Sweet and Lowdown movie storyline. A comedic biopic focused on the life of fictional jazz guitarist Emmett Ray. Ray was an irresponsible, free-spending, arrogant, obnoxious, alcohol-abusing, miserable human being, who was also arguably the best guitarist in the world. We follow Ray’s life: bouts of getting drunk, his bizzare hobbies of shooting rats and watching passing trains, his dreams of fame and fortune, his strange obsession with the better-known guitarist Django Reinhardt, and of course, playing his beautiful music.
Sweet and Lowdown is a 1999 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Loosely based on Federico Fellini’s film La Strada, the film tells the fictional story, set in the 1930s, of a self-confident jazz guitarist Emmet Ray (played by Sean Penn) who falls in love with a mute woman (Samantha Morton). The film also stars Uma Thurman and Anthony LaPaglia. Like several of Allen’s other films (e.g., Zelig), the film is occasionally interrupted by interviews with critics and biographers like Allen, Nat Hentoff, and Douglas McGrath, who comment on the film’s plot as if the characters were real-life people.
Hot off his 1969 directing debut Take the Money and Run, Allen signed a contract to direct a series of films with United Artists. Told to “write what you want to write,” Allen (a clarinetist and avid jazz enthusiast) wrote The Jazz Baby, a dramatic screenplay about a jazz musician set in the 1930s. Allen said later that the United Artists executives were “stunned… because they had expected a comedy. [They] were very worried and told me, ‘We realize that we signed a contract with you and you can do anything you want. But we want to tell you that we really don’t like this.'”[2] Allen went along with United Artists, writing and directing Bananas instead. In 1995, he dismissed The Jazz Baby as having been “probably too ambitious.”
In 1998, Allen returned to the project, rewriting the script and dubbing it Sweet and Lowdown. In the role of Emmet Ray, a jazz guitarist whom Allen had originally planned to play himself, the director cast Sean Penn; Allen also considered Johnny Depp, but the actor was busy at the time. In regard to working with Sean Penn, who had a reputation for being difficult to work with, Allen later said, “I had no problem with him whatsoever… He gave it his all and took direction and made contributions himself… a tremendous actor.”
The music for the film was arranged and conducted by Dick Hyman. All of the guitar solos are played by guitarist Howard Alden. Alden also coached Sean Penn on playing the guitar for his role in the film. Additional rhythm guitarists: Bucky Pizzarelli and James Chirillo — Chirillo played rhythm guitar on the Sweet Georgia Brown track — where the crescent moon cable breaks while Sean Penn is riding it. Pizzarelli did all other rhythm tracks.
Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Anthony LaPaglia, Brian Markinson, Gretchen Mol, Samantha Morton, Sean Penn, Uma Thurman, James Urbaniak, John Waters, Kellie Overbey, Marc Damon Johnson
Screenplay by: Woody Allen
Production Design by: Santo Loquasto
Cinematography by: Fei Zhao
Film Editing by: Alisa Lepselter
Costume Design by: Laura Bauer
Set Decoration by: Jessica Lanier
Art Direction by: Tom Warren
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and some substance abuse.
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: September 3, 1999
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