Drop Frame

Memphis in a Box: An Excursus on the Trailer for "Walk the Line"

11 August 2005

I dream one day of programming a film festival of rock and roll movies. Not made-for-tv variety picks or the cliche. I’m talking "Don’t Look Back" and "Performance." I’m hearing "Tommy." I'm watching "The Buddy Holly Story." I’m waiting. I’m wanting: to see how well they translate rock’s basic elements – rawness, soul, gut instinct – to the screen...

I dream. In the meantime, I rely on what others do.

Imagine, for instance, the Sun Records box set that soon could be made. Fox has "Walk the Line" set to be released in November, James Mangold directing Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash. The recently available trailer for the film (http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/walk_the_line/) promises a performance worth seeing, even if, at the moment, it looks visually like a sequel to last year's "Ray." Add 1989's "Great Balls of Fire!" with Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis and all that is needed to round out the set is a film about Carl Perkins and a reach into the hat for one of the handful of Elvis Presley biopics – or even a movie Elvis starred in, but who would want to see the real thing?

If nothing else, the set would offer a nice comparison of established actors and relative newcomers in the same roles. Quaid and "Walk the Line" rookie Waylon Payne both handle the enigmatic Lewis. Phoenix has Cash, of course, but the set could include the 1999 short about the singer’s life, "I Still Miss Someone," with stuntman Mark Collie as the Man in Black. Tyler Hilton’s first film role will be Elvis in "Walk the Line." Michael St. Gerard – Link Larkin in the film version of "Hairspray" – took on the role in "Great Balls of Fire!" while Kurt Russell, Don Johnson, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and – you guessed it – Frank Stallone have all played or will shortly appear as "The King." As for Carl Perkins: only "Walk the Line"s Johnny Holiday has had the pleasure to play him.

A silly thought perhaps, to bring these films together on the basis of a historical connection: the four singers recorded seperately and together at Sun Records in Memphis and established Rock and Roll as a popular sound. Sun Records patriarch Sam Phillips might have approved of the film collection, but it is doubtful anyone would buy I today. Except me: research for the great film festival in the sky.

Of course, while I linger, material looms. "Walk the Line" is only the most-visible of a number of films hoping to Cash in, it seems, on "Ray"s success last year. Gus Van Sant released "Last Days," his film about a Seattle rock star strikingly reminiscent of Kurt Cobain, to film festivals in June. Singer Pink is tentatively cast as Janis Jopin in Penelope Spheeris' "The Gospel According to Janis," supposedly a 2005 release, though the film is still listed in pre-production. More active is "Stoned," producer Stephen Woolley's directorial debut. The film will be a look a the life and suspicious death of Rolling Stone co-founder Brian Jones. Last, Todd Hayne's announced project, "I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan," is already creating a buzz. The acclaimed filmmaker said his next film will be a more experimental look at the life of a fabled rock star: seven actors will play Bob Dylan through the course of the movie.

Fodder to feed my fires, though I doubt the trend will last. It is only a splash. Other genres have developed a tidal wave.

As the man said, you can't always get what you want...

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