| For the song, see I Walk the Line.American country singer Johnny Cash.The title is taken from one of Cash's best known songs, "I Walk the Line".This film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix) and Best Actress (Reese Witherspoon).Witherspoon won the Oscar for Best Actress, the film's sole Oscar winner.The plot summary in this article or section is too long compared to the rest of the article.Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot.The film opens in medias res with an exterior shot of Folsom Prison.Two guards on their tower peer at the main building.The camera tracks past empty cells and halls as the music becomes louder and more distinct; now cheering can be heard.Finally we see the source of the cheering: an audience of inmates for Johnny Cash's band, which is playing a vamp.After repeated calls, we are made aware that the hand is that of Johnny Cash.In the next scene, Cash is a boy.Jack is sawing wood on a job for a neighbor with J.With Jack's permission, he leaves to go fishing.As he walks home later, he is intercepted by his father, Ray, who has visibly fresh blood stains on his overalls.Ray, already strained, becomes much more difficult after the Jack's death.Air Force and is posted to Germany.Following his discharge, he marries his girlfriend Vivian Liberto.Cash's eldest daughter Rosanne is an infant, and Vivian mentions "another one on the way").One day, he walks past a recording studio and has an inspiration to organize a band (made up of guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant, whom his wife describes as "two mechanics who can't hardly play") to play gospel music.Cash's band auditions for Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records.As they play a pedestrian gospel song ("I Was There When It Happened"), Phillips interrupts and asks Cash to play a song that he really feels.Although his bandmates do not know the tune, he strikes up "Folsom Prison Blues."However, as the song progresses and Cash gains confidence, the song picks up and the familiar "freight train" rhythm begins to assert itself as he picks up the tempo.Everyone in the room brightens as they realize that Cash now has something good and potentially marketable.The performance results in a contract, in fulfilment of which Cash begins touring (as Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two) with other young Sun artists.June Carter, who performs as both a singer (although she claims to have no talent) and a comedienne.After his romantic intentions are rebuffed one night in rural Texas, Cash is offered drugs and alcohol and soon begins to behave erratically.June tells him (and many of the other artists on the tour) at one point that they cannot "walk the line," prompting Cash to write "I Walk the Line."Cash suggests a love song ("Time's A Wastin'") which June recorded with her first husband Carl Smith (whom she has recently divorced).She storms off the stage and they go their separate ways, despite Cash's protest that "it was only a song."The remainder of the tour is cancelled.On his way home, Cash travels to Mexico to purchase more drugs and is busted in El Paso, Texas.Vivian is not pleased, however, and between his substance abuse and her awareness of his interest in June, the tensions in Cash's marriage rise when he tries to put up "pictures of my band" (most of which seem to be of June) at home over his wife's objections.Cash tries to reconcile with June, which involves a long walk to her house (his car is in the shop and he has no cash to reclaim it).He is sent on his way, with June informing him that she misses her "old friend John" and doesn't like "this new guy, Cash."After coming round the next day he sees a large house near a lake in Hendersonville, Tennessee and promptly buys it.After a tense meal, Cash decides to prove his father wrong by freeing the tractor.June at first refuses, but runs to Cash's aid when the tractor, in reverse, goes into the lake.She pulls him out of the water in a scene suggesting a Christian baptism.Stabilized, Cash notices in fan mail that many of his fans are prisoners, dresses in his customary black, visits his recording company (now Columbia Records) and makes a proposal to record an album live inside Folsom Prison.At this point the film returns to the opening scene with the warden speaking to Cash.The warden requests that Cash not play any more songs that would remind the inmates that they are in prison.Cash laughs wryly and replies, "You think they forgot?"At the Folsom Prison concert Cash tells how he always admired prisoners, explaining that his brief prison stay after his drug bust really made him "feel like I'd seen a thing or two, you know?"But, he continues, he now realizes his experiences really can't compare because "I ain't never had to drink this yellow water you got here at Folsom!"Performing "Cocaine Blues" to great acclaim from the prisoners, the concert is a great success, and Cash embarks on a tour with June and his old band.Cash, disturbed by "bad dreams...June in the back of the bus.The concert features "Ring of Fire", for which Cash acknowledges June.Cash explains that he "just can't sing this song any more" unless she agrees to marry him.I'm asking you to marry me.Dutch boy with your finger in the dam...He jokes with his father, their tense relationship having apparently begun to heal.They act with every bone and inch of flesh and facial plane, and each tone and waver of their voice.Anderson, believed the film suffered from having important events distilled into meaningless and unrealistic circumstances.The film portrays his father as blaming Johnny for going fishing the day Jack had his fatal accident.Johnny only said that his father ordered him into the car, not with an accusatory "Where have you been?"Also, Ray was actually in attendance and introduced to the audience at the famous Folsom Prison concert, which was not shown in the film.The film failed to explain that Cash wrote the song "Rock and Roll Ruby" (recorded by Sun artist Warren Smith).His actual detoxification, presided over by June and her family, occurred after Cash had emerged from a cave into which he had wandered, hoping to die and never be found.According to Cash, his first marriage was on the rocks before he became seriously involved with June.He was very candid about having "wrecked" his first marriage due largely to his addiction to pills.Vivian refused to grant him a divorce for a number of years, but after the bizarre cave incident she decided that she had had enough.Cash's prison concerts were not a novelty in 1968, as he had been doing such shows at prisons since the late 1950s.San Quentin, which later became the setting for Cash's most successful album in his lifetime).However, Sun Records made a recording of the song performed by Cash in 1957.The tour depictions were also not totally accurate.Elvis having left Sun Records well in advance of Jerry Lee Lewis' arrival in 1957.The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.In the parody Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the titular character does the same thing repeatedly in several scenes.Cash asked Keach to be involved in the development of Walk the Line which Keach produced.Waylon Jenning's godson and namesake, Waylon Payne, played Jerry Lee Lewis.Vocal coach Roger Love trained Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon to sing like their respective characters.The jokes made by Johnny Cash at the Folsom Prison concert in the film about the water reflect jokes made by Johnny Cash at the actual event.Walk' to see and remember", Baltimore Sun, November 18, 2005.Official website
Walk the Line at the Internet Movie Database
Walk the Line at All Movie Guide
Walk the Line Movie vs.The Legend of Johnny Cash Vol.For the 1964 album, see I Walk the Line (album).For the 1970 soundtrack album, see I Walk the Line (soundtrack album).For the movie, see Walk the Line
"I Walk the Line" is a song written by Johnny Cash and recorded in 1956.In 2005 Walk the Line was produced starring Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, directed by James Mangold.The song is very simple and like most Cash songs, the lyrics tell more of a story than the music conveys.For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide).In the original recording of the song, there is a key change between each of the five verses, and Cash hums the new root note before singing each verse.The final verse is sung a full octave lower than the first verse.According to Cash, he loved the sound of a snare drum, but drums were not used on country music back then, so he placed a piece of paper in his guitar strings and created his own unique "snare drum".Later, he wrote the lyrics in a backstage dressing room in Gladewater, Texas in 1955, after a discussion with fellow performer Carl Perkins encouraged him to adopt "I Walk the Line" as the song title.The humming was necessary since the song required Cash to change keys several times while singing it.In 1964 for the I Walk the Line album, again in 1969 for the At San Quentin album, in 1971 for the I Walk the Line soundtrack, and finally in 1988 for the Classic Cash album."Straight Line", directed by Tom Carty) using the song, featuring cover versions sung by Megan Wyler and Adem Ilhan.Rodney Crowell adapted the song into "I Walk The Line (Revisited)," which was recorded as a duet with Cash and relased on Crowell's 2001 album "The Houston Kid."The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.Compilation albums
Greatest Hits, Vol.See Copyrights for details.Moved Permanently
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