....turns out only to cross lines of acceptable art. Instead of glorifying the accomplishments of our mythically esteemed cultural ancestors, biopics like this one exaggerate our willingness to accept and then valorize highly reduced contours of a human life. In producing this script, hollywood not only plays right into an american public satisfaction with the far-fetched birth of a star, its accelerated rise, inevitable fall, and redemptive reconciliation or death, but also tickles us as it tricks us into accepting someone's shadow in place of his spirit. This is unacceptable.
Our ineffectual collective masturbation to the cult of celebrity is alarmingly acute with this film. Johnny Cash and June Carter, co-conspirators of a real culture and a legitimate art, suffer degradation in this film. As Phoenix and Witherspoon croon in derivation, nothing of Cash rises from the ashes and all that remains of Carter withers into parody.
Walk the Line (Widescreen Edition)
Posts
