Movie #15: Walk the Line
Apr. 22nd, 2008 12:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I hate Johnny Cash. I didn't before the movie, then I found his music to be typical folk/country that I didn't mind except when my father insisted on playing CDs of it over and over again on road trips. Just the one CD. Over and over again. I didn't hate Johnny Cash even then, just some of his music. But now I hate Johnny Cash, the person.
Okay, maybe "hate" is too strong a word, but he definitely is NOT a sympathetic character. Joaquin Phoenix makes a really good villain, but his Cash wasn't a villain either. He was a stupid loser who could only see the bad in his life and "self-medicated" with an addiction to prescription drugs - a path which he was set upon by Elvis and Johnny Lee Lewis (so bizarre it must be true). I like to say that everyone has hardships in life, what marks a person's character is how they react them. Cash throws away his perfect wife and adorable daughters and starts screwing roadies - not because he doesn't love his wife and family, but because he loves another woman (June Carter, played by Reese Witherspoon) and cannot have her. You know why he can't have her? Because she's too good for him and knows it! June's married and unlike Cash she doesn't cheat on her husband. When they divorce she actually feels sorry about it, and remarries rather than letting Cash cheat on his wife. God, he's such an ass!
You know how he finally proposes to her? He *orders* her to marry him, not asks, and does it on fucking *stage* because she told him she didn't want to talk to his sorry addict ass anymore. I was severely disappointed when she said yes.
Two closing and less bitchy thoughts: I wish they'd developed the characters of his backup band more. It's the same individuals throughout the movie, but the most we ever learn about them is they like to play gospels, and they buy him a plane ticket home when he hits rock bottom and then leave him there. Second: Man, they can sing! I really like it when actors sing their own parts. Phoenix does a remarkable job of Cash's voice too.
I hate Johnny Cash. I didn't before the movie, then I found his music to be typical folk/country that I didn't mind except when my father insisted on playing CDs of it over and over again on road trips. Just the one CD. Over and over again. I didn't hate Johnny Cash even then, just some of his music. But now I hate Johnny Cash, the person.
Okay, maybe "hate" is too strong a word, but he definitely is NOT a sympathetic character. Joaquin Phoenix makes a really good villain, but his Cash wasn't a villain either. He was a stupid loser who could only see the bad in his life and "self-medicated" with an addiction to prescription drugs - a path which he was set upon by Elvis and Johnny Lee Lewis (so bizarre it must be true). I like to say that everyone has hardships in life, what marks a person's character is how they react them. Cash throws away his perfect wife and adorable daughters and starts screwing roadies - not because he doesn't love his wife and family, but because he loves another woman (June Carter, played by Reese Witherspoon) and cannot have her. You know why he can't have her? Because she's too good for him and knows it! June's married and unlike Cash she doesn't cheat on her husband. When they divorce she actually feels sorry about it, and remarries rather than letting Cash cheat on his wife. God, he's such an ass!
You know how he finally proposes to her? He *orders* her to marry him, not asks, and does it on fucking *stage* because she told him she didn't want to talk to his sorry addict ass anymore. I was severely disappointed when she said yes.
Two closing and less bitchy thoughts: I wish they'd developed the characters of his backup band more. It's the same individuals throughout the movie, but the most we ever learn about them is they like to play gospels, and they buy him a plane ticket home when he hits rock bottom and then leave him there. Second: Man, they can sing! I really like it when actors sing their own parts. Phoenix does a remarkable job of Cash's voice too.
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Date: 2008-04-22 02:02 pm (UTC)They ought to have made a movie about June Carter, IMO. She was definitely a sympathetic character and probably had just as much interesting stuff going on in her life. That on-stage "proposal" thing pissed me off too, and I wonder how true-to-life it really was. It's really sad she had to play mommy to him for how many years until he finally got his shit together...after she and his family ran his drug hookup off with a shotgun. *sigh*
I read that a lot of people were dissatisfied with J. Phoenix's voice, but man did he give it his all, and so what if it doesn't sound just like Cash's. Witherspoon didn't sound much like Carter either but she also sounded pretty good to me.
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