Notes on Johnny Cash The Last Great American

Johnny Cash

 

Type of documentary

Expository – The narrator is telling a story based on facts, there is no argument within the documentary.

Structure/narrative

The narrative tells a story of Johnny Cash’s life. It starts off by talking about his childhood and then progresses into his rise to fame, and uses his personal friends or people within his business to give their views on certain points in his life.

Mise-en-scene

Everyone being interviewed is placed in front of relevant things. Most of them have things related to the music industry behind them, for example several of them have records on display, and another is being interviewed in a recording booth. Several other people being interviewed seem to be in their own living rooms, and for them the mise-en-scene does not seem as well considered.  

 Editing

All people follow the rule of thirds when being interviewed. Whilst the narrator is talking it shows archive material which mainly tend to be pictures, but videos are sometimes used. All of the cutaways are archive material, there is no original footage used as cutaways.

Sound
Johnny Cash’s music is played as a sound bed through most of the documentary, it uses a variety of songs that last no more than one minute.

Archive material

A lot of archive material of Johnny Cash is used, both pictures and videos. Whilst the narrator is talking about Johnny’s childhood a lot of archive footage relevant to the time period is shown. The documentary also uses archive interviews with Johnny Cash himself, this is all archive because Johnny had already died at the time of the interview. 

Graphics
Initially no graphics appear on screen when someone being interviewed. The title sequence for the documentary is very simple, it says ‘JOHNNY CASH – The last great American’ in simple white writing next to a black and white image of Johnny Cash. After the title sequence and the documentary really starts all of the people previously shown without graphics now have their names on screen when they’re shown on screen for the first time only. The text is the same white style as the title text had been.