The
Cucumber In Black
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Blues
for The Man In Black.
by
Jon Dunmore © 6 Dec 2005.
I
was introduced to Johnny Cash by my older cousin, via A Boy Named Sue and
Cash's take on being led to the gallows, 25 Minutes To Go. This was before
I discovered a boy named Alice (Cooper) and Led Zeppelin's Gallows Pole,
subsequently leading to deserting the previous generation's outlaws (like Cash
and The Beatles) and going all long-haired, ripped-jeaned and anti-socialite.
(To scallywags under 30: yes, respected and seemingly harmless icons were once
regarded as threatening and subversive.) Walk
The Line, though lauded as a Johnny Cash biography - is not. As a movie, formulaic;
as a biography, a sordid Behind The Music episode at best. Focusing
on only a short period of Cash's life (from boyhood until 1968), and then only
on Cash's infatuation with vocalist June Carter, Walk The Line paints the
prolific and determined young man as a neurotic stalker - of a woman who is seemingly
as mixed up as he is (if June's two failed marriages and intermittent dalliances
with Cash are any indication). Who would've guessed this Grand Olde Pioneer's
goals and destructive actions all revolved around The Getting Of Panty from Carter?
Noticeably missing was the scene where he holds up a boombox playing In Your
Eyes outside her bedroom window. Joaquin
Phoenix is J.R. Cash (as Johnny liked to be called) and, though not a physical
chameleon akin to the Day-Lewises or Oldmans, is a chameleon in essence,
metamorphosing into every character he bequeaths his moviegoing audience. An acting
marvel, who should have been accruing awards since being "terribly vexed"
by Russell Crowe, this role, whilst not his best, is at least on par with the
Academy's provincial (and hypocritical) leanings towards "serious" thespianism.
In singing all Cash's songs himself on the soundtrack, though he lacks
the trademark weather-worn baritone, Phoenix nonetheless causes us to double-take
on a few magic moments, superimposing the soul of Cash over his onstage persona.
His vocal sync is near perfect (nailing that Cash sideways-mouthing), and with
most of the songs adhering to simple I-IV-V progressions, the git-tar wrangling
should not have caused many brain tumors with the actors-playing-musicians (though
Phoenix likes holding that C chord a lot…). Folsom
Prison Blues is played upon considerably, especially that infamous line, "I
shot a man in Reno / Just to watch him die." Powerful words indeed, for a
23-year-old kid from Arkansas in 1955, cultivating the outlaw image which would
render the eventual Man In Black… I
once kicked a man in the Chattahoochee, but I don't think that counts. Jutting-jawed
Reese Witherspoon, suitably perky and delicious enough to moon over (brunette
really suits you, darlin'!), is June Carter, Cash's regular touring buddy and
raison d'être, who pulls him from the depths of drug addiction and
marries him after a final onstage plea from Cash - in a climax that debases everything
Cash created. In making this love affair the movie's engine, it implies Cash would
have been relegated to "Would you like fries with that?" without June,
but he was already a success on his own terms before she was his "inspiration."
We see that, after all the "biographical" misdirection, this is nothing
more than a chick movie clothed in black and blues. Thankfully, the film neglects
to show us that June turned Cash to Christianity - being born once is enough to
make some people annoying, but being born twice makes them unquestionably
intolerable. Robert
Patrick is Cash's unsympathetic father, Ray, who relentlessly badgers Cash even
into adulthood - for the first time in cinema history, a lifelike rendition of
parenthood! In their eyes, you never do Grow Up. When Johnny is released after
a night in prison for smuggling amphetamines from Mexico, his father comments,
"Now you won't have to pretend like you've been to jail," and when Cash
purchases a big house by the lake and seeks his father's approbation, Ray only
offers, "Not as big as Jack Benny's place." Ray's hurtful digs play
a large part in Cash's drive and despondency in this movie, yet a passive (and
unrealistic) reconciliation at movie's end demeans this subtext, with Ray begrudgingly
giving Cash his due, "You're the one with all the stories." Almost a
backhanded compliment, the only reason this silly smoothing of hostilities was
placed at movie's end was to wrap it neatly - like a movie - once again departing
from any semblance of "biographical" intent. Cash's
use of amphetamines propped him up during grueling tour schedules, yet we never
hear exactly how scheduled he is. At times, Cash's real life itinerary grew to
200 cities in as many days - quite an astonishing tidbit - yet the movie is content
to have him away from home just long enough to rouse the ire of his Bitching Movie
Wife. There's
an easier way to watch a man die than shooting him in Reno - marry him off to
a small town girl. If there is one inherent message - one thread in all these
musician biographies - it is that the first girl you marry is going to be the
Whining Byatch of the bunch. The
death of Jack Cash, Johnny's older brother, was so telegraphed, you could see
his table-saw mishap coming while watching the movie Ray. Speaking
of Taylor Hackford's and Jamie Foxx's Ray, comparisons are inevitable -
seeing as Walk The Line is the same story rewritten with a white guy.
Already the trend solidifies in delivering pop star biopics: as long as there
are enough drugs and dames and deaths in the family, it will assure an economically
viable film - all things being equal, Ray is a more fully-developed character
study, thin as it is. Walk The Line is anorexic. Fans
will love the full versions of Cash songs (performed by Phoenix), but are gonna
Cry, Cry, Cry at how the film's creators did not Walk The Line with the
finer details and, like the Boy Named Sue, may want to search the honky-tonks
and bars for the men responsible and give them 25 Minutes To Go…
END
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