Walk the Line
Finally got around to watching Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biosynopsis. Won't call it a biopic, because it only hit on the main driving factors in his life and the man was a lot more complex than this movie had time to portray.
The main thing on my mind after watching this movie is, "Their sound editor is either absolutely brilliant or should be locked in a room and forced to listen to this on one volume over and over and over again, because it would make him bleed out the ears and/or cause insanity." When the background noise completely obscures what the main character is saying on more than one occasion, it's a bad thing. Transitions between complete silence and loud, jarring music are also bad. Adding characters talking during the loud, jarring noise is also not good. I have a possible explanation for this in the paragraph below, but I'm really not sure whether I'm accurate or just trying to find a way to justify absolutely terrible sound editing.
The movie overall wasn't bad. It was a little slower than I would've liked, but I've also read the autobiography and the movie was concentrating strictly on one aspect of the Johnny/June love story. One of the things I liked was that this wasn't shot as the story of the man's life, but the story of his /memories/ of that life, at one particular moment in time. From the time of the fade, while he's standing in Folsom Prison staring at the saw blade, everything is a memory until they fade back into that. The sound during the memory portion is /awful/ - you can hardly understand what the hell Joaquin Phoenix is saying.. which is why the editor is either brilliant or needs to be smacked. Reese Witherspoon's voice is crystal clear, no matter what the background noise is. Joaquin Phoenix sounds like he's talking through a mouthful of gauze, and any tertiary characters are hit and miss. If this is Johnny Cash remembering these moments, and they're picking up on what he remembered as important, that would explain why everything June Carter Cash said stuck out so vividly, other people's words stuck out if they were important at the time, and Johnny Cash's words were mostly mumbled except when he was making a statement he remembered as important. Even if it's brilliance, it still drove me out of my tree trying to watch the movie, because while what he said might not have been important to him, *I* would've liked to know what he was saying.
Another thing I liked was how they portrayed Johnny Cash as always creating songs. Whether actively working on one or not, it was like he couldn't get the lyrics out of his head until he said them and gave them life.
Joaquin Phoenix's method acting again made me wince, not because the acting was bad but because he seems to have a habit of torturing himself to get into the role. He looked bloody awful through most of the movie - because he was supposed to - but watching someone bounce between beer gut and gaunt over 2 hours was shocking. Mission accomplished, I suppose, even if it made me want to chain him to a recliner until he ate and slept. I think part of why I watch movies he's in is a morbid fascination with how far he'll take it. It's frequently a painful transformation to watch, although nothing has been as horrifying as what he put himself through in Return to Paradise. Johnny Cash was a different kind of broken, and at least he survived it.
Reese Witherspoon was gorgeous, per usual. She definitely got the June Carter personality down. I'd kind of like to see a sequel done that was the exact same movie, only from her perspective. She's probably the only actress I can think of who has the kind of inner grace and poise that would suit June Carter Cash. I guess any decent actress could've portrayed that, but Reese does it effortlessly in everything she does, so her character came across as a lot more natural.
The cameos of Shooter Jennings and John Carter Cash made me happy.
While writing this, I was simultaneously discussing with a coworker the wonders of airbrushing and why most candid shots of celebrities wind up on the front page of the National Enquirer with "She's gained weight!" "Wrecked with drugs!" or some similar bunkum. We were discussing the flawlessness of Reese Witherspoon's face and the shadows that took over Joaquin Phoenix's during the movie. This site is very enlightening. If you go to 'Portfolio' and 'Before and After', at the top of the thumbnail frame, there's a 'Before' button you can click to see what the picture looked like before it was airbrushed. The 'Composite/Manipulation' page also has the 'Before' button. Interesting examples of how easy it is to make someone look like crap on film - just don't airbrush or filter.
I think I have to watch this movie at least twice more. I was too distracted by the sound to pay attention to some of the smaller details. Once more with the subtitles on, once after that when I don't have to read the screen and can pay attention without gritting my teeth with frustration every time John Cash says anything.
The main thing on my mind after watching this movie is, "Their sound editor is either absolutely brilliant or should be locked in a room and forced to listen to this on one volume over and over and over again, because it would make him bleed out the ears and/or cause insanity." When the background noise completely obscures what the main character is saying on more than one occasion, it's a bad thing. Transitions between complete silence and loud, jarring music are also bad. Adding characters talking during the loud, jarring noise is also not good. I have a possible explanation for this in the paragraph below, but I'm really not sure whether I'm accurate or just trying to find a way to justify absolutely terrible sound editing.
The movie overall wasn't bad. It was a little slower than I would've liked, but I've also read the autobiography and the movie was concentrating strictly on one aspect of the Johnny/June love story. One of the things I liked was that this wasn't shot as the story of the man's life, but the story of his /memories/ of that life, at one particular moment in time. From the time of the fade, while he's standing in Folsom Prison staring at the saw blade, everything is a memory until they fade back into that. The sound during the memory portion is /awful/ - you can hardly understand what the hell Joaquin Phoenix is saying.. which is why the editor is either brilliant or needs to be smacked. Reese Witherspoon's voice is crystal clear, no matter what the background noise is. Joaquin Phoenix sounds like he's talking through a mouthful of gauze, and any tertiary characters are hit and miss. If this is Johnny Cash remembering these moments, and they're picking up on what he remembered as important, that would explain why everything June Carter Cash said stuck out so vividly, other people's words stuck out if they were important at the time, and Johnny Cash's words were mostly mumbled except when he was making a statement he remembered as important. Even if it's brilliance, it still drove me out of my tree trying to watch the movie, because while what he said might not have been important to him, *I* would've liked to know what he was saying.
Another thing I liked was how they portrayed Johnny Cash as always creating songs. Whether actively working on one or not, it was like he couldn't get the lyrics out of his head until he said them and gave them life.
Joaquin Phoenix's method acting again made me wince, not because the acting was bad but because he seems to have a habit of torturing himself to get into the role. He looked bloody awful through most of the movie - because he was supposed to - but watching someone bounce between beer gut and gaunt over 2 hours was shocking. Mission accomplished, I suppose, even if it made me want to chain him to a recliner until he ate and slept. I think part of why I watch movies he's in is a morbid fascination with how far he'll take it. It's frequently a painful transformation to watch, although nothing has been as horrifying as what he put himself through in Return to Paradise. Johnny Cash was a different kind of broken, and at least he survived it.
Reese Witherspoon was gorgeous, per usual. She definitely got the June Carter personality down. I'd kind of like to see a sequel done that was the exact same movie, only from her perspective. She's probably the only actress I can think of who has the kind of inner grace and poise that would suit June Carter Cash. I guess any decent actress could've portrayed that, but Reese does it effortlessly in everything she does, so her character came across as a lot more natural.
The cameos of Shooter Jennings and John Carter Cash made me happy.
While writing this, I was simultaneously discussing with a coworker the wonders of airbrushing and why most candid shots of celebrities wind up on the front page of the National Enquirer with "She's gained weight!" "Wrecked with drugs!" or some similar bunkum. We were discussing the flawlessness of Reese Witherspoon's face and the shadows that took over Joaquin Phoenix's during the movie. This site is very enlightening. If you go to 'Portfolio' and 'Before and After', at the top of the thumbnail frame, there's a 'Before' button you can click to see what the picture looked like before it was airbrushed. The 'Composite/Manipulation' page also has the 'Before' button. Interesting examples of how easy it is to make someone look like crap on film - just don't airbrush or filter.
I think I have to watch this movie at least twice more. I was too distracted by the sound to pay attention to some of the smaller details. Once more with the subtitles on, once after that when I don't have to read the screen and can pay attention without gritting my teeth with frustration every time John Cash says anything.
posted by Peregrine at 8:13 AM
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