Chapter 1089 Focus on the Actors
Regarding "Walking with Songs", does Anson think this is a classic?
No, he doesn't think so; but he thinks the movie is still worth watching.
"Walk-The-Line", the original name can be understood as walking along the way. Johnny Cash regained his strength with the help of June Carter and climbed up from the darkness. Get your life back.
At the same time, it can also be understood as teetering on the dangerous edge of a high-altitude tightrope, showing how Johnny Cash struggled in the shadow of his family and the whirlpool of fame and fortune, and finally completed redemption.
The translated name unfortunately fails to capture the artistic conception behind the words.
The movie is very ambitious and the narrative is slightly scattered. Just as Edgar said, because the script was created when Johnny Cash was still alive, it is inevitable to see him trying to show his own The process of redemption largely led to the director's inability to put the pieces together.
Really excellent biographical films often capture a precise core, which may be an individual, an era, a struggle of human nature, or philosophical thinking, and build the characters around this core. It is too difficult for a movie to tell the story of a character's magnificent life.
The core of "Walking with Songs" is good, but the script really drags it down.
Still, Anson thinks the film is worth watching for two reasons.
One, music.
As the two James said, they hope to use the movie to show how Johnny Cash draws inspiration from a terrible life and evolves into music. For this, Mangold really grasped the key.
For this reason, Mangold required that both actors must sing in person -
In their previous lives, Joaquin and Reese each received professional vocal training. As other Hollywood biographies When lip syncing in movies became popular, they performed all the singing in the movie themselves.
And these musical performance plots really give the movie its soul.
Second, performance.
The two actors have their own merits, but Anson thinks Reese is better.
Joaquin is an excellent actor, there is no doubt; but he relies more on emotional outbursts and speculation, and in this regard he is really eye-catching.
However, it is slightly weak in establishing the emotional context of the character and the performance framework. It is not bad, but not outstanding either. Therefore, Joaquin's most impressive roles are often those with an emotional pull or explosion, such as "The Master", "Gladiator", "Joker" and so on.
In "Walking with the Song", Joaquin's struggle and pulling Johnny Cash into the darkness is still first-rate, and you can even see the tension in his performance when he was walking on the edge of danger in "Joker" later. The prototype; but Joaquin's musical performance is... not satisfactory.
It can be seen that he tried his best, but his understanding of the emotional context of the music and his control of the live performance never captured the essence.
And Reese forms a small contrast.
Throughout the entire movie, Reese's character Joan Carter has almost no scenes where her emotions explode or her acting skills are released. She is more like a ray of sunshine shining into Johnny Cash's life.
Reese brings life to the character with her light and cheerful performance. Such a performance seems simple and effortless, which is why she is criticized as the "Queen of Water". She does it effortlessly, but in fact, she needs to be careful. Proportionate, less will appear weak, more will appear artificial.
The most intuitive comparison is with "Glee" or "High School Musical". The whole performance is like a fake Barbie with 300 layers of filters.
And Reese’s skill is just right, and her skill is admirable.
In addition, the really exciting part of Reese is her singing. She shows her power of music, control of performance and rare musical talent. The highlight of the singing part in the movie should be Johnny Cash, but Reese made Joan Carter's performance shine with superstar charm.
No comparison means no harm, Reese still made Joaquin a little embarrassed.
Of course, this is not to say that Joaquin is not good, he is just striving for excellence.
Unfortunately, for the general public, the most common and common criterion for judging the quality of acting is often explosive power.
The most intuitive case is that if a person can fall into emotion and burst into tears within thirty seconds at any time and anywhere, people will exclaim and applaud, thinking this is a sign of superb acting skills.
Of course, actors who need eye drops for crying scenes are worthy of criticism; but being able to cry at will is definitely not a sign of excellent acting skills.
It can be even more difficult to recreate a character's charm and effortlessness in a performance like Reese's.
The point is that Mangold once again showed his sensitivity as a screenwriter. In the past, he used words to figure out and imagine the edges and colors of the characters; now he completes an interaction with the actors through the lens.
Mangold always knew how to capture the emotion of an actor.
This was also clearly demonstrated in the later "Wolverine 3". Even in a superhero comic book movie, Mangold also captured the vicissitudes and tragedy of the Western movie hero's twilight years.
Perhaps Mangold is not a talented director, and he has never won a director nomination for any mainstream award; but he is undoubtedly a director who respects and cares for actors and knows how to tap them.
From this perspective, Mangold and Kitcher at least grasped the core of the movie. Their judgment and conception of the movie were correct. Musical performance is the soul, so they went round and round to find Anson. ——
And that’s even after coming into contact with Joaquin.
At least, they are honest about this.
As a viewer, Anson will not be so ecstatic and unable to sleep because of "Walking with the Song", but he will still recommend his friends to watch it again.
As an actor, Anson believes that "walking with songs" is a challenge.
If you think about it seriously, maybe this is Anson's best opportunity to break the shackles of the vase label, because the essence of the movie is all about musical performance, which has some similarities with pure acting but is not exactly the same. It can be Anson's entry point and allow him to carefully consider the character.
After all, so far, there is no movie that really gives Anson the space to perform and deeply consider the character -
The commercial type attributes of "cat and mouse game" and "butterfly effect" have prevailed, and Anson is in a certain few You win the opportunity to show off your acting skills in the scene, but you don't have the opportunity to build your own performance framework and character context.
"Warmth and Light" does have such an opportunity, but the shadow of Charlie Kaufman's screenwriter completely enveloped the entire movie, devouring the actor's own performance space, and he was still trapped in Charlie- Kaufman's script.
The script of "Walking with a Song" is a bit broken and cumbersome. All the focus falls on Johnny Cash, but there is no clear framework and context for the character. This may become an opportunity - —
Just like Reese Witherspoon, she completes her own understanding in the space of imagination.
It just so happens that this script gives the actors enough space to develop and improve.
So, Anson told Edgar that he thought this might be an opportunity:
He meant it.
(End of this chapter)