User Reviews

Trent Reznor was born to write this song, Johnny Cash to sing it, and Mark Romanek to film it. " Bono, vocalist of the rock band U2

The author's interpretation of the song "Hurt" by Trent Reznor, founder and leader of the industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails, overwhelmed with the despair of the protagonist. He was lost in the drug fog of the "empire of dirt", crowned with a "crown of s**it" and causing himself physical pain, which became his only connection with reality. A huge screen was installed on the stage, onto which gloomy scenes of death, horrors of war, and nuclear bomb tests were projected. The triangular head of an unblinking serpent staring into the camera, zoomed in on the full screen, was eerily approaching. The fantastic bird completely swallowed a huge fish underwater. The decaying process of the fox's corpse was scrolling from end to beginning. Projector light caught Reznor's figure out of the darkness, and ominous hypnotic visions seemed to spill onto the screen from the underworld of his subconscious.

When Johnny Cash decided to record "Hurt" for his new CD, Trent Reznor was not sure of the success of the idea, although he was flattered by the attention of the legendary country singer to his work. But when Reznor saw and heard for the first time the video clip of Mark Romanek, filmed according to the version of Cash, he was moved to the core. Cash's interpretation of his most personal song, written in a period of loneliness and hopelessness, from the very first guitar chords caused tears in the eyes of the rock star, goosebumps, and a lump in his throat. Reznor recalled that he had suddenly realized that "Hurt" no longer belonged to him alone and experienced a feeling close to the loss of someone he loved. His song, reinterpreted by a musician from another era in a genre far from industrial rock, did not just recreate the original meaning, pain, and regret. It burned with the piercing sincerity of a person who managed to make someone else's song his own.

Johnny Cash's life unfolds in front of the viewer in the alternation of documentary shots of the past and images that captured him as 71 years old, during 2002 filming, at the end of his journey. The 4-minute video captures the story of a "man in black" who always played by his own rules, balancing on the edge of a ring of fire. A deeply devoted believer and sinner, stubborn and rebellious, he lived a bright, stormy life with creative triumphs, loud fame, love, but also an unequal struggle with drug addiction, pain inflicted on himself and others, a heavy burden of guilt, and irreparable losses. A special acuity to the performance came from the confessional manner of Cash. It was filmed in the house where he lived for more than 30 years with his beloved wife, singer June Carter Cash. She lovingly looks into the aged face of her husband and listens attentively to his cracked voice, summing up the past years.

By changing just one word in Reznor's song, Cash goes beyond the original design. He grieves about the futility of worldly achievements, and because everything passes and nothing can be changed. The singer reflects on the transience of life, on the immensity of death, on the Ozymandian collapse of arrogant ambitions, on the decline of the genre. Endless sorrow, search and disappointment, subtle observation, and wise sorrowful generalization all intertwined in the song. He would give everything to turn back time, correct mistakes, heal the pain caused to loved ones, but he was trapped in his own "empire of dirt", weighed down by a crown of thorns, which he placed on himself. A lonely keyboard note begins to sound like a disturbing dissonance. It repeats itself over and over again. Nearer. Louder. More persistent. Like the monotonous deafening blows of a hammer driving nails into the cross of the crucifix, into the lid of the coffin. As if fate, knocking on the door, lifted the veil over the future in front of the singer, and he saw that in three months after the completion of the shooting of "Hurt", death would take his beloved June. Where he would survive her by only four months. Where their house, filled with memories, will burn to the ground in a fire a few years later, marking the irrevocable departure of an entire era.

Johnny Cash's swan song, written not by him, ends with a heartfelt, mournfully enlightened shot. The aged musician slowly lowers the lid of the white piano, gently touching it with the fingers of his tired hands. The inevitable farewell to the most precious in life - music, love, home, becomes his litany, his requiem, and monumentum aere perennius.

And with that I am of course not talking about the popular band that carries the same name, but about the song "Hurt, permormed here in under 4 minutes by Johnny Cash. I am not really sure if I like his rendition more than the other famous rendition by Nine Inch Nails, but the music video here adds so so much with these old scenes and photos starring Cash, but also showing us the people that had a major impact on his life and it's kinda tough to hold back the tears when hearing something along the lines of If I could start again". Of course, I am biased as Cash is maybe my favorite musician of all time and I could not love him more and regreat the fact more that I never saw him live. This one's here from 2003 by the way, the year that first June and, shortly after, Johnny died. Lets be honest, it was kinda obvious here that he was ready to go too as Johnny looked way older than early 70s and it somewhat makes me sad to see him so weak next to the shots from his young glory. Another somewhat romantic statement really as these two just were made for each other and there is really nothing better you can wish somebody other than hopinbg he'd find his personal June out there somewhere. As for the song, to me it is not one of my very favorite Cash songs to be honest, so I am a bit surprised this has turned into such a career defining number for him, but well if it encourages listeners to check out some of his old stuff from many decades earlier, then I'm all for it. The only two minor weaknesses I could find where the Jesus references (even if these are obviously justified by Cash being a very religious man) and the talking part in the middle that I could have done without. I certainly recommend checking this one out, most of all for the really moving music video by Mark Romanek, a filmmaker I also like on the full feature level and he has an outstanding take on emotion in film as he proves in "Never Let Me Go" as well as in "Hurt". One to remember, don't miss out and I hope it will evoke as many emotions for you as it did for me. Best short film of 2003, I guess we can call it that on a movie website.