Walk the Line

It's Oscar time, and since I've had a cash flow problem of late (no cash to flow) I haven't seen too many of the nominated movies. I have seen Crash, and Walk the Line, and I really want to see The Constant Gardener and Syriana still, but the rest have eluded me.

But this isn't about the Oscars or any of those movies. It's about Walk the Line; specifically, the performances therein. First off, I thought all the actors did well. Joaquin Phoenix especially, and to a slightly lesser extent Reese Witherspoon. I say slightly lesser because sometimes it seemed like she was just turning up her southern accent a notch and acting like she has in countless other movies. She's good, but her performance wasn't groundbreaking.

Lately, though, I've heard a lot of people saying--usually with hushed voices, as if they were saying "Sometimes I wonder if Satan got a bad rap"--that Phoenix's performance of Johnny Cash's songs are better than the originals. I'm no music expert, but I like music and am not tone deaf, which probably ties me with a number of music critics, qualification-wise. Recently my roommate got the movie soundtrack on CD, and I've since listened to both the original and the Joaquin Phoenix covers of a number of the songs, often back-to-back. And frankly, though I appreciate the argument, Johnny Cash is still better.

Here's why: first of all, he wrote the songs. Cover bands are almost never as good as the original because of this important fact. Second of all, Cash's music is far less "produced", something you can tell just by listening to it. While Phoenix does a fine job (he's a great actor and his vocal talents are quite good), his tracks are all too clean. And that's not what this music is about... Folsom Prison Blues, for example, is one of Cash's most famous songs, and the live performance at Folsom Prison easily outshines any cover of that song, by anyone, anywhere. Finally, Joaquin is doing a Johnny Cash impression, and his best feature is that he can hit some of those low notes a bit easier than Cash. Unfortunately, he's still just imitating, and he pitches his songs much lower--and in a much safer range--than most of the originals are sung. Since everyone thinks of Cash's gravelly voice first, everyone seems to think Joaquin's ability to sing with more bass is a coup.

By the way, this analysis is true not only for Folsom Prison Blues, but also for Walk the Line (the song), Jackson, and Ring of Fire. Also, only the original Cash could sing with Kris Kristofferson and still retain dignity. Yikes.