Formalism in Walk the Line

This link to an article in Film Comment is a review on Walk the Line by Chris Norris. The beginning describes the first scene and the theme of a "Great American Bada**".

The movie opens to the faint stomping and cheering a crowd, as the camera slowly moves down a long hallway of empty prison cells. In the next shot a rowdy group of inmates clap their hands awaiting Johnny Cash. The following scene is the back room where Johnny Cash is waiting to go on stage. The warden asks him if he could try not to remind the inmates that they are in prison, and Cash responds, "You think they forgot."

The prison represent the themes of sin, criminals, and possibly fear and Cash's attitude toward the warden represents rebellion because when Cash goes on stage he praises the inmates for having to drink with the nasty looking water of Folsom Prison.