An Uneven Defense of the Artist as Difficult Person

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2005)

As a portrait of an artist, "Sweet and Lowdown" felt like two movies, a biography of a fictional musician and a psycho-biography of Woody Allen.
The fictional part is lovely to look at (though with all the translators listed for the Chinese cinematographer it must have been a complicated shoot).
The pacing does get tiring - vignette, talking head like in Reds, vignette, talking head, with no particular plot or curiosity point to propel one to keep watching.
The music is wonderful to listen to, the originals seamlessly fitting in with the covers, almost too lulling, as it started working like a lullaby on me.
So maybe I missed the point of the ending when the musician stops creating. Unless this is where the fictional and nonfictional come together. It's been made clear that the artist is a horror in his personal life (where the female options are a silent madonna (a wonderful Samantha Morton) and a slut who doesn't shut up (a miscast Uma Thurman though she wears the costumes well). So when everyone leaves him because they won't tolerate him any more then he can't create anymore, so that's why the Woodman's personal idiosyncrasies need to be catered to.
(originally written 1/16/2000)