Walk the Line

This is from the archive: we screened Walk the Line way back in 2007.

WALK THE LINE

USA 2005, 136 minutes

Director:          James Mangold

Starring:          Joaquim Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon

Awards and Nominations include: 

Oscars

Win                 Reese Witherspoon (Best Actress in a Leading Role)

Nominations    Joaquim Phoenix (Best Actor in a Leading Role)     

                      

Golden Globes

Win                 Reese Witherspoon (Best Actress in a Leading Role – Musical or Comedy)

Win                 Joaquim Phoenix (Best Actor in a Leading Role – Musical or Comedy)

BAFTA

Win                 Reese Witherspoon (Best Performance by Actress in a Leading Role)

Nominations    Joaquim Phoenix (Best Performance by Actor in a Leading Role)   

Total of 28 wins and 24 nominations

Walk the Line follows the life of American country music legend Johnny Cash from his dirt-poor childhood in rural Arkansas up to the high spot of his career in 1968 when he performed a live gig at Folsom Prison California.  The film begins with the preparations for the Folsom Prison gig and the story then unfolds in an extended flashback as Cash fingers a circular saw in the prison workshop: Cash was traumatised by the tragic death of his elder brother as a result of an accident with a circular saw and was made to feel guilty over it by a bitter father who denied him affection, respect and encouragement.

 

The main theme of the story is Cash’s gradual discovery of his talent as an artist, from buying his first guitar whilst in the US air force until he finally takes up a musical career after switching from gospel singing to county music.  However there is also a powerful secondary theme about Cash’s lack of self-esteem and his need to prove himself in order to impress his unyielding father, and it is this that leads to degradation and despair resulting from his drinking, drug-taking and womanising.  Finally Cash is saved by the love of a good woman, June Carter, whose whole life had been spent in the country music business.  Cash and Carter were married in 1968 and remained together for the rest of their lives: they both died in 2003.

 

It was not until film-makers started searching for an “authentic” America in the 1960s that Hollywood started taking country music seriously.  There was country music on the soundtracks of both Bonnie and Clyde and Five Easy Pieces, and in the 1970s Robert Altman’s Nashville used the country music scene to cast a critical eye over the country as it prepared for its bicentennial.  Since then there have been biopics of both Loretta Lynn (Coalminer’s Daughter) and Patsy Kline (Sweet Dreams).  However neither Lynn not Kline ever enjoyed the success or achieved the iconic status of Johnny Cash.

Here's the trailer:

Skyfall

I missed Skyfall at the cinema, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing this: somehow it doesn't seem quite right watching a James Bond film for the first time at home on TV.

Here are my notes:

Skyfall

 UK 2012                      143 minutes

Director:                      Sam Mendes

Starring:                        Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris

Awards and Nominations

• Won two Oscars (including Best Original Song for Adele) and three Oscar nominations (including Best Original Score)
• Won BAFTAs for Outstanding British Film and Original Music (plus nominations for Javier Bardem and Judi Dench as Best Supporting Actor and Actress)
• A further 25 wins and 51 nominations

“In this 50th year of the James Bond series, with the dismal Quantum of Solace (2008) still in our minds, Skyfall triumphantly reinvents 007 in one of the best Bonds ever. This is a full-blooded, joyous, intelligent celebration of a beloved cultural icon, with Daniel Craig taking full possession of a role he earlier played well in Casino Royale, not so well in Quantum -- although it may not have been entirely his fault. Or is it just that he's growing on me? I don't know what I expected. I don't know what I expected in Bond No. 23, but certainly not an experience this invigorating."

Roger Ebert

When M’s past comes back to haunt her Bond’s loyalty is put to the test.  MI6 itself comes under attack and it becomes Bond’s mission to track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost to him.

Skyfall is the 23^rd Bond film and many critics hailed it as possibly the best ever, with the only real challenger being the 2006 version of Casino Royale, which followed closely the plot of Fleming’s first novel.  Skyfall has no direct link to Fleming’s work but shares two of the writers who worked on Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace and is true both to his spirit and the series (Skyfall is the name of Bond’s family estate in Scotland).

Sam Mendes made his name with the Oscar winning American Beauty (1999) and followed this with Road to Perdition (2002), Jarhead (2005) and Revolutionary Road (2008), all made in the US.  There was some surprise when it was announced that he would direct Skyfall, but Daniel Craig had worked Mendes in Road to Perdition and had made the initial approach with regard to the Bond film.  Mendes had also worked with Judi Dench early in his career when he had directed her in a stage production of a Chekhove play.  In Skyfall he gives her a role, almost a co-starring role, worthy of her talent which is reflected in the BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress, although Anne Hathaway won the award for her role in Les Miserables (2012).

It has recently been reported that Sam Mendes has declined an offer to direct the next James Bond film in order to focus on his theatre work, although the film’s producers have not discounted him directing another Bond film at some point in the future.

 Here's the trailer: