Walk the Line

I saw the new Johnny Cash movie recently and I enjoyed it. I'm a Cash fan and I like Joaquin Pheonix as an actor so what is not to like? It was a great character study of Cash and it didn't shy away from his mortal struggles with guilt, drugs, and regret - and it didn't glorify them either. The story was a typical bio-pic narrative, complete with appropriate familial flashbacks, but the acting and overall essence of the film was really quite poignant. It got me to thinking...

There was something beautiful about his life, or at least how it is represented in media, that speaks to the hope of Christ through redemption. There was a transparency about him, - a kind of unpretentious humanness and genuine humility. No one is too far gone to receive God's grace, not even a rock bottom, drug addicted, rock star. New life is made possible, through Jesus, out of the ashes of a heart that cries out to Him.

Here is a link to his last music video.* !click here! It is a Nine Inch Nails cover but rather than being an anthem to rage he's played it as a kind of memorial, like his own eulogy speaking to regret and redemption. He attests his empire as something unimportant, inherently broken, and directs his hope to Jesus. I love the end of it with the montage of clips climaxing in a rush of snapshots collected from Cash's past and present and interspliced with old film stock of Jesus being crucified. I think it is a cool video.

*What I should mention about this Cash video is the reference to Italian and Northern renaissance painting, particularly still life painting. A discourse was built around still life painting, specifically work involving food and perishables that directed the viewer to a confrontation with mortality and the vanity of life. Numerous painters created narratives out of fruit, freshly killed game, human skulls, goblets full of wine, and open books of literature to further their point - life is rich, full of desire, and beautiful but it has a definite end. This Johnny Cash video was shot with the same aesthetic as these old paintings and makes a heavy handed reference to the same ideas circulating within the culture which created those rusty, old, renaissance images. Time has passed, hundreds of years in fact, but concerns about mortality remain the same.