PHILIP BERK
Special to the Jewish News.
JN: Sweet and Lowdown is really a
tribute to Django Reinhardt. Can you
tell me about when you first became
aware of him and why you chose him
to be the focus of your film?
WA: Well, when I was about 15 years
old, I became interested in jazz.
This was from hearing a jazz recording
on radio. I had heard jazz intermit-
tently before that but never in any
concentrated way. I had heard a half-
hour jazz concert at that time by
Sidney Bechet from Paris and I
became very interested in it.
Gradually my interest in jazz
widened to include a great many
musicians from the New Orleans
idiom, and inevitably that leads one to
discovering Django Reinhardt,
because he was the one European
musician who was at the minimum
the equal of the greatest of the
American jazz musicians.
So as soon as I heard him — I was
a teenager still — it was an astonish-
ing experience for me as it has been
for millions of people. I became fasci-
nated with him.
JN: Music and jazz are so important
to you. Of all the films you've made,
this one resonates on such a personal
level.
WA:: Yes, the most pleasurable part of
any movie for me is at the end when I
get to add the music, because I always
make the film and then cut it, and then
when it is done I go into my room
with all my records — I still have all
my long-playing records — and I pick
out the music and drop it in spots.
If something doesn't work out, I
take it out and try another one, and
that is always the most pleasurable
moment for me. On this movie, since
it was about music, it was a great plea-
sure. It was just a joy.
JN: At this stage in your life, you are
happily married with a new baby.
Has it changed your approach to
moviemaking?
WA: Not really. Moviemaking is
much less glamorous and much less
controlled than people think. When I
did Sweet and Lowdown, I wanted to
do a jazz story. When that was fin-
ished, I just was sitting in a room and
a funny story occurred to me about a
bank robbery, and so I made that
movie. Now I've finished that, [and]
Philip Berk is a four-time president of
the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
I'm thinking of the next movie.
Whatever idea comes to me is what
I'll make. There is no real precon-
ceived attitude toward it. If a murder
mystery occurs to me or a political
picture or anything that is funny, or
another jazz movie, whatever, that is
what I would do.
JN: Your personal feelings, your per-
sonal happiness, your personal emo-
tions have nothing to do with it?
WA: Consciously nor. It is possible
that unconsciously when I'm feeling
low or down for some reason, I try
and do a funny movie. Because in
some therapeutic way for six or eight
months, I'm working in an atmos-
phere every day that is funny and live-
ly and full of jokes and full of good
spirit.
On the other hand, if I'm feeling in
a very up and happy mood, I might
try and make a serious movie because
the exhilaration and the happiness
that I'm feeling gives me the confi-
dence to make a movie in an area that
I'm not as proficient in.
JN: What can you say about the movie
you just filmed with Sharon Stone?
WA: Oh, well, there I just acted in
somebody's movie. That is a movie I
haven't seen and know very little about
other than I came out to California for
three weeks and acted in it.
People think that I get inundated
with offers to act in movies, but I
don't and I never have, and so when
someone offers me a job to act in a
movie, I've always taken it — when I
was offered The Front, when I was
offered Scenes from a Mall and now ...
this part in Picking Up the Pieces.
And it was only three weeks' work.
I was happy and looking forward to
doing it, and I did it. I have no idea
what the movie will be like when it
comes out, but it was fun to do.
JN: Was it fun working again with
Sharon Stone, whose first role was in
one of your movies, Stardust Memories.
WA: Well, it is fun to work with her.
She is such a beautiful woman, but I
worked very little with her in the
movie, maybe two days. I worked
more with other people, but with
Sharon very, very briefly.
JN: You didn't kiss her in the movie?
WA: No, I killed her. I did. That was
our relationship.
JN: How did you celebrate your birth-
day, Chanuka and the millennium?
WA: In descending order.
.
My birthday [is] always, for me,
very depressing. I just turned 64 and it
seems just yesterday I was 16 years old
and writing for my first television
show and people were saying, "[You've]
got to see this kid. He's 16 years old
and he can write funny things."
I always think of myself that way,
but it is not so. Next year I will quali-
fy for Social Security and a half-price
pass at the movies, so I always get
depressed on my birthday.
Chanuka and the Christmas season
I never really celebrate. I mean, I get
presents for people close to me, but
inevitably I'm traveling at that time of
year. I'm always in Europe and gener-
ally going from country to country. I
usually experience these holidays on
the run in hotel rooms. So it hasn't
been a big tradition in my life.
The millennium is also to me,
again, a little depressing because it is
an awesome thought that we're mov-
ing into 2000. I remember, again as a
child, speculating about, thinking, my
God, that is off in the unimaginable
future and you'll never live to see it.
It's a mythological thing, and then it's
here and you have to sign your checks
2000 on the top.
So you can see that anything that
gives me a sense of the passage of time
and the awesomeness of the universal
process always makes me depressed
and forlorn. I can't help it.
JN: Has your perception of humor
changed over the years?
WA: It's always been the same. Even as
a little child — and I don't say this in
any bragging way or to be self-aggran-
dizing — I always had an appreciation
of sophisticated material. Even as a lit-
tle child, I was never a fan of the
Three Stooges. I was never really crazy
about Laurel and Hardy.
You know, I never liked that kind
of humor. I was much more interested
in either the Marx Brothers or some of
Ernst Lubitsch's films, and to this day
I feel the same way I generally appre-
ciate sophisticated comedy the most
and don't have a very big tolerance, a
personal tolerance, for broad comedy.
So my sense of humor hasn't really
changed at all. It is the same.
I still find Pygmalion by Bernard
Shaw the best of all English comedies,
and Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward the
best, and the film [by] Preston Sturges
(Unfaithfully Yours) with Rex Harrison
and Linda Darnell the best comedy. It
is just my own personal taste and, of
course, the Lubitsch films Shop
Around the Corner and Trouble in
Paradise, those sort of elegant movies.
The Lowdown
On `Sweet
And Lowdown'
DANIEL ZIMMERMAN
Special to the Jewish News
weet and Lowdown, the latest
film written and directed by
Woody Allen, traces a couple of
years in the life of jazz musician
Emmet Ray (Sean Penn), the self-
proclaimed second greatest gui-
tarist on the planet.
On the smolo,, stages of
Depression-era clubs ranging from
New Jersey to Chicago to Detroit,
Ray's passionate improvisations
win the approval of casual listeners
and jazzmen alike. However, the
same self-absorption that enables
his art to thrive renders him
impetuous, callous
, -•
and vain in life.
These traits
might amount to a
devil were they not accompanied
with a charming and pervasive
childishness. Sure, Ray totes a gun,
drinks his booze, gambles and
makes a few extra bucks pimping
women, but how can you hate a
guy who has serious passions for
staring at moving trains and hang-
ing out at various town clumps?
The film makes Ray out to be
the stuff of jazz legend, and as
with many of the nomadic musi-
cians of his era, the details of his
life are dim. Periodic cameos by
modem jazz aficionados like Nat
Hentoff, writer/director Douglas
McGrath and, of course, Allen
himself, provide funny commen
tary and speculation on what
might have been, and the episodes
with Ray that fallow parmke in
generous portions of levity and
outmgeousness.
The plot develops as two com-
peting love stories, each unfolding
at a different level of Ray's psyche.
Consdously, there is his love for
music, which to some extent is a'
self-love, but also is driven by an
adulation, and fear of an entity
even greater: the legendary jazz
guitarist Django Reinhardt.
Reinhardt, a Hungarian Gypsy
on the Parisian music scene, is the
only fret-boarder whom Ray con-
LOWDOWN on page 90
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2000
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