An online poll has voted Walk the Line, the 2005 film about country star Johnny Cash, the greatest music biopic.The rest of the top five were made up of Eminem's 8 Mile at two, Armadeus, the life story of Mozart, at three, Ray, starring Jamie Foxx, at four and The Doors starring Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison as number five.The poll was carried out by online DVD firm Lovefilm and over 2000 movie fans casted their votes.Walk The Line starred Joaquin Phoenix as the troubled star as the film showed his rise to fame and his battle with his drug addiction.His performance earnt him a second Academy Award nomination but he lost out to Philip Seymour Hoffman for his portrayal of Capote.Reese Witherspoon won the scar for Best Actress at the 2006 ceremony for her performance as June Carter who was to become Cash's second wife.But the film angered the daughters of Vivian Liberto Distin, Cash's first wife, claiming that the film portrayed her as a 'mad little psycho'. Despite Kathy Cash's praise for Phoenix and Witherspoon she walked out of a family screening and was upset that the version of her mother in the film was not true.
The led to a rise in the sales of Johnny Cash records as they jumped 676% at one point seventeen of the records in the country top twenty were Cash releases.
Helen Earnshaw