“Walk the Line” opens with heavy country bass beats emanating from inside Folsom Prison in Repressa, Calif. Prison guards stand on top of look-out posts eyeing the prison with suspicion and uncertainty. A crow picks food from a garbage can, prisoners stand and clap in unison inside the mess hall while three apprehensive musicians stand on stage keeping the beat.

The year is 1968 and it is only moments before Johnny Cash takes the stage to record his now famous “Live at Folsom Prison” album. As Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) sits “backstage” staring at a table saw and a glass filled with cloudy yellow water, his face looking stoic. Slowly his eyes narrow, his teeth clench, and his once-emotionless face comes to brilliant life. Here sits a man wounded and defiant, yet gentle and loving. Here sits Johnny Cash.

“Walk the Line” is one of the greatest music films ever made, containing some of the greatest concert scenes (real, re-enacted, or fictitious) ever filmed. It usurps last year’s “Ray” as the quintessential music biopic and launches the genre’s bar of excellence into the stratosphere. It is fueled by brilliant performances, amazing music, gorgeous cinematography, simple yet stylized direction and a somewhat historically inaccurate yet engrossing story. It is simply amazing.

The film chronicles the life of music legend Johnny Cash until the age of 36. However, what makes this film different from other biopics is that it focuses on a distinct decade in Cash’s life, (roughly between 1958 and 1968) the years he spends chasing his eventual second wife and soul mate June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). It is the dynamic relationship between Carter and Cash (and the flawless performances by Phoenix and Witherspoon) that drive the film and its music.

The audience first sees Cash as he prepares to take the stage for his famous “Folsom Prison” album. The film quickly jumps to 1944 when Cash is 12 and living in Dyess, Ark. with his poor sharecropping family. When Cash’s hero and older brother Jack (Lucas Till) is killed in a wood working incident, Cash’s father blames Cash and claims that “they took the wrong son.” The incident sticks with Cash for the rest of his life.

The film then jumps ahead eight years to where Cash is leaving the family farm to go to Germany and serve in the Airforce. When Cash’s mother tells him to be careful, Cash’s father Ray (Robert Patrick) reminds her and his son, in a belittling tone, that Cash will be fine because the war is in Korea, not Germany.

While in Germany, Cash remains a loner. He buys a guitar and spends his days creating songs, reading articles on June Carter (whose music he has loved since he was a child) and keeping in contact with Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin), a girl he dated for a month before he left for Germany. When Cash returns home he marries Vivian and gets a job as a door-to-door salesman in Memphis, Tennessee – a job he is terrible at. He continues to work on music and Vivian continues to tell him to grow up and get a respectable job. Cash refuses and puts all of his energy into getting a record deal. When he is signed by legendary record label Sun Records, it launches his career.

While on tour with the likes of Elvis Presley (Tyler Hilton), Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Malloy Payne), and Roy Orbison (Jonathan Rice), Cash learns the ins-and-outs of the performing life. He gets involved with drugs, women, and alcohol which lead to many of the musician’s later downfalls. The tour is also where he meets and falls in love with Carter.

“Walk the Line” succeeds because both Witherspoon and Phoenix give the performances of their lives. So much of the film relies on the performers and their ability to not only bring these musical legends to life but to work well together. They do both superbly.

While Phoenix seems to channel “The Man in Black,” Witherspoon’s Carter is a gorgeous interpretation of the country legend. Audiences have seen Witherspoon play the “cutesy” stage persona in movies such as “Legally Blonde,” a persona that Carter was famous for, and as a hellacious bitch in “Election,” but never has Witherspoon displayed such an amazing ability to show inner turmoil and personal strength like she does as Carter. She is phenomenal.

The same can be said for Phoenix, his performance is mesmerizing. Every step, facial expression, guitar pluck, and spoken word drips with Cash’s persona. He does not act – he becomes, and it is mind-blowing.

Witherspoon and Phoenix are destined for Oscar nominations. “Walk the Line” is destined for film greatness.