Djangology

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2002)

This film is a mixture of fake documentary, in the style of Zelig, and straightforward narrative. It presents a very beautiful evocation of the 1930's jazz scene. As with many of Woody Allen's movies I found myself missing the brilliant dialogue because I was listening to the wonderful music. The guitar on the soundtrack is played by Howard Alden who manages to sound reminiscent of Django Reinhardt without slavishly copying him. Sean Penn gives a very amusing performance and is quite convincing in the many scenes where he has to play the guitar. It occurs to me that many younger people watching this film may never have heard of Django Reinhardt and may be slightly bemused by a story about someone who is so obsessed by him.

Woody Allen sometimes underwrites the supporting characters in his screenplays. In this film he has taken this tendency to the extreme by giving Samantha Morton no lines at all as the mute Hattie. She looks like Giulietta Masina in La Strada but she cannot tell a story with her face in the way that Masina could and mainly restricts herself to a cute smile. This is perhaps Allen's fault. He may deliberately have restricted Morton's role to looking winsome during Penn's tremendous displays of vocal pyrotechnics.