Woody Allen is not as funny as he used to be, but then he never was.

Rating: 8/10 (9 October 2009)

The story is told about the now-defunct British humorous magazine "Punch" that, when someone complained to the editor that "Punch is not as funny as it used to be," he replied "It never was." The same could be said of Woody Allen. For years the received criticism of every new Woody film has been "Woody is not as funny as he used to be". He never was. Exactly when he was funny varies according to the particular tastes of the critic in question. Some will tell you that he has not been funny since "Hannah and Her Sisters", others that he has done nothing worthwhile since "Manhattan". There are probably even some purists who will insist that nothing in his later work can compare to early slapstick comedies like "Sleeper" or "Bananas".
I myself have never been an adherent of the "Woody is not as funny as he used to be" school of thought, for two reasons. Firstly, not all his films from his supposed golden age in the seventies and eighties were equally good; several of the sketches in "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About SexÂ….", for example, today come across as frankly embarrassing. Secondly, by no means all of his films from the 1990s and the 2000s are weak; he has made a number of good films during this period, of which "Sweet and Lowdown" is one of the best.
In structure the film is a mock-documentary about Emmett Ray, a jazz guitarist from the 1930s. Ray is a fictitious character, although the spoof is so well done that it becomes entirely credible. (The day after I first saw this in the cinema I went to the library to check out what it said about him in an encyclopaedia of jazz. Needless to say, I did not find his entry). Scenes from Ray's life are intercut with shots of jazz experts, including Allen himself, being interviewed about Ray's music. To add to the idea that this is a non-fiction documentary, the various commentators give differing versions of anecdotes about Ray or differing interpretations of his life.
Allen, of course, is well known for his love of jazz, and it would appear that he first conceived the ambition to make a film about a jazz musician in the early seventies, but this did not come to fruition until 1999. He originally planned to play the part of Emmet Ray himself, but unless he has a much wider range as an actor than he has hitherto shown it was a wise decision to cast Sean Penn rather than himself in the role, as Ray is far from being a typical Woody character. For a start, he is neither Jewish nor a New Yorker. Nor is he a nervous, angst-ridden, self-deprecating intellectual- indeed, he is far from being an intellectual at all. Great artists are not always great men, and for all his brilliance as a performer Ray is a deeply flawed individual- crude, boorish, an alcoholic and a kleptomaniac. Besides his music, he has a sideline as a ponce running a stable of prostitutes. His idea of a hobby is to go down to the local rubbish dump and shoot rats, even inviting his girlfriends to join him in this dubious sport. Obviously the last of the great romantics.
Ray is also conceited about his talent, proclaiming himself to be the second best guitarist in the world after his idol Django Reinhardt (who was of course a real person). Ray's relationship to Reinhardt, whom he does not know personally, is a complicated mixture of jealousy and hero-worship; he adores Reinhardt's music, but also hopes to be able to better it. Ray's one redeeming quality is his passionate dedication to his art, and Penn (in an excellent performance) is able to suggest all the many facets of his personality and to make him someone who is not totally unsympathetic despite his many faults.
The other really excellent performance is that of the young Samantha Morton as Ray's sweet, innocent girlfriend Hattie. Hattie is mute, which means that Morton could only express her character through gestures and facial expressions. It is a performance similar to that of Marlee Matlin as the deaf-mute heroine of "Children of a Lesser God", although with the difference that Hattie, although mute, is not deaf. Uma Thurman is also good as Ray's wife Blanche, an upper-class socialite who marries Ray out of what might be called "nostalgie de la boue". She is attracted to him precisely because he is crude and uncultured with dubious personal habits- they first meet when she catches him stealing an ornament at a party.
There is plenty of humour in the film, much of it centred upon Ray's sense of self-importance, such as the slapstick sequence about his attempt to make a stage entrance seated on a wooden crescent moon lowered down from above. It is not, however, a pure comedy, but also a character study and a film about the power of music to transform even the most mundane of lives. I am by no means a great jazz buff, but I was enthralled by the beauty of the music in this film (performed by the guitarist Howard Alden). This is one of Woody's most impressive films from the last two decades. 8/10