SWEET AND LOWDOWN, 1999

Written and directed by Woody Allen, this film tells the story of a fictional arrogant, obnoxious, alcoholic jazz guitarist named Emmett Ray (played by Sean Penn) who regards himself as perhaps the best guitarist in the world, or second best, after his idol, Django Reinhardt.

Penn as Emmett carries the film in an Oscar-nomination performance. The lead female role seems secondary to me, although young Samantha Morton as Hattie also won an Oscar nomination.

Emmett is a victim of poor parenting, a complex and tragic character, with whom I identify. Separated early from both parents, and spending three years in a bordello under the guardianship of the madam, a friend of his mother, he grows up cynical and unable to commit to women.

Cruising the boardwalk with a pal to pick up women, he encounters Hattie, a mute, who turns out as faithful and loving as a dog. When she makes him a birthday card in which she declares her love, he skips out in the wee small hours without telling her.

His drinking and smoking are very pointed. That and gambling (he claims to be one of the six best pool players in the country), plus shooting rats at the dump, watching trains go by, and keeping lowlife company, all condition his fate. He’s trapped.

In a wonderful play of the imagination Woody, Nat Hentoff and others appear as themselves. In cameo performances, they set up the narrative as if it were a documentary about a real person.

A performance in which Emmett plans to descend onto a stage on a large, gilded crescent moon is a metaphor for the mess of his life. It doesn't work. Drunk as a skunk, his climb onto it is a bizarre struggle. It descends in odd jerks, as if it too were drunk. Near the ground he falls off his perch. The moon starts to rise, then comes crashing down in pieces behind him.

The film is personal. I think of the Hatties in my life, and I can understand the need and the repulsion that war within him. And the eternal nagging pathos of her fate. I also relate to his great, unrealized talent and lost opportunities due to his character flaws.