''My Father and the Man in Black ''is a 2012 Canadian documentary film directed and produced by Jonathan Holiff about the stormy relationship between country music star
Johnny Cash and the filmmaker's father,
Saul Holiff, Cash's personal manager. It qualified for Oscar consideration in 2013. Holiff was inspired to produce the film when he stumbled on his father's storage locker filled with audio diaries and a large assortment of other documents relating to his time in the 1960s and 1970s as Cash's manager. The locker also included a framed gold record of "
A Boy Named Sue
"A Boy Named Sue" is a song written by humorist, children's author, and poet Shel Silverstein and made popular by Johnny Cash. Cash recorded the song live in concert on February 24, 1969, at California's San Quentin State Prison for his ''At ...
" which went on display at the Grand Theatre during the running of their musical ''
Ring of Fire
The Ring of Fire (also known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Rim of Fire, the Girdle of Fire or the Circum-Pacific belt) is a region around much of the rim of the Pacific Ocean where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur. The Ring o ...
''.
Production
The film employs historically accurate flashbacks, starting with how Holiff met Cash when he hired him to sign autographs at his "Sol's Square Boy" drive-in in
London, Ontario
London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...
. Hollif went on to sign Cash to a number of other music gigs and Cash hired him to be his manager, with a contract written on the back of a paper napkin.
The film is narrated by Jonathan Holiff, interlaced with archival audio by
Johnny Cash and Saul Holiff.
The structure of the film interlocks the relationship of Cash and Saul, and often pans to the relationship of Saul with Jonathan. His son often resented his father's time on the road. There is an emphasis of the rift between Cash and Saul, caused by Cash's status as a
born-again Christian and Saul as an
atheist, and how their relationship spiraled out of control.
Variety.com comments on the unique structure of this film:
"Documentaries as expressions of filial trauma usually fail to generate audience empathy. But with its posthumous, anguished, first-person confessional revolving around the larger-than-life Man in Black this one partly transcends its inherent self-indulgence."
Reception and awards
''My Father and the Man in Black'' has had mixed reviews from critics in the United States. The film has a "Fresh" rating (63 percent) on critic review aggregator site
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
. ''
LA Weekly'' described it as a "fascinating documentary" despite what it called the "warning signs of a vanity project"
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
noted the fresh take on a documentary, saying: "Refreshingly, My Father and the Man In Black does not slip into the realm of tabloid. It’s an intense personal adventure with universal themes and appeal that just happens to feature one of 20th-century music’s great icons" On
Roger Ebert.com, the movie was described as "too damn interesting to be maudlin." A review in ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...
'' stated, "heart and feeling is soaked through it like the sweat in Cash's guitar strap."
The film has been nominated and has won a number of awards on the film festival circuit.
* Lewiston Auburn Film Festival: Best Documentary 2012
* Buffalo Niagara Film Festival: Best Documentary 2013
* Tiburon International Film Festival:
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
award
* Edinburgh documentary Film Festival: Best Feature
Reviews
The film garnered mostly positive reviews in other countries, particularly in the United Kingdom. ''
The Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
'' called it "a non-fiction 'Walk the Line' with script input by Eugene O'Neill." ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' said, "finally, a fresh angle on the Cash mythology." A reviewer with ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' commented on the frequent dramatic confrontations between Cash and Holiff revealed in authentic audio of phone exchanges between the two. A reviewer from the UK website Film Forward stated that the movie is a type of
answer song An answer song, response song or answer record, is a song (usually a recorded track) made in answer to a previous song, normally by another artist. The concept became widespread in blues and R&B recorded music in the 1930s to the 1950s. Answer so ...
to the movie ''
Walk the Line
''Walk the Line'' is a 2005 American biographical musical romantic drama film directed by James Mangold. The screenplay, written by Mangold and Gill Dennis, is based on two autobiographies authored by singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, 1975's '' M ...
'' and it covers a number of themes not mentioned in ''Walk the Line'', like Cash's conversion to
Christian fundamentalism at the peak of his career, the racism Cash faced by the
KKK when they believed Cash's first wife was African American, and the
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
Holiff faced both growing up and in the early days of
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
.
Historical accuracy
The documentary is considered among the most historically accurate films about Johnny Cash's career in the 1960s and early 1970s, and the often stormy relationship with his manager between 1958 and 1977. This is due to the fact that the film is driven by contemporaneous audio diaries and telephone calls, and hundreds of letters between the two men. A number of the movie props were genuine articles given to Holiff by Cash.
Soundtrack
*
Lee Harvey Osmond
Lee Harvey Osmond, stylized as LeE HARVeY OsMOND, is a Canadian psychedelic folk project fronted by musician Tom Wilson.
History
The act first took shape with Wilson in his LeE HARVeY OsMOND persona, backed by Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkie ...
* Michael Timmins of the
Cowboy Junkies
Cowboy Junkies are an alternative country and folk rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1985 by Alan Anton (bassist), Michael Timmins (songwriter, guitarist), Peter Timmins (drummer) and Margo Timmins (vocalist). The three Timminse ...
References
External links
*
{{Johnny Cash
Show business memoirs
Documentary films about country music and musicians
Films set in the 1960s
Johnny Cash
2012 documentary films
Canadian documentary films
2012 films
Documentary films about businesspeople
2010s Canadian films