Walk the Line

For the soundtrack of the same name, see Walk The Line Soundtrack. For the song, see I Walk the Line

Walk the Line is an acclaimed Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning film chronicling the life of Johnny Cash, American country singer, focusing on his younger life, his romance with June Carter and his ascent to the country music scene, with material taken from his autobiographies. The title is taken from the title of one of Cash's best known songs, "I Walk the Line".

Walk the Line's production budget is estimated to have been $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) and Best Actress (Reese Witherspoon). Witherspoon won the Oscar for Best Actress, the film's sole Oscar winner.

As of April 6, 2006, the film had grossed a total of US$180 million in the international Box Office. On February 28, 2006, a single-disc DVD and a two-disc collector's edition DVD was released; it sold 3 million copies its first day of release. The DVD sales are a testament to the film's popularity, as it was still showing first-run in some theaters even as the DVD was released.

Plot

The film details Johnny Cash's (Phoenix) life from his growing up and becoming a legend as well as the son of a cotton picker in rural Arkansas, dealing with the death of his brother, his drug addiction, subsequent rescue by future wife June Carter (Witherspoon), and his famous concert at Folsom State Prison.

The film opens with an exterior shot of Folsom Prison. The grounds are quiet except for the faint sound of music. Two guards on their tower peer at the main building. As we slowly approach the main building, the music begins to increase in volume. The camera tracks past empty cells and halls as the music becomes louder and more distinct; now cheering can be heard. Finally we see the source of the cheering: an audience of inmates for Johnny Cash's band, which is playing a vamp. In the next shot, a table saw rests on a table as a hand casually strokes the blade. After repeated calls, we are made aware that the hand is that of Johnny Cash. (Later we learn that the voice calling him onstage is that of the prison warden.)

In the next scene, Cash is a boy (called "J.R."). He and his brother Jack are listening to the radio; the 10-year-old June Carter is singing.

Early in the movie, Cash and Jack 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. A few scenes later, Jack is sawing wood on a job for a neighbor with J.R. when J.R. abruptly announces that the task is boring. With Jack's permission, he leaves to go fishing. As he walks home later, he is intercepted by his father, who has visibly fresh blood stains on his overalls. "Where you been?" asks his father. 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 the death of Jack.

Several years later, 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.

Vivian and John (as he is now generally known) live 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 Luther Perkins and 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. Although his bandmates do not know the tune, he strikes up "Folsom Prison Blues." Cash begins the song hesitantly in the style of a slow, mournful blues tune, the way that he originally wrote it. However, as the song progresses and Cash gains confidence, the song picks up and the familiar "freight train" rhythm begins to assert itself as he picks up the tempo. Everyone in the room brightens as they realize that Cash now has something good and potentially marketable. The performance results in a contract, in fulfillment of which Cash begins touring (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 and Elvis Presley - is June Carter, who performs as both a singer (although she claims to have no talent) and a comedienne.

Cash's career goes from strength to strength, and he finds himself spending more time with June, who divorces her husband at this time. After his romantic intentions are rebuffed one night in rural Texas, Cash is offered drugs and alcohol and soon begins to behave erratically. June tells him (and many of the other artists on the tour) at one point that they cannot "walk the line," prompting Cash to write "I Walk the Line."

The erratic behaviour peaks one night when Cash invites June onstage to sing a duet. Cash suggests a love song ("Time's A Wastin'") which June recorded with her first husband Carl Smith (whom she has recently divorced). 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."

Some time later, the still addicted Cash (his father tells him that he would do well to start "sleeping at night...or eating...or both") takes his wife 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 (June is shown performing "Wildwood Flower" solo, and, with Cash, the hits "Jackson" and "It Ain't Me Babe"), but backstage Cash's wife is critical of June's influence. After one performance, 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, is incoherent during his customary "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" opening, forgets the lyrics to the song "I Got Stripes," loses control of the microphone stand, kicks out the footlights, and ultimately passes out. The remainder of the tour is cancelled. The distraught 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 busted in El Paso, Texas. Cash's wife Vivian is not pleased, and between his substance abuse and her awareness of his interest in June, the tensions in Cash's marriage flare up when he tries to put up "pictures of my band" (most of which seem to be of June) at home over his wife's objections. After a final violent dispute, the pair separate and Cash moves to Nashville, where he shares living quarters with Waylon Jennings.

Cash tries 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). He is sent on his way, with June informing him that she misses her "old friend John" and doesn't like "this new guy, Cash." On the way back he collapses in the rain. After coming round the next day 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 the ever-critical Cash Sr. dismisses Cash's achievements and behavior, citing as an example of Cash's carelessness an expensive tractor stuck in the mud 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 at first refuses, but runs to Cash's aid when the tractor, in reverse, goes into the lake. Under the influence of the Carters (which extends to June's parents, shotguns in hand, chasing away Cash's drug dealer), Cash cleans himself up.

Stabilized, Cash notices in fan mail that many of his fans are prisoners, dresses in his customary black, and 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.

At this point the film returns to the opening scene with the warden speaking to Cash. 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!" Peforming "Cocaine Blues" to great acclaim from the prisoners, the concert is a great success, and Cash embarks on a tour with June and his old band.

The scene changes to a tour bus in the dead of night. 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 June, who turns him down. Cash tells her that that was the last time; June replies that she doesn't like "re-runs". At the concert, June tells Cash that he is only allowed to speak to her onstage.

The concert 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 anymore" unless she agrees to marry him. June is reluctant to give an answer, but Cash continues with his proposal:

"Now I've asked you forty different ways and it's time you come up with a fresh answer...I'm asking you to marry me. I love you, June. Now I know I said and done a lotta things, that I hurt you, but I promise, I'll never do that again. I only want to take care of you. I will not leave you like that Dutch boy with your finger in the dam...You're my best friend. Marry me."

June tearfully agrees, and after a long embrace the scene fades to the deck of Cash's home in Hendersonville. Cash watches his father interact with Cash's daughter Rosanne and June's daughter Carlene. He jokes with his father, their tense relationship having apparently begun to heal. The final shot shows Cash continuing 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 Cash smiles and the frame freezes; the scene then changes to footage of the couple performing together, with brief biographical information about Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash superimposed over it.

Trivia

Phoenix and Witherspoon performed their own vocals and instrument takes in the film's numerous stage appearances. They also released a CD of their vocals along with those of some of the other actors, which is the soundtrack to the movie. However, at least some of the takes on the CD are different takes than those used in the film.
This movie was a secret project before 2000; Johnny Cash was involved in talks of this secret project which became Walk the Line.
Before their deaths in 2003, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash selected Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon to play their respective parts.
Critic Roger Ebert, who gave high praise to the film, reported that he was surprised to learn that the Hollywoodesque scene, in which Cash proposes to Carter onstage during a concert in London, Ontario, was a true event.
Both Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon were nominated for CMA Awards in 2006 for the music video for the song Jackson as released on the Walk the Line soundtrack.
The scene where Johnny Cash pulls the sink off the wall came as a surprise to the director as it was improvised by Joaquin Phoenix. James Mangold kept it in because of its impact.
Johnny Cash was so taken by the 1980 cult Western film, The Long Riders, that he contacted the film's writer/producer James Keach (who also portrayed Jesse James in it) and the two became close friends. Cash asked Keach to be involved in the development of Walk the Line which Keach produced ^*.

Critics' reaction

Critics generally responded with positive reviews, garnering an 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, which was higher than the 82% Rotten Tomatoes score for Ray (the 2004 biopic on Ray Charles) that the film is often compared to. For example, 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."

Yet some, like Las Vegas Weekly reviewer Jeffrey M. Anderson ^* believed the film suffered from the typical fate of the biopic, stating that important events are distilled into meaningless and unrealistic circumstances. Further, Anderson wrote, the director Mangold "stretches and dilutes the core story until it resembles less a great man's life than a TV movie of the week."

Literary license

As with most Hollywood bios, some events were compressed or altered. These observations are based largely on comparisons with Cash's 1997 autobiography.

Some critics have disputed the extent of the enmity between Johnny Cash and his father. The film portrays his father as blaming Johnny for going fishing the day Jack had his fatal accident. In his biography, Johnny wrote that he, Jack, and their mother all had a premonition earlier that day. Both Johnny and his mother urged Jack to go fishing with Johnny, but Jack insisted on going to work, as the family needed the money. It is true that Ray picked Johnny up along the road as shown in the film. Johnny only said that his father ordered him into the car, not with an accusatory "Where have you been?" However, Johnny actually had only a couple of pages in his book that talked about his father, whom he called an "enigma" and described some incidents of near-physical violence. He also said that his father became a much gentler man as he got older, which is suggested in one of the final scenes in the film in which he plays with his grandchildren. Also, unstated in the film, Ray was actually in attendance at the famous Folsom Prison concert.

As bad as Cash's addiction to amphetamines was portrayed in the film, it only hints at how bad it got over his 10-year binge. Johnny described some truly hair-raising incidents in his book. His actual detoxification, presided over by June and her family, occurred after Cash had emerged from a cave into which he had wandered, hoping to die and never be found. In the film he is often shown drinking beer as a "chaser" to the pills, which was true, as the beer tempered the effect of the pills to an extent.

According to Cash, his first marriage was on the rocks before he became seriously involved with June. He was very candid about having "wrecked" his first marriage due largely to his addiction to pills. Vivian refused to grant him a divorce for a number of years, but after the bizarre cave incident she decided that she had had enough.

Cash's prison concerts were not a novelty in 1968, as he had been doing so at various prisons since the late 1950s. It is true that there was dispute among his record producers about doing a live concert album on his next visit to Folsom Prison, although some of them were supportive.

Awards won

Academy Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

BAFTA Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

Broadcast Film Critic Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon
Best Soundtrack

Florida Film Critic Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

Golden Globe Awards

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Best Actress - Musical or Comedy, Reese Witherspoon
Best Actor - Musical or Comedy, Joaquin Phoenix

Kansas Film Critcs Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

Las Vegas Film Critic Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

National Society of Film Critics Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

New York Film Critics Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

Online Film Critics Society

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

Phoenix Film Critics Awards

Best Use of Previously Published or Recorded Music

San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

Satellite Awards

Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical, Reese Witherspoon
Outstanding Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

Screen Actors Guild Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

Washington Area Film Critics Awards

Best Actress, Reese Witherspoon

Primary cast

DVD release

Image:Walk the line dvd cover.jpg|1-Disc Edition
February 28, 2006 Image:Walk the line collector dvd.jpg|2-Disc Collector's Edition
February 28, 2006

The film was also released as a 3-Disc Collector's Edition in Scandinavia - with 5 photo cards (differing from the Region 1 release), a limited booklet and a CD with 3 songs from the soundtrack.

External links

Walk the Line Official Website
Roger Ebert Movie Review
New York Times Movie Review by A. O. Scott
Bright Lights Film Journal Walking the Fine Line - Review by J. Harsin
Walk the Line - Drive the Crooked Road
Accurate Soundtrack lyrics

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