Woody Allen’s 1999 release, Sweet and Lowdown is the portrait of a man to whom everything comes so easy that he is unable to appreciate any of it until reality turns him smack around. Makes one wonder if, or how closely, Allen identifies with this character.
Sean Penn, who takes roles I can’t appreciate all too often, plays this man, adrift in the 1930s, a virtuoso guitarist who keeps reminding people he is probably the second greatest player in the world, only that gypsy Django Reinhardt ahead of him. Instead of putting his head down and seeing where his talent might take him, Penn’s Emmet Ray fritters away his time on schemes, alcohol, and emotions he is unwilling to understand or develop. Samantha Morton is also superb, playing his mute lover, going the whole movie without a word of dialog other than what she can convey with body language.
No doubt that the movie has a great soundtrack. Dick Hyman assembled an all-star line-up to make fresh takes on the sound of the small group swing era featuring guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli as the lead instrumentalist. Much of the music comes naturally in the structure of the film as being played by Ray’s combo, rather than just being background to other scenes.
Allen is, to my mind, one of the top five American moviemakers in my lifetime. In Sweet and Lowdown, he gets away from his obsession with young women to return to a time he adores and writes a complex, meaningful character. In many interviews he has expressed a certain level of dissatisfaction with his work; even this month when he was honored with a major European lifetime achievement award he called himself a mediocre artist. So there is some truth to my thought that Emmet Ray is a commentary targeted at himself, though I believe in the last 10 or so years Allen has learned to be satisfied with who he is and what he’s done (so perhaps all his years of therapy did pay off).
I was a little disappointed in the ending, it was not as conclusive as I would prefer. But Allen’s own life, his career, has not yet ended so perhaps he isn’t ready to write that scene.
Recommended
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