Walk the Line

The main problem with Walk the Line is that it isn’t a fiction. I liked and enjoyed the film, but I never believed that the two main characters were who they were supposed to be. Both actors—Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon--did credible jobs of imitating the people they portrayed. But the best they could do was imitate, impersonate.

If the movie were a fiction, that is, not a film about real people, then the credibility issue would disappear. The characters in the film are well developed. You understand them fully as human beings, and they behave as human beings. The developing love story is moving and poignant, and you understand the forces that are both bringing Cash and Carter together and forcing them apart. Cash’s family origins, especially his difficult relationship with his father, who (according to the film) blamed him for his older brother’s death, is well portrayed. The musical careers of Cash and Carter, a central source of interest in the film, provide an enriching backdrop to the love story. You believe in these characters.

But when you have to think of Phoenix and Witherspoon as Cash and Carter, the film falters. Phoenix doesn’t sing like Cash sang. He does a passable imitation. Witherspoon comes closer to singing like June Carter, but not close enough.

This is my basic problem with so-called bio-pics. They are always a subjective rendering of the subject’s life. More then that, they are by nature selective in what they choose to focus on, to highlight and to leave out. Biographies are selective and subjective too, but because they usually contain much more detail and information than films can offer, the reader of biographies has more of a basis to reach his or her own conclusions, even to be skeptical of the biographer’s conclusions, than does the viewer of a bio-pic, who is pretty much stuck with the director’s vision of the subject.

Walk the Line differs from Ray in that it is really the love story of Cash and Carter, while Ray is the story of Ray Charles’ musical career. In that sense Ray is a more ambitious and successful film. And Jamie Foxx’s impersonation of Charles is one of the most successful impersonations I have ever seen on film. You forget that Foxx is not Charles. But although you appreciate the portrayals offered by Phoenix and Witherspoon you never forget that they are not Cash and Carter.

The trouble with any film like Walk the Line is not only the issue of impersonation but also the issue of explanation. How can anyone truly know another person—especially a person of talent and genius—how can you truly know the inner motivations of such a person?

Some of the most successful portrayals in the film are by minor characters—especially the portrayals of Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. Presley is portrayed at an early moment in his career. He shows flashes of becoming what he will become, but he is not there yet. The actor who portrays him, Tyler Hilton, doesn’t sing like him much at all, and his portrayal barely manages to suggest a resemblance. He comes across as still in the process of formation. For this reason, I found his performance wholly credible—Elvis as chrysalis, not the butterfly.

Waylon Payne’s Jerry Lee Lewis is such an over-the-top parody or impersonation—as the real Jerry Lee was himself—that he is the center of attention and the source of energy in the few scenes in which he appears. He comes across as a Dionysiac wild man.

Walk the Line is an intelligent film that attempts to portray its subjects with due respect and understanding. I cared about the characters, even if I did not believe in them as Johnny Cash and June Carter.