[mg196]

I am not going to see it, but not because it is "good or bad." I like my biographies to be of the PBS nature: complete non-fictionalization. Here is an article from the Tennesean.com:

Kathy Cash couldn't stay in her seat at a family-only screening of Walk the Line, a biopic about her dad, Johnny Cash.

"I was very upset," she said. "I walked out on that film five times."

Kathy Cash of Hendersonville, one of Johnny Cash's five offspring, thinks the movie is good and that performances by Joaquin Phoenix as her dad and former Nashvillian Reese Witherspoon as her stepmother June Carter Cash are Oscar-worthy. What troubles her is feeling that the film unfairly portrays her mother, Vivian Liberto Distin, Johnny Cash's first wife, as a shrew.

And Kathy Cash, in an interview with The Tennessean, says Walk the Line fails to show the pain that she and her three sisters endured during their father's fight with drugs or their parents' divorce. The film fails to include any meaningful scenes at all with the children, for that matter, she said, and also portrays Johnny Cash's father too negatively.

"Anyone who wants a good sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll movie is gonna love it," she said. "I'm anticipating dyed-in-the-wool fans objecting to a lot of stuff."

Of Cash's five children, two have not seen the film; Rosanne Cash has but couldn't be reached yesterday for comment.

John Carter Cash — Johnny and June's only child together and an executive producer for Walk the Line — says his half-sister's criticisms have merit. But he says it's OK to take some license and that, in the bigger picture, the movie succeeds in telling his parents' love story.

"Kathy grew up in a household I was never in. I'm compassionately understanding," John Carter Cash said. "The point of the film is my parents' love affair. That's the lasting light that lived through their lives. The most important thing for my parents on this Earth was their love for each other."

Kathy Cash understands that point, she says, but doesn't think it's OK to sacrifice people's reputation to tell the story.

She is most disappointed that the film seemingly ignores much of Johnny and Vivian's happy time together before her father started using drugs. Vivian was the woman Cash pledged to remain faithful to in his song I Walk the Line, after which the movie is named. "Mom and Dad had a very happy 13-year marriage, including four girls until the pills, etc., got in the way," she said.

The film at first shows Vivian worried that Johnny's music career couldn't support the family. Later, it shows her angry and bitter as her husband battles his demons and as he gets closer to June.

"My mom was basically a nonentity in the entire film except for the mad little psycho who hated his career. That's not true. She loved his career and was proud of him until he started taking drugs and stopped coming home," Kathy Cash said.

She said there were more happy years than not.

"I have a lot of really fun positive memories of my parents, doing stuff at my grandparents, picnics, barbecues, doing silly things and having fun. They left out any good part. That's what bothers me so bad. She was his first love."

Kathy says she's particularly sensitive about how her mother is portrayed because her mother died earlier this year in California as a result of complications from lung cancer.

John Carter Cash concedes the film has few happy moments between Johnny and his first wife. But he also suggested there wasn't much cooperation on that front.

"Vivian is, of course, not here to say for herself, sadly, but Vivian chose not for her character to have any in-depth portrayal in the film," he said.

Kathy Cash said her mother was hesitant to cooperate with writers and producers because she had for most of her life been tight-lipped about her marriage to Johnny. Kathy Cash said her mother also felt that movie producers might portray the marriage in a negative way and that they wouldn't agree to provide Vivian a script when she asked to see one.

Kathy and John Carter Cash say they get along well, as do all the Cash children, but both say they didn't talk much directly to each other about the movie.

Kathy Cash said film writer Gill Dennis spent time with everyone in the immediate family, herself included, and together they wrote a scene about a time, when Kathy was 9, that her mother put the girls in the car to leave Johnny.

"Dad was pilled up, and she said, 'I'm not gonna do this, I'm leaving.' All four of us were in the car, and she locked the door," Kathy said. Johnny came out to the car, then parked in the driveway and tapped on the window.

"He said, 'Kathy, honey, open the door.' My mom said, 'Don't you dare open the door.' I finally pulled my hair over my ears and shouted, 'Stop it! I hate both of you!' "

They wrote that scene while her father was still alive, and Kathy Cash said Johnny Cash thought it was painful but that it should be in the movie. After he died, the scene was pulled.

John Carter Cash said of that episode: "Maybe that scene was there and it was taken out."

Why?

"If all the girls had said was 'I hate you' and that's all that was left in the movie, there wouldn't have been any light there."

The movie instead showed Johnny, during the day, chasing the car as Vivian drove away.

Johnny's father, Ray Cash, appears in the film as cold and verbally abusive. Kathy Cash says that's unfair to her grandfather.

"He wasn't the sweetest person in the world back then, but …. Dad did have his problems with him. Some of it was true, some wasn't. It was blown up to high proportions."

Again, John Carter Cash doesn't necessarily disagree.

"The fact of the matter: If there was angst between my grandfather and my father, it was unstated. My father never showed anything but tolerance, love, patience. … I never saw him talk back to (his father.) That's the reality.

"But to shed light on who my dad was, some of the struggles between my father and my grandfather were dramatized. And I do think it was necessary for the movie."

John Carter Cash concedes overall that there are omissions and dramatizations, but that they were necessary to tell the love story. "Nobody can ever see totally eye to eye. I respect the film for what it is, and I love it for what it is. There are great holes. And there are solid fans who'll say, what about this and what about that? Look for one thing: Look for their love. Look where their love lasted. That's the message."