. He then tells
her that she's "an angel." June, however, admits that she's made
mistakes as well. June then reveals that she, and God, have given
Cash a second chance and he cleans himself up.
Cash notices in fan mail that many of his fans are prisoners,
dresses in his customary black, visits his recording company (now
Columbia Records) and makes a
proposal to record an album live inside Folsom Prison. His record
company is doubtful, arguing that the musical world has changed in
the time Cash was rehabilitating, but he says bluntly that he will
perform on a given date and the label can use the tapes if they
think the music is any good.
While at Folsom Prison, the warden requests that Cash not play any
more songs that would remind the inmates that they are in prison.
Cash laughs wryly and replies, "You think they forgot?"
At the Folsom Prison concert Cash tells how he always admired
prisoners, explaining that his brief prison stay after his drug
bust really made him "feel like I'd seen a thing or two, you know?"
But, he continues, he now realizes his experiences really can't
compare because "I ain't never had to drink this yellow water you
got here at Folsom!" Performing "
Cocaine
Blues" to great acclaim from the prisoners, the concert is a
great success, and Cash embarks on a tour with June and his
band.
While on a tour bus, Cash, disturbed by "bad dreams...memories,"
goes to see June in the back of the bus. (On his way he removes a
cigarette from the mouth of a sleeping
Luther Perkins, who in real life died around
this time when his house caught fire; in his biography Cash said he
believed
Luther Perkins' house fire
was caused by a cigarette.) Waking June at 2 AM, he proposes to
her, but she turns him down. Cash tells her that that was the last
time; June tersely replies, "Good." and that she doesn't like
"re-runs." At the concert, June tells Cash that he is allowed to
speak to her only on stage.
The
concert, which is in London
, Ontario
, Canada
, features
"Ring of Fire," for which Cash acknowledges June. He then
persuades her to join him in a duet of "Jackson." In the middle of
the song, Cash breaks off; June looks concerned. Cash explains that
he "just can't sing this song any more" unless she agrees to marry
him. June is reluctant to give an answer, but after Cash proposes
to her, June accepts. At his house, Cash watches his father
interact with his newest daughters
Rosie and
Carlene. He jokes with his father, their
tense relationship having apparently begun to heal. Cash continues
down the stairs to the pier, looking up, and meeting June's eyes
where she is fishing with her father. They look at each other and a
smile from Cash closes the film.
Cast
Reaction
Box office
Walk the Line was released on November 18, 2005 in 2,961
theaters, grossing
USD $22.3 million on its
opening weekend. The film went on to make $119.5 million in North
America and $66.9 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide
total of $186.4 million, well above its $28 million budget.
Reviews
Critics generally responded with positive reviews, garnering an 82%
on
Rotten Tomatoes, almost exactly
the same score received by
Ray,
a
biopic about
Ray
Charles, to which the film is often compared.
Walk the
Line also received a 72 metascore from
Metacritic.
Phoenix's performance inspired film critic
Roger Ebert to write, "Knowing Johnny Cash's
albums more or less by heart, I closed my eyes to focus on the
soundtrack and decided that, yes, that was the voice of Johnny Cash
I was listening to. The closing credits make it clear it's Joaquin
Phoenix doing the singing, and I was gob-smacked". In her review
for the
Los Angeles
Times, Carina Chocano wrote, "Joaquin Phoenix and Reese
Witherspoon do first-rate work — they sing, they twang, they play
new-to-them instruments, they crackle with wit and charisma, and
they give off so much sexual heat it's a wonder they don't burst
into flames". A.O. Scott, in his review for the
New York Times, had problems with
Phoenix's performance: "Even though his singing voice doesn't match
the original - how could it? - he is most convincing in concert,
when his shoulders tighten and he cocks his head to one side.
Otherwise, he seems stuck in the kind of off-the-rack psychological
straitjacket in which Hollywood likes to confine troubled
geniuses". In his review for
Time, Richard Corliss wrote, "A lot of
credit for Phoenix's performance has to go to Mangold, who has
always been good at finding the bleak melodrama in taciturn souls
... If Mangold's new movie has a problem, it's that he and
co-screenwriter Gill Dennis sometimes walk the lines of the
inspirational biography too rigorously".
Andrew Sarris, in his review for
The New York Observer
praised Witherspoon for her "spine-tingling feistiness", and wrote,
"This feat has belatedly placed it (in my mind, at least) among a
mere handful of more-than-Oscar-worthy performances this year".
Entertainment Weekly
gave the film a "B+" rating and
Owen
Gleiberman wrote, "while Witherspoon, a fine singer herself,
makes Carter immensely likable, a fountain of warmth and cheer,
given how sweetly she meshes with Phoenix her romantic reticence
isn't really filled in".
Baltimore
Sun reviewer
Michael Sragow
wrote, "What Phoenix and Witherspoon accomplish in this movie is
transcendent. They act with every bone and inch of flesh and facial
plane, and each tone and waver of their voice. They do their own
singing with a startling mastery of country music's narrative
musicianship". In his review for
Sight and Sound,
Mark Kermode wrote, "Standing ovations, too,
for Witherspoon, who has perhaps the tougher task of lending depth
and darkness to the role of June, whose frighteningly chipper stage
act - a musical-comedy hybrid - constantly courts (but never
marries) mockery".
However, critics such as Jayson Harsin found the film to be too
constrained by Hollywood plot formulas of love and loss, totally
ignoring the last twenty years of Cash's life and other more
socio-politically controversial reasons he was considered "the man
in black." In addition, the Cashs' daughter,
Rosanne Cash, was quite critical of the film.
She saw a rough edit and described the experience like "having a
root canal without anaesthetic" and was instrumental in having the
filmmakers remove two scenes that were not flattering to her
mother. Furthermore, she said, "The movie was painful. The three of
them [in the film] were not recognisable to me as my parents in any
way. But the scenes were recognisable, and the storyline, so the
whole thing was fraught with sadness because they all had just
died, and I had this resistance to seeing the screen version of my
childhood".
Film critic Andrew Sarris ranked
Walk the Line #7 in top
films of 2005 and cited Reese Witherspoon as the best female
performance of the year. Witherspoon was also voted Favorite
Leading Lady at the 2006
People's
Choice Awards. In addition,
David
Ansen of
Newsweek ranked
Witherspoon as one of the five best actresses of 2005.
Awards
| Academy Awards record |
| 1. Best Actress (Reese
Witherspoon) |
| Golden Globe Awards record |
| 1. Best Musical or Comedy
Picture |
| 2. Best M/C Actor (Joaquin
Phoenix) |
| 2. Best M/C Actress (Reese
Witherspoon) |
| BAFTA Awards record |
| 1. Best Actress (Reese
Witherspoon) |
| 2. Best Sound |
Witherspoon's performance was repeatedly recognized, including an
Academy Award for Best
Actress and awards such as the following:
Source material
References
- Walk the Line (2005)
- Walk the Line Sells 3 Million it's First Day
- Ray - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten
Tomatoes
- Harsin, Jayson (2006) "Walking the Fine LIne," Bright
Lights Film Journal, May.
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