Johnny Cash was a man larger than life, a true rock pioneer. He broke all the rules before they existed, inventing the life of excess that has become so closely associated with the rock star. It is for these reasons that any attempt to capture the spirit of the Man in Black was always going to be a tall order.
Yet director James Mangold must be applauded for Walk the Line, his film that tells the story of Cash’s early career, his relationship with June Carter and his subsequent struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.
“This is a story very few people know. Young John and his peers were pioneers struggling to find their way,” says Mangold. “What does it mean to be a rock star when no one has lived that life before you?”
In the early 1990s — with Cash experiencing a revival through his recordings with Rick Rubin for American Recordings — Mangold began meeting regularly with Cash and Carter to discuss the early days of their careers. The resulting film, Walk the Line, features Joaquin Phoenix as the young Cash and Reese Witherspoon as the level-headed Carter.
The rest of the cast is mostly made up of musicians, rather than actors, and features Shelby Lynne as Cash’s mother. Shooter Jennings plays his father, Waylon Jennings, but singer/songwriter Tyler Hilton is disappointing as a young Elvis Presley.
The film follows Cash from his youth in Arkansas through his stint in the Air Force to his breakthrough recording for Sun Records and the subsequent nationwide tours with Elvis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis.
The majority of the film plays itself out on stage, with Mangold insisting the actors sing and play the instruments themselves. To assist with this, he roped in Grammy-winning producer T Bone Burnett to work with the cast and compose the score.
The live scenes are exceptional and Phoenix is a revelation as the young Cash.
In essence, this film is a love story, the story of Carter and Cash. “There was something magical about the idea that, for a decade, the only place John and June were allowed to be alone together was on stage in front of 10 000 people,” says Mangold. (Cash was married and Carter recently divorced at the time.) And that is exactly what he achieved: a love story told in just that way, live on stage.
On January 16, Walk the Line won a Golden Globe for best picture (musical or comedy), and Phoenix and Witherspoon won the best actor and best actress awards in the same category