John Clark

Sunday, March 5, 2006

James Mangold's Johnny Cash biopic, "Walk the Line," does just that: It walks the well-trodden line most recently traveled by "Ray," in which a celebrated performer's artistry and demons have their roots in childhood trauma that he either triumphs over or comes to terms with, but not before taking a lot of drugs and abusing everyone around him.

In Cash's case, he was damaged by the death of his older brother, Jack. Some of this pain came out in his music, which he recorded for producer Sam Phillips and then played on the road with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison. Along the way, Cash (Oscar-nominated Joaquin Phoenix) met country music princess June Carter (Oscar-nominated Reese Witherspoon), collaborated with her and pined for her. Their on-again, off-again relationship forms the spine of the story, along, of course, with the music, credibly performed by Phoenix (who doesn't quite achieve Cash's bottom-dwelling bass) and Witherspoon (who's charmingly perky). The DVD is in release.

Longtime Cash pal James Keach is primarily responsible for shepherding the Cash saga to the big screen. Keach, the brother of actor Stacy, is an actor in his own right (mostly on television), as well as a producer (also on TV) and director (ditto). He met his wife, actress Jane Seymour, on the set of the TV movie "Sunstroke" and later directed her on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." Seymour reportedly named one of her and Keach's children after Cash, who was a sometime guest on the show.

Q: You were a good friend of Johnny Cash's?

A: Yeah. John asked me to make to make the movie.

Q: Why?

A: Because so many people had asked him to do various TV versions. He didn't want the movie to be Hollywoodized. He was very nervous that somebody was going to do it without care.

Q: He wanted warts and all?

A: Yeah, the gnarly truth.

Q: Is that the drugs?

A: No, the stuff about his dad and about growing up with nothing. I hired a writer named Gill Dennis and started developing a script and did about four or five drafts. Different people were interested in doing it. Johnny Depp spoke to him. John was such a good guy. There was a dark side. That's what June said to me one night. She said, "There are two guys. There's John, and there's Cash." It's in the movie, in fact.

Q: How much input did he have on what we're seeing?

A: Quite a bit. He read the script. I did 30 hours of interviews with him. He had a lot to say about it, as did his family.

Q: I guess you learned a thing or two about him that you didn't know. What surprised you?

A: I think it was the deep grief that he carried for his brother. I knew the story, but I had no idea how much impact it had on him.

Q: And obviously he approved of the casting.

A: He loved the casting. He met Joaquin at a dinner and started quoting lines from "Gladiator." John loved movies.

Q: And Reese would seem almost the spitting image of June.

A: That's true. Many years ago she said Julia Roberts would be good. Both Reese and Julia Roberts have the same thing. They have the essence of goodness coming from them. When they smile you go, "Wow, they're somehow in touch with something bigger than themselves."

Q: If I may make a criticism, the religious aspect didn't come through for me as much as I expected.

A: I would say that it's subtle, but it's definitely there. There were so many different drafts. We'd go farther with it and then bring it back. It's a difficult thing to deal with sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. How far do you take that? It's also a love story. All of those things are very important. Let me ask you, are you a spiritual guy?

Q: Not terribly. But I found Cash's spirituality appealing because it seemed personal to him and not preachy.

A: You're exactly right. That's exactly who he was. He lived right next to one of those evangelical television stations. Every time he went by it he said, "I hate that." John didn't believe that because you didn't believe you were going to hell.

Q: One of the commentators on the DVD said Johnny Cash and June Carter were the last in the line of stars who treated their fans as family.

A: Yeah. I went out on the road with John. People knew him. They'd bring him pies, hang out with him. He liked to go to Wal-Mart. He was grateful that he got the recognition that he did. This could also be the period in his life that I knew him. Maybe when he was younger he was a different guy.

Q: How did you arrive at the cutoff point in the story?

A: It was always the marriage. I said to John, "You go through everything and the culmination of your journey is you get together with June." When Gill and I came to that realization, we knew we had a beginning, a middle and the end.

John Clark is a Chronicle correspondent.