On the heels of a festival tour that’s traveled the globe, garnering over 40 screenings to date and a Focal Award nomination, JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON will have its Boston debut with a 5 Night Run at the Museum of Fine Arts.
The full screening schedule is:
Weds, Sept 2nd – 6:00pm
Thurs, Sept 3rd – 6:00pm
Fri, Sept 4th – 4:00pm
Sat, Sept 5th – 10:30am
Sun, Sept 6th – 3:00pm
Tickets are available online and at the MFA.
FILM SYNOPSIS:
On January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash walked into California’s Folsom State Prison and made popular music history. At Folsom Prison’s rebellious attitude and plea for compassion for the imprisoned (articulated in Cash’s original liner notes and the pouring out of his soul on stage) intersected with the spirit of 1968, finding a place next to figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy who urged Americans to reach out to the disenfranchised and next to young Americans taking to the streets to protest war and inequality. Curious music fans and socially-conscious critics across the nation were magnetized.
This is the first documentary film to consider Cash’s finest day. Produced by award-winning director Bestor Cram and Cash biographer Michael Streissguth, the documentary follows the country star through the gates of the dark prison to reveal a moment flush with ramifications. Featuring exclusive interviews with those who accompanied Cash at Folsom Prison, friends and family, and inmates who witnessed the show, the documentary examines Cash through the lens of January 13, 1968. New footage filmed inside Folsom Prison, dramatic photographs by Jim Marshall, and rare archival material featuring Cash illustrate the album and concert’s importance in a new and gripping way.
In Folsom’s wake, Cash became an international ambassador of country music, prison reform spokesman, and counter-culture hero. Few albums had ever proved so influential. Forty years after its initial release, historians and critics continue to count At Folsom Prison among the classic albums of the 1960s, in a league with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Pet Sounds, and Blonde on Blonde. As daughter Rosanne Cash observes, Cash went into Folsom Prison and «came into the light.»
