“To Love is to Live:” Allegorical relationships in Woody Allen’s Sweet & Lowdown

The perplexing art/ life dichotomy manifested in the work of Woody Allen is continually revisited with complex and often paradoxical results. Sweet and Lowdown (1999) is certainly no exception. The film’s narrative/ documentary hybridization focuses on little-known jazz guitarist Emmet Ray (Sean Penn) and his relationships with two different women- Hattie and Blanche. These charactersContinue reading ““To Love is to Live:” Allegorical relationships in Woody Allen’s Sweet & Lowdown”

Vivre Sa Vie: The Metaphysical Realm of Tableaux Twelve

Following D.W. Griffith’s 1915 groundbreaking feature Birth of a Nation world cinema, in large part, became confined to certain conventions, seeming to skew itself into mindless entertainment. During World War II the industry had been misshapen by an infectious formula littered with political propaganda and fantasized realities. The years preceding the end of the warContinue reading “Vivre Sa Vie: The Metaphysical Realm of Tableaux Twelve”