‘Walk the Line,’ is a great American love story

‘Walk the Line,’ is a great American love story

By Joanne Hilty

Special to the Rappahannock News

If you don’t believe in the idea of soul mates, you will after seeing “Walk the Line,” director James Mangold’s take on the rise to super stardom of Johnny Cash. Based on Cash’s own books, Man in Black and Cash: The Autobiography, the film is not so much the story of his life as it is the tale of the two unassailable loves of his life. The first, of course, was the music. The second was fellow performer and eventual wife June Carter, with whom he kindled the “Ring of Fire” that burned around them until they died within four months of each other in 2003.

The Rappahannock Association for the Arts and the Community (RAAC) brings this splendid biopic to The Theatre on Gay Street, Washington, VA, Friday, May 5, at 8 p.m.

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon inhabit the role of the young Johnny and June, battling their way over various obstacles toward their dreams, and toward each other. “Chemistry” is here in force with both giving outstanding performances and doing all their own remarkably fine singing Witherspoon was rewarded with an Oscar for Best Actress. She also won a Golden Globe in the same category with Phoenix taking top honors for Best Actor. The film won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy.

The film opens in 1968 as the 36-year-old Cash is about to take the stage for his landmark show at California’s Folsom Prison, which yielded one of the greatest live performances ever recorded. We then flash back to his dirt-poor Arkansas upbringing as the son of sharecropper Ray (Robert Patrick) and wife Carrie (Shelby Lynne), and see the family shattered by the accidental death of firstborn son Jack (Lucas Till). Ray’s guilt and grief cause him to blame young “J.R.,” creating rifts that would take decades to even begin to heal, and the movie implies that the rift between father and son played a large role in shaping the determination and drive that fueled Cash’s career.

The film tracks Cash’s stint in the Air Force where he pens his first songs, followed by marriage to childhood sweetheart Viv (Ginnifer Goodwin) and a move to Memphis, where she nags him to give up his music dreams and get a steady job. But he’s not so easily deterred. In one of the best scenes, he wheedles an audition at Sun Records, the fabled storefront recording studio owned by Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts). It’s a thrill to watch “Johnny Cash” being born before your eyes, singing “Folsom Prison Blues,” hesitantly at first, then with the brooding intensity that would become his hallmark.

From there, it’s a short hop to the road where Cash pals around and performs with Elvis Presley (Tyler Hilton), Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Payne) and Roy Orbison (Johnathan Rice). These scenes showcasing the raw talent at the birth of rock-and-roll burst with energy. It’s during this time that Johnny meets June, scion of one of the most famous families in country music. They literally run into each other and her dress gets caught in his guitar strings just as he’s about to go on stage. June, a performer since age 4, nimbly turns this into a quick comedy routine and sparks that fire in his eyes. !

The movie traces their relationship as performers and friends through two divorces for her, one for him, and his battle with alcohol and prescription drugs until the day 10 years later when, with both finally unattached and Johnny straight and sober, he asks her to marry him, on stage, no less and she says yes.

“Walk the Line” is an award-worthy account on the origins, formative years and all-consuming love of a true-blue, 100 percent American original. The film is rated PG-13 for profanity, thematic material and depiction of drug dependency. Run time is 136 minutes.

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