Actors - Walk the Line

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	Actors - Walk the Line

Walk the Line is an acclaimed Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning film chronicling the life of Johnny Cash, American country singer, focusing on his younger life, his romance with June Carter and his ascent to the country music scene, with material taken from his autobiographies. The title is taken from the title of one of Cash's best known songs, "I Walk the Line".

Walk the Lines production budget is estimated to have been $28,000,000.

The film previewed at the Telluride Film Festival on September 4, 2005 and went into wide release on November 18. This film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix
) and Best Actress (Reese Witherspoon
). Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar for Best Actress, the film's sole Oscar winner.

As of March 8, 2006, the film had grossed a total of US$162.3 million in the international Box Office. On February 28, 2006, a single-disc DVD and a two-disc collector's edition DVD was released; it its first day of release. The DVD sales are a testament to the film's popularity, as it was still showing first-run in some theaters even as the DVD was released.
Plot
The film details Cash's (Phoenix) life from his growing up as the son of a cotton picker in rural Arkansas, dealing with the death of his brother, his drug addiction, subsequent rescue by future wife June Carter (Witherspoon), and his famous concert at Folsom Prison.

The movie opens with an exterior shot of Folsom Prison. The grounds are quiet except for the faint sound of music. Two guards on their tower peer at the main building. As we slowly approach the main building, the music begins to increase in volume. 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. In the next shot, a table saw rests on a table as a hand casually strokes the blade. After repeated calls, we are made aware that the hand is that of Johnny Cash. (Later we learn that the voice calling him onstage is that of the prison warden.)

In the next scene, Cash is a boy (called "J.R."). He and his brother Jack are listening to the radio; the 10-year-old June Carter is singing.

Early in the movie, Cash and Jack discuss their respective strengths and weaknesses with regard to the Bible and hymns. Jack, who is training to become a pastor, and therefore "needs to know the Bible front to back", is much better at recalling the words and stories of the Bible. J.R., who can sing well like his mother, is adept with the hymns they sing at church. A few scenes later, Jack is sawing wood on a job for a neighbor with J.R. when J.R. abruptly announces that the task is boring. With Jack's permission, he leaves to go fishing. As he walks home later, he is intercepted by his father, who has visibly fresh blood stains on his overalls. "Where have you been?" asks his father. Jack has been fatally injured in an accident with the saw. J.R.'s relationship with his father, already strained, becomes much more difficult after the death of Jack.

Several years later, J.R. joins the Air Force and is posted to Germany. He seems not to enjoy his time there, but finds solace in playing a guitar he bought and writing songs - one of which will become "Folsom Prison Blues". Following his discharge, he marries his girlfriend Vivian.

Vivian and John (as he is now generally known) live in relative poverty while John works as a door-to-door salesman. One day, he walks past a recording studio and has an inspiration to organize a band (which 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". Cash begins the song in the style of a slow, mournful Blues tune, the same way that he had sung it to himself when he wrote it. As the song progresses and Cash strums his guitar, 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 fulfillment of which Cash begins touring with other young Sun artists. Among those he meets on the tour - along with Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley
- is June Carter, who performs as both a singer (although she claims to have no talent) and a comedienne.
[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Walk the Line ]

Some related entries: Lynne Adams | Lilian Braithwaite | Nia Long | Veronica Redd | Training Day | Greg Walloch | Arthur Hunnicutt | Sabrina Johnson | Jim Dale | Amber Lynn | John Francis Daley
This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Walk the Line; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Actors - Walk the Line

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