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The Beauty Part
Talk about an entrance! You hear 2,000 prisoners stomping and clapping for Johnny Cash. You see the guards of Folsom Prison rushing toward the commotion. You watch the band play the same introductory riff over and over.
And then, in a prison wood shop that serves as a dressing room, you see Johnny Cash. He's bent over a buzz saw, a finger on the blade, lost in his thoughts.
The musical bio-pic is not generally an experience that rips you apart. In the formulaic version, you get the early inspiration, the years of struggle, the big break and, more often than not, the cliched irony: Success ain't all it's cracked up to be. The celebrity hero ends up sadder and wiser. Or dead. Either way, the moral seems more about show business than anything else.
'Walk the Line' uses some of these conventions, but they're in the service of a very big idea --- how a primal wound can wreck a life. For Cash, that wound came when his brother is killed in a sawmill accident. 'Where were you?' his father sneers. Well, Johnny had been fishing, with not a care in the world.
His brother had dreams of becoming a preacher; Johnny saw only goodness in him. After his death, Johnny can't help believing --- his father even says it --- that the wrong son died.
But a fire burns in this kid; he wants to make music. Failure becomes success. Johnny Cash is launched. But that primal wound is unfinished business --- the more successful he becomes, the more it will nag at him. I'm not telling you anything you don't know about Cash when I say the pills that seem so innocent quickly become weapons of self-destruction.
Who should see this movie? Anyone interested in country music or Johnny Cash. But more: anyone who's in a relationship where the childhood trauma lingers, where an unwelcome guest is following one (or both) of you around. Walk the Line shows you the price you pay for not dealing with it. And, gloriously, the reward to be had for facing your demons.
And then, in a prison wood shop that serves as a dressing room, you see Johnny Cash. He's bent over a buzz saw, a finger on the blade, lost in his thoughts.
The musical bio-pic is not generally an experience that rips you apart. In the formulaic version, you get the early inspiration, the years of struggle, the big break and, more often than not, the cliched irony: Success ain't all it's cracked up to be. The celebrity hero ends up sadder and wiser. Or dead. Either way, the moral seems more about show business than anything else.
'Walk the Line' uses some of these conventions, but they're in the service of a very big idea --- how a primal wound can wreck a life. For Cash, that wound came when his brother is killed in a sawmill accident. 'Where were you?' his father sneers. Well, Johnny had been fishing, with not a care in the world.
His brother had dreams of becoming a preacher; Johnny saw only goodness in him. After his death, Johnny can't help believing --- his father even says it --- that the wrong son died.
But a fire burns in this kid; he wants to make music. Failure becomes success. Johnny Cash is launched. But that primal wound is unfinished business --- the more successful he becomes, the more it will nag at him. I'm not telling you anything you don't know about Cash when I say the pills that seem so innocent quickly become weapons of self-destruction.
Who should see this movie? Anyone interested in country music or Johnny Cash. But more: anyone who's in a relationship where the childhood trauma lingers, where an unwelcome guest is following one (or both) of you around. Walk the Line shows you the price you pay for not dealing with it. And, gloriously, the reward to be had for facing your demons.
