Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon Make "Walk the Line" Better Than the Film

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon Make "Walk the Line" Better Than the Film
Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley

Walk the Line - 2 Stars (Average)

"Walk the Line" is the story of Johnny Cash (Joaquin
Phoenix) and June Carter Cash (Reese Witherspoon). Born
poor in Arkansas, Cash rises to fame in the country music
world and destroys a lot of relationships along the way
with drinking, drugs and pandering. Eventually, June Carter
wins his heart.

Cash became who he was because the songs he wrote and sang
were from his heart about his own life; they were not
phony, and music lovers related to them in their own world.

Walk the Line was a struggle to produce as it took 4 years
to secure the rights to the film and another 4 years to get
the film made. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon did
their own singing, both of them had 6 months of vocal
training and also learned to play their instruments (guitar
and auto-harp) from scratch.

Both Phoenix and Witherspoon showcase their talents in this
film that had a great story line but not a great
presentation. Based in part on Cash's own book Man in Black
and Cash: The Autobiography, the adaptation also is
credited to Gill Dennis and James Mangold, who also
directed the film. It is seldom a good idea for a director
to also be a writer in the same film, and Mangold showed
why.

Rather than be a good finder, it seemed that Mangold was
determined to send his portrayal of Johnny Cash buck naked
into the woods and drag Cash through the muck and mire far
too long. It was unnecessary and added nothing to the film
in my judgment. Mangold simply did not tell a good story
well, he told a story.

Whatever sins Cash committed on his way to becoming a
legend and country music icon could have been handled
without trying to raise it to an art form. Let the writers
and director who are without any sins cast the first stone.
It seemed as if they wanted to drag Cash down in order to
build themselves up.

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon saved this film.
Witherspoon won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best
Actress. Phoenix was nominated for an Oscar and won the
Golden Globe for Best Actor. Walk the Line won the Golden
Globe for Best Picture, but not on my ballot. Walk the Line
won additional Oscar nominations for Best Costume Design,
Editing and Sound Mixing. Besides Witherspoon's Oscar, the
film had another 27 wins as well as 26 more nominations.

Walk the Line, released in 2005, has a special place in
history as Johnny Cash recorded with Sun Records in
Memphis, along with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl
Perkins among others.

It was reported that Johnny Cash chose Joaquin Phoenix to
play him in the film on the basis or his performance in
"Gladiator", and that June Carter Cash chose Reese
Witherspoon for her role in the film. June Carter Cash died
in May 2003 before production began on the film, and Johnny
Cash died 4 months later in September 2003.

Cash was blessed with a deep, distinctive voice and known
as "The Man in Black". He wrote more than 1,000 songs and
sold more than 90 million albums in a career that lasted
nearly 5 decades. A diverse group of artists have paid
tribune to Cash, among them Bob Dylan, Chris Isaak, Wyclef
Jean, Norah Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and U2.

Johnny Cash has a number of signature songs that will not
be going away anytime soon, including "I Walk the Line",
"Folsom Prison Blues", "Ring of Fire", "Man in Black" and
"A Boy Named Sue".

Walk the Line is worth seeing just for Joaquin Phoenix and
Reese Witherspoon. I would not watch it again, and was not
a better person for having seen it, thus it gets my average
rating which would have been higher with better writing and
better direction.

----------------------------------------------------
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Ideas to help with Percussion in the Beginner Band

Ideas to help with Percussion in the Beginner Band
The percussion section can be the band directors worst
nightmare - particularly if the band director themselves
doesn't know a great deal about percussion. It can be very
tough to get the "drummers" all contributing actively to
the band, so this article outlines a few strategies that
you can use to get them involved.

Don't let them be "drummers" only - be "percussionists"
instead

This is the most important thing to realize - that band
students are often attracted to percussion so that they can
play the drum set. The drum set (or drum kit) is often used
in the school band, and often is very important, so
students feel that if they are not playing it they have to
sit there and wait.

The band director has to find a way around this situation -
if you only have one drummer, then great! They can play the
drum set and away you go.

The problem comes when you have two, three, four or eight
drummers in the band - and that happens! One way you can
do it in the real beginner band is have one player playing
snare drum, one player playing Bass drum, and one player
playing Cymbal - even if you have a traditional 'drum set'
part written out. If you have this type of band I recommend
having this setup at all times, and making the students
stand up to play the snare drum. You then have the bass
drum and the Cymbals alongside, designed to be played by
three players at all times.

Have an Auxilliary Percussion Table - and make them stand
up to play at all times

There is nothing worse than vaguely hearing a shaker or
tambourine in a school band, and struggling to see the
person sitting on a chair behind the drummer!

When playing tambourine, triangle or shaker - these
instruments are often more critical to the sound of the
band than the snare drum or drum set, so therefore they
must be taken really seriously.. by the band director as
well as by the players.

So always have a "traps" table with everything in easy
reach. Its not expensive to set one up or buy one of the
available professional models.

The players must always stand up to play, and have their
music stand set up so that they can look immediately over
it at the band conductor.

Warming up - please don't ignore us!

I've been a percussionist in a school band... there is
nothing more frustrating that spending your time sitting in
the school band room while you wait for the wind players to
tune up and warm up. Often the band director will spend up
to half an hour warming the players up - and expect the
percussionists to remain quiet during that time.

How to deal with it?

- If youre going to warm up for half an hour.... Tell the
drummers to come half an hour late! - it makes no
difference to you and its better than them being a
distraction!

- Why not send them into a different room for their own
section rehearsal during this time? Get a specialist
teacher or assistant to work with them on their parts

- Use predefined warm-up routines that go along with what
you are doing with the wind players. (doesn't always work,
but can do depending on the materials you have)

Be prepared to supplement the band book

When I helped out with beginner bands I found it necessary
to supplement the band books that the students were using
with additional materials - often the materials are not
interesting or they don't have enough variety to keep the
students engaged in the materials.

They'll need lots of work on basic rudiments and rolls -
often the band books don't address those things early
enough. So therefore you should be able to supplement it
with additional material available from other books and
online.

Everyone playing mallets?

I'm going to leave this up to you - it depends on the
different personalities in each of the bands you have. One
popular series of band books the "standard of excellence"
has snare drum/bass drum on the left hand pages of the
book, and mallet percussion on the right. Another type the
"essential elements" has one snare drum and one mallet
percussion book.

I think that percussionists should rotate and do as much as
possible, and if that means that they each need two books,
whereas every other member of the band needs only one..
then that's the way it should be!

There are no magic pills to make percussion easier in the
beginner band, but hopefully the strategies in this article
will go some of the way to making it more fun for everyone!

----------------------------------------------------
Kevin Tuck has worked as a private music teacher (a
percussion specialist) and as a classroom music teacher.
Kevin has run his own very successful music school, and now
runs The Fun Music Company, an internet publishing company
helping music teachers and authors publish music and
educational materials on the internet. There are heaps more
articles available for percussion at his blog
http://www.percussioneducationonline.com