..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

..MCN Review

There’s no way to predict exactly when a Woody Allen “moment” will arrive. Like yours, mine tend to occur while I’m standing in line for tickets to a movie.

Last Thursday night, before the opening-night screening of Walk the Line at AFI Fest, I overheard a young man asking his date, “Do you know much about Johnny Cash?” … to which, she replied, “No, that’s why I can’t wait to see this movie.”

The will-call line was moving at a snail’s pace. Instead of putting my cynicism on hold, and allowing the pedagogical discourse to continue, I elected to play the Alvy Singer card. Accepting the role of captive audience to any bizarre pontifications on the legendary singer-songwriter’s monumental career wasn’t on my agenda that night.

For all I knew, though, the young lady’s handsome suitor could have just completed his dissertation on the confluence of rockabilly, country and gospel music in mid-20th Century Tennessee, and their conversation would prove enlightening to both of us. Not having a Marshall McLuhan surrogate on hand to fact-check the conversation, however, I couldn’t take that chance.

As nicely as was humanly possible, I turned around and cautioned the object of the man’s affection, “If you really want to know the truth, a movie is probably the last place on Earth to find it. But try to enjoy the movie, anyway.”

C’mon, if you were standing in my shoes that night, you probably would have done the same thing ...

When it comes to Hollywood biopics, it’s far safer to enter a theater with lowered expectations, than exit with hopes completely dashed. This applies, as well, for adaptations of favorite novels, plays and musicals, and re-creations of historical events big and small. Even with this caveat firmly implanted in one’s mind, of course, it’s difficult not to be depressed by movies that fail to meet heightened expectations.

(As luck would have it, two nights later, I would be left deflated by Harold Ramis’ big Thanksgiving release, The Ice Harvest. Here was another wonderfully atmospheric thriller – a great example of Midwestern noir, from gifted writer Scott Phillips – whose subtle humor and patient narrative were thrown out, in favor of Oliver Platt’s patented, if inarguably funny depictions of alcoholic buffoonery.)

Early critical buzz on Walk the Line was favorable, with plenty of speculation of acting awards to come.

Gossip surrounding Joaquin Phoenix’s bouts with melancholy during production warranted caution, however. The darkly handsome star of Buffalo Soldiers and Signs had the renegade-rockabilly look down pat -- and early reports acknowledged his vocal chops -- but leaked reports of bad behavior often are employed to mask larger problems. Contrary to common wisdom, not all publicity is good publicity, especially when it’s related to alcohol-related detox and banging one’s head against a wall to exorcise demons.

Like Cash, Phoenix lost an older brother at a formative age, and more than a couple rumor-mongers linked the similarities in their personal histories to an on-set meltdown. Who knows? If true, however, the ghosts of Jack Cash and River Phoenix might have coaxed an Oscar-quality portrayal out of Joaquin. After all, hundreds of performers have proven capable of delivering passable impressions of Elvis Presley – Ray Charles, even -- but Phoenix’s interpretation of Cash cuts to the bone of a more elusive target.

Born and raised in the South, Reese Witherspoon delivers a terrifically convincing portrayal of June Carter as well. The love, admiration and devotion lavished by this hillbilly princess on the maverick star are palpable throughout, but most especially in the early and late stages of their on-screen relationship. Carter would have an even greater impact on her husband’s career and recovery in the year’s that went undocumented in Walk the Line.

As good as this performance is, though, Witherspoon’s perky charm and refined appearance do occasionally detract from what we know of Carter’s hard-core-country resume and natural cornpone charisma. This minor disconnect aside, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who could have done a better job of acting, singing and warming up the screen with her mere presence. In any case, after the unconscionable snub of her fine work in Election, academy members owe Witherspoon a nomination for Best Actress.

Like Ray, Why Do Fools Fall in Love, The Buddy Holly Story, What’s Love Got to Do With It, Great Balls of Fire!, La Bamba, Amadeus, The Benny Goodman and most every other biopic about a prominent musician, Walk the Line shouldn’t be taken as exact history. James Mangold and Gill Dennis worked off a template provided by autobiographical material written by Cash and collaborator Patrick Carr. John and June also lived long enough to offer their own personal insights during pre-production.

As such, Walk the Line, the movie, is as close to “Man in Black,” the autobiography, as any Cash fan could have hoped. The fact-fudging has much less to do with “artistic license” than facilitating the love story, and keeping the movie under five or six hours. Cash’s life was rich enough to sustain a weeklong mini-series, let alone fill two hours of screen time, without altering a single fact or anecdote.

For example, left unstated was the fact that Cash’s now-legendary Folsom Prison gig was a hardly an unprecedented event. He began performing before convicts in 1957, and, even entertained a young ne’er-do-well named Merle Haggard during a concert at San Quentin (in the right hands, Hag’s life would make another terrific biopic). If Mangold had stuck to the timeline, though, not only would he have been required to explain Haggard’s presence in stir, but it also would have diminished the impact of the various scenes recalling the Folsom concert.

Watching a hopped-up Cash slide into the lake outside his home, astride his tractor, was harrowing enough. Any subsequent scene that included his explanation for accidentally setting a fire that burned down a large chunk national forest ("I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead," he told the court hearing his case) probably was dismissed as being tantamount to piling-on.

It might have detracted some from the drama, as well, if we were told that the Carter Family was as much a part of Cash’s traveling show as June, herself … so, she didn’t have to suffer his antics in solitude. Ditto, learning that the time he spent in jail for transporting uppers across the Mexican border was no longer than three days, and, perhaps, as brief as one night. And, how about the time he was attacked and seriously wounded by a pissed-off ostrich?

Left unrecognized, too, is Cash’s other older brother. Roy Cash broke musical ground for Johnny in Memphis as a member of the Dixie Rhythm Ramblers, and introduced him to the mechanics who would become the Tennessee Two. Credit for the pivotal Sun audition probably should have gone to Presley and ace sideman Scotty Moore, too.

Would viewers be disappointed to learn that June’s second husband wasn’t a stock-car driver, as was forwarded in the film, but a former football star, garage owner and cop? Or, that she crashed with Elia Kazan and his wife in their New York apartment, while enrolled at the Actor's Studio, and was friendly with Robert Duvall and James Dean?

Probably not, but why risk alienating purists?

Although Kazan considered her for the lead in Wild River, Carter’s film career was pretty much limited to the 1958 film, Country Music Holiday, and, 40 years later, playing Duvall's mother in The Apostle. She also made several guest spots on TV Westerns, ranging from Gunsmoke and The Adventures of Jim Bowie, to Little House on the Prairie and Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman.

Even the best biopics should never be taken at face value, and contemporary audiences have far more opportunity to gauge the accuracy of what they’ve just seen than viewers in the analog era. One of the great things about the Internet – and cable TV, where CMT currently is reprising two terrific Cash documentaries – is the easy access it provides to vast amounts of biographical and historical data (much of which has the added benefit of being accurate). Some films, like Ray and Walk the Line, hold up pretty well under the microscope, while others, such as Beyond the Sea and The Doors, simply don’t.

It’s anyone’s guess as to how many viewers, upon returning home, actually bother to sort the facts from fantasy in biopics and period dramas. In the absence of due diligence on the part of their audiences, Hollywood screenwriters can safely fall back on Maxwell Scott’s theory of progressive journalism, as told in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

In the case of Johnny Cash, there’s a very thin line separating fact and legend. If anything, the makers of Walk the Line may have been too cautious. By investing so much time on Cash and Carter’s roller-coaster romance, many of the achievements that carried him from the cotton fields of Arkansas, to Folsom Prison and music Halls of Fame in Nashville and Cleveland, were compressed to the point of vagueness.

In Kris Kristofferson’s “Pilgrim: Chapter 33,” a man very much like Cash – circa 1971 -- was characterized, thusly: “he’s a poet, he’s a picker... a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he’s stoned. He’s a walkin’ contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, takin’ ev’ry wrong direction on his lonely way back home.”

Three decades later, at Cash’s memorial service, Kristofferson used these words to describe his friend, confidante and fellow Highwayman:

“He surely was a walking contradiction … a deeply spiritual man, who was also a holy terror ... Abraham Lincoln with a wild side … a dark and dangerous force of nature that somehow seemed to stand for freedom, justice and mercy for his fellow human beings. He always has, and he always will, all over the world.

“'He represented the best of America, and we aren't going to see his like again.''

That Joaquin Phoenix managed to capture as much of Cash’s unique talent, inner fire and crazy energy as he did is reason enough to recommend Walk the Line. Without also listening to a half-century’s worth of deeply affecting music, watching the videos he made to support songs produced in the final stanzas of his career and learning how John and June filled the next 30-plus years of their remarkable lives, uninitiated audiences and casual fans, alike, should know going in that they’re only getting half the story.

November 9, 2005
- Gary Dretzka

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