Walk the Line (2005)

IMDB

I love Johnny Cash. Name me a musician who doesn't. If they exist, I've never met 'em, and I've met a lot of musicians, both in playing and in running a guitar shop during my formative years. When Rick Rubin put out the call for songs because he was producing a new Johnny Cash album, even Glen Danzig sent one in. Every musician knows a Johnny Cash song, and not just the ringers like "Walk the Line" or "Ring of Fire". Usually they whip some strange, creaky number from one of his early singles, or a number from the American recordings sessions that you've forgotten about until they start singing. Johnny Cash songs, unlike so many artists, belong to you the moment you hear them. You can take them and sing them and they are yours.

And then there's the Carter family, who--as every reviewer in the world has pointed out--are country music royalty. What is lost in that descriptor is how much they deserved the crown. In country music circles, it's a test of a guitar player's ability if they can nail the tricky syncopation of "You Are My Flower", which sounds so deceptively simple. I've never gotten it right, despite years of trying, and I know plenty of other people who attempt it again and again in a sealed room so that they can debut it as a stripe on their uniform. But besides that, there is the legend of this family keeping the Southern poor entertained during the depression. When life was despicable, the Carter family brought to you the thought that things won't always be so bad. Either you're gonna fall in love, or you're gonna die and go to your heavenly host and get your eternal reward for your struggles. If you're barely surviving the day through your toils, neither sounded too bad. Johnny Cash wasn't the only one in love with the Carters as a kid--he was just one of the most famous.

I avoided this movie for quite awhile because, quite simply, I don't necessarily want to color my own associations of the Carter-Cash dynasty. But, since it showed up at the best theater in Seattle, we went to go check it out. Also, despite it's good reviews elsewhere, it was handily lambasted and mocked by my own friends who obviously thought lowly of it.

To put it bluntly, my expectations were low. I was expecting a cookie-cutter paint-by-the-numbers biopic, along the lines of the Buddy Holly Story. Sure, the story might be fine, but the portrayal is less than filmic. It would be like a made-for-tv movie with an overly simplified plot, and a pedantic re-telling of the story that Sarah Vowell has kept fresh in the ears of National Public Hipsters.

I knew that despite some mediocre performances--the kind of illusory over-acting tear-jerkers that tend to get the actor nod--the movie would just barrel along, telling the story in the text of the movie, as opposed to the subtext or the relationships or in the cut.

That's everything I knew going in. Going out, I knew a whole lot more, and it was all different than my preconceptions. The movie is remarkably well made--told in the medium. This is no made-for-tv movie. The shots were carefully considered, the story was told in the cut and in long consideration of the actors. It has an immediate feeling, taking its lesson from documentaries, that didn't idealize the times they lived in, but represented them honestly--take the scene in the drug store, for example. That's no Hollywood glam set they were on.

There are looping metaphors throughout the film, subtly played, that ring in perfect parallel with the idea of the song cycle--the idea of a melody coming back on itself again, which was the Carter families greatest talent in their music.

But its greatest device--one that I found effective--was how the camera started smooth and controlled, and the more fucked up that Johnny became, the more hand-held and out-of-focus the shots became. The scene of him trashing his backstage room shows us a camera that compellingly pushes in on him during moments of rest, and then pulling back suddenly when he electrifies, as if the camera man himself were scared of getting hurt. It's immediate feeling. The image blurs and focuses, putting us in that room reacting to his violence.

The movie gives great nods to history, without beating you over the head with it. One line about Bob Dylan to give context, and the next concert is in a huge hall where the audience is remarkably subdued. The filmmakers are giving a wink to those who know that the shift in venue had to do with the folk revival that happened because of (or in parallel to, anyway) Dylan. Suddenly performers who were limited to a section of the American South were playing on college campuses and big cities throughout the States.

The acting was dead on, and believable, although, of course, our actor's are a whole hell of a lot prettier than the real people they portray. Still, the voices were close enough for me to forget that it wasn't the real McCoy, and the portrayals were nuanced and true.

And, despite knowing how things might turn out, I found myself tearing up a few times during the movie. I may be judged harshly by my friends for saying so, but I'll use Johnny as my example and stand alone. That's what I learn when I ask myself WWJ(C)D?