Man in film trumps Man in Black for this moviegoer
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, January 3, 2006 - Updated: 11:46 AM EST
Like a lot of moviegoers, I left — no, sashayed out of — “Walk the Line” almost frantic to listen to more Johnny Cash. “They should sell his CDs at the concession stand,” I told my husband.
At that moment, I would have paid anything — even jacked-up, movie-theater prices — to hear the Man in Black, the real one, not some pretty boy Hollywood version — sing “Ring of Fire.”
I’ve got to admit that Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon sang really well, for actors that is. But as a newly minted Cash and Carter aficionado, I craved authenticity.
Imagine my great joy then when my husband bought me not one, not two, but three CDs: “The Essential Johnny Cash,” “At Folsom Prison” and “Ring of Fire: The Best of June Carter Cash.”
“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” Mr. Cash drawls by way of introduction to the Folsom prisoners. I smiled recalling that part in the movie, and turned up the volume to “Folsom Prison Blues.”
He started singing about shooting a man in Reno “just to watch him die.”
And yet, something wasn’t doing it for me. I tried track after track, CD after CD, but I couldn’t quite get that old feeling back again. I played it louder at home, then I went for a drive so I could sing along alone, but ...
“You know what your problem is, don’t you?” one of my more blunt friends asked when I mentioned my, ah, problem.
She looked me square in the eyes. “You,” she said, “prefer the movie soundtrack.”
It’s one thing to tell someone that her new dress is unflattering, or that you don’t like the color she’s painted her kitchen, but to level an accusation like that, well!
“What kind of person prefers the Hollywood version to real artists?” I asked.
“Do you really want me to answer that?” she asked.
An uncomfortable silence developed. “Just get the soundtrack,” she said.
I imagined myself driving to a distant music store and paying in cash so there’d be no trail, or developing an alter ego, ordering from Amazon and having it delivered to an anonymous P.O. box.
“I can’t do it,” I told her, “One day you’re ordering the ‘Walk the Line’ soundtrack, the next you’re playing a Pottery Barn CD compilation for your friends at brunch, and soon you’re wearing elastic-waist pants and referring to Slice and Bake cookies as ‘homemade.’ ”
“But you already do that,” she said.
She was right. I clicked onto Amazon just to look at the “Walk the Line” soundtrack, and couldn’t help but notice that it ranked No. 22 in music, only a few behind “The Essential Johnny Cash” at No. 13.
“That many Americans can’t be wrong, can they?” I asked my friend.
I think she started to answer, but I cut her off. I had a P.O. box to pay for.
