“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.”
Johnny Cash walks the line onto DVD once again. This version adds some deleted scenes back into the film and some new special features as well. The legacy of Johnny Cash was cemented by the music, but this biopic does a good job at showing that he had feet of clay like the rest of us and I’m sure he’d appreciate that.
Johnny Cash has become legendary and his star has only shown brighter as the tributes upon his death, in 2003, started to pour in. His final hit was an exercise in emotion as the ill and elderly Cash sang the Nine Inch Nail’s song “Hurt.”
It’s hard not to be moved by the video as the late June Carter Cash appears in the background and images of his flood damaged museum flash across the screen and was shot in his Hendersonville home (which is now gone as well, it burned down in 2007).
Both the Grammys and Country Music Awards honored the video with being the best video of the year. It’s on this flood of emotion and loss that in 2005 Walk the Line hit the screen.
Cash had been involved with director James Mangold and insisted that his life not be sugar coated. He even insisted that nobody treat a guitar like a baby, illustrating by grabbing one of his many and manhandling it. Walk the Line tells of Cash’s (Joaquin Phoenix) early career as a door-to-door salesman, his big break into music, his first marriage, his drug addictions, and finding his soul mate in June Carter (Reese Witherspoon).
This cut adds about 20 minutes of deleted scenes back into the film, but it doesn’t intrude upon the fine film that the theatrical cut was. I’ll have to admit to some trepidation on Phoenix’s casting. He does look like the young Cash, sometimes uncannily, but how can you reproduce that Cash growl? You really can’t. What we do get is an approximation.
I didn’t think him anything close to Cash at first but as the film unspools he began to grow upon me. The music still has the power to get toes tapping, but I still prefer the Cash originals. However, by the end I was cheering as Phoenix rose from the potential ashes and delivered a solid performance.
Speaking of solid performances, Reese Witherspoon excels as June Carter (winning a Best Actress Oscar) and shows both her “hillbilly” onstage persona as well as a woman torn by her longing for Cash, but also seeing a man consumed by his inner demons. An excellent film all around.
Walk the Line is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.39:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Disc one contains the film and a commentary by co-writer/director James Mangold (hidden under “language selection”). Disc two is a mixture of old and new special features.
The two deleted scenes (Memphis Streets with Cash and another door-to-door salesman and an extended version of the check cashing scene), totaling 6 minutes, not put back in the film are presented here with an optional commentary by Mangold.
There’s also a Johnny Cash Jukebox that has musical performances from the film (26 minutes with intros and 16 minutes without). This feature was on the old two-disc edition, but now adds eight more tunes from the actors playing Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, etc.
Also coming over from that disc are the 11 minute “Folsom: Cash and the comeback,” the 11 minute “Ring of Fire: The Passion of Johnny and June,” the 21 minute “Celebrating the Man in Black: The Making of Walk the Line,” and the 2 minute theatrical trailer.
New additions to this set include the 11-minute “Becoming Cash/ Becoming Carter” on how the roles were cast and the actors shaped to play the legends. Next is the 12-minute “Sun Records and the Johnny Cash Sound” about Cash and the legendary Memphis recording studio.
The 15-minute “Cash Legacy” talks with musicians about how Cash influenced music. The 11-minute “Cash and his Faith” looks into the religious life of Cash and how it influenced his life and music.
Walk the Line is an excellent film and this edition does add some deleted scenes back into the film. The new extras are fabulous and this package only enhances the film. The man in black may be gone but the music lives on and this film is a fitting tribute to the man and the music.
Walk the Line (Extended Cut) is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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