It’s almost impossible to fathom that just a little over a year after arguably the finest biopic made about a musician, Ray, was released that another film comes along about an equally influential player that might actually be better.
Okay, so we have very different actual opinions about the film Ray. Capone finds it to be possibly the best biographical film about a musician ever made, whereas I found it to be an almost completely intolerable, ludicrous, maudlin, predictable and souless mess. The review is scathing even by Crushed by Inertia standards, and can be read here.
But Capone is correct to compare the two films. They share a ton in common. Both are biographies focused on the rise to stardom of two icons of 20th Century American music - Ray Charles in Ray and Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. And beyond that similarity in theme, they both share a focus on the women behind-the-scenes who so influenced these men personally and creatively, and both find opportunity to include numerous classic songs by these timeless artists. Even some of the specific details of Charles' and Cash's lives overlap. Both lost brothers traumatically at a young age, and felt guilty for years afterwards. Both had absent fathers (though Charles' was actually physically absent while Cash's was just drunk, hostile and emotionally vacant). Both men battled drug addiction. And, of course, they both rose to fame and glory amidst the backdrop of classic 50's and 60's pop music.
So, considering that they share so much in common, and further considering that both Taylor Hackford's bio of Ray Charles and James Mangold's bio of Cash hew close to the classic biopic formula, how come Walk the Line is so much better than Ray? And I don't mean the movies are alike, and this one happens to be better. It's not even remotely close. Walk the Line feels as alive, vibrant, human, emotional and entertaining as Ray felt turgid and wan. It really comes down to talent, I suppose. Writers and directors can sit down with the same material and wind up with a wildly divergent final product.
Don't get me wrong...Walk the Line is hardly perfect. Mangold's film is undoubtedly built around a familiar musical biopic formula, and there are a number of scenes that feel obvious, derivative and overly cutesy. One scene in particular, in which June Carter yells at a drunken Cash that "you can't walk no line," caused me to roll my eyes clear into the back of my head. I always hate it when movies have a blatant line that references the title of a movie like that. There's a scene in one of those Star Trek Next Generation movies where they go back in time and crash-land on an Earth where proto-astronaut James Cromwell is about to introduce Earth into the galactic Federation. Anyway, he gets one look at Picard and the crew and he says..."You're all astronauts...on some kind of...Star Trek!" LAME.
Walk the Line definitely has some scenes like that, moments that just play rushed or kind of false and artificial that have to be in the movie because they're in every movie like this.
But by focusing his story on the ups and downs of one relationship in Cash's life, Mangold avoids the usual Biopic Syndrome, in which the movie feels like a clip show highlighing the best moments in the life of a celebrity. Like Milos Forman's Andy Kaufman bio, Man on the Moon. It's less like watching a movie about Andy Kaufman the Man, and more like watching a 90 minute film in which Jim Carrey recreates Kaufman's best bits. I don't really care to see Jim Carrey doing Tony Clifton. I wanted to see him inhabiting Andy Kaufman.
Walk the Line feels more like a real movie, with a cinematic story to tell. As Cash, Joaquin Phoenix gives arguably his best performance to date. He doesn't really look like Cash (he's pretty scrawny, whereas the real Cash was a more imposing presence). And though he ably sings all the songs in the movie, he doesn't really sound like Johnny Cash. That's not a knock...few do. He sounds like Johnny Cash with a bad head cold after smoking three packs of Malboros in a room with the air conditioning turned way up. But damned if he doesn't capture the spirit of Cash, or at least the spirit of this film's version of Cash.
In his best moments, he conjures a mixture of childlike innocence, snarky wit and wounded pride with a single look or gesture. His "druggie" scenes aren't over-the-top or forced. Unlike other actors who try to go big with these moments, gunning for showy Oscar-clip material, Phoenix realizes that many drunks and addicts turn inward, get real quiet and try to disappear into themselves.
And he plays off Witherspoon's June Carter marvelously. (She also sings all her own songs, and shows off her significant vocal abilities...I'm guessing she may find some work in one of these big garish unneccessary studio musicals if the Legally Blonde trilogy plans don't pan out). I like how Witherspoon sees Carter's folksy stage presence as an extension of her off-stage personality. And both actors just look natural on stage, inhabiting these two famous entertainers. You're always aware that it's Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix, and not June Carter and Johnny Cash, but what the hell? It's a movie, right?
These two characters and their tumultuous path to love sit at the focal center of the film, but Mangold gives us glimpses of the world of 50's pop and country music as well. In the film's most buoyant, entertaining and fleet section, we follow a tour featuring Sun artists including Cash and Carter, and also Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. In another segment, Cash violently argues with his first wife Viv (Ginnifer Goodwin) while Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" blares in the background, echoing not only Cash's devotion to the folk singer but his tendency to cover "It Ain't Me, Babe" with Carter on stage.
That's just one of the memorable musical sequences, well-shot by Mangold, who uses a lot of close-ups to effectively cover Phoenix's amateurish guitar playing and to generally make him look more like Johnny Cash. The film opens with Cash preparing to take the stage at Folsom Prison, recording the live album that would become one of the high points of his career. The Folsom performance is exceptionally recreated. It's striking, insightful, funny, intense. And, of course, as you'd expect, the music is outstanding.
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