Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Walk The Line


What they said. Briefly? Everyone loves a Christ story at Christmastime. Also, when folks tell you that you that you can't take your eyes off of Reese Witherspoon, it's not simply because she's breathtakingly beautiful or inordinately talented: the tight focus on her face leaves no alternative. If you've seen one biopic then you know too well the strict adherence to Great Man thesis which wouldn't be complete without messianic hagiography. To their credit, both leads are believable as Cash and June Carter, but that isn't enough to cover for a gauzy gloss on The Man in Black.

But a film like this begs the question: has a celebrity ever lived an irredeemable life?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is exactly what I was afraid of.

I've been meaning to write a post about the fall of the biopic. The Murrow film was great in that it simply wasn't a recreation of events in order to show us how somebody lived -- Clooney used the Murrow-McCarthy battle in order to make a statement about both the current state of politics and the media.

Yet films like Ray, Capote, and now this one (it seems) are pretty much all mix and match. They equate a powerful lead performance with a good film.

11:16 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home