37th Favorite Movie - Walk The Line

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

This one comes as no surprise to anyone who was at our wedding ('Ring of Fire' was the recessional) or who saw me much when this movie came out last spring. Geoff B jokes that after I saw this movie I went through a Man In Black phase and wore black every day for a month and listened only to music by "The Cashman". And you know what? It's kinda true.

I walked into the theater knowing nothing about Johnny Cash except that he had a song about some boy named Sue. I left the theater humming 'I Walk the Line' and rushed home to download it and other songs from the movie. Honestly, it took me a while to get used to Cash's voice, I actually preferred Joaquin Phoenix's voice from the movie at first! But after Gladiator and Signs, I was already a pretty big Joaquin Phoenix guy. Both he and Reese Witherspoon are great in this. One of the small scenes that I really enjoyed was when Johnny is talking to his brother before bed when they are kids. Johnny asks his brother why he is always reading the Bible and he responds, "If I'm gonna be a preacher I gotta know what story to tell people when they need help." I really liked that part. You get periodic glimpses of Cash's faith in the movie.

Speaking of Cash's faith, check out this excerpt from an article I found online...

In a recent interview with Christianity Today, master guitarist Phil Keaggy, a Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) veteran since the 1970s, expressed regret for the many years he was consigned to a genre that wound up reaching the converted more than the people he had been able to reach before signing up with CCM labels. With CCM’s contractual constraints on lyrical content, artists are kept from singing about all aspects of life and must have so many mentions of Jesus per minute (known in the industry as “JPMs”) to please the label management. This self-limiting system keeps the artists singing to the choir and away from other topics that might get secular listeners’ attention. Whereas Cash hadn’t been allowed to sing songs of faith at Sun Records, CCM didn’t allow its artists to sing anything but “Jesus music.” Ever the maverick, Cash left Sun for a label that gave him that freedom.

In a way, Cash broke ground for artists like Switchfoot, P.O.D. and Sufjan Stevens who follow Christ but do not want to become pigeonholed by calling themselves "a Christian band" or "Christian musician". Johnny Cash's music reached a wide audience, both saints and sinners. To read all of that article, go to:

http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=2834

I'll wrap things up with this anecdote. Once, Bono and bass player Adam Clayton from U2 visited Cash at his home. Johnny gave thanks before the meal and then opened his eyes, winked at Bono, and said, "Sure do miss the drug though.”

That's what I call a sinner saved by grace.