Fa l s i f y i n g t h e Fr a g m e n t s : Narratological Us e s o f t h e Mo c k u m e n t a r y i n Hu s b a n d s a n d Wi v e s a n d Sw e e t a n d Lo w d o w n

De r e k Pa r k e r Ro y a l

Woody Allen has used a number of Allen has used the mockumentary, or mock- different techniques to frame the stories in documentary1, technique to explore the lives his films, from the first-person, homodi- of public “artist” figures who struggle for egetic disclosure in such films asAnnie Hall self-expression—the frustrated cello player (1977), Anything Else (2003), and Whatever who becomes an inept criminal “crafting” Works (2009); to the heterodiegetic narra- modes of escape, the human chameleon who tion found in Don’t Drink the Water (1994), can “create” himself anew, a writer of highly Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), and You Will personal novels whose subject matter tends Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010); to the col- to reflect his own troubled relationships, lective and participatory technique evident and a jazz guitarist whose genius fails to in Broadway Danny Rose (1984) and Melinda compensate for his inabilities to reach out Melinda (2005); to the omniscient presenta- emotionally to others. In many ways, this tion, or authorial narrative situation, found cinematic mode allows Allen to utilize the in Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her techniques he employs in other films by Sisters (1986), and Cassandra’s Dream (2007). combining the objectivity of the omniscient Each of these storytelling styles allows the narrator with the collective uses of storytell- filmmaker to manipulate the information ing, relying on narrators who are nonpartici- in such a way so as not only to control the pants as well as those who are first-person flow of the narrative, but also in ways that witnesses, and placing these narrative styles underscore the thematic significance of the within the hands of a controlling single- particular film in question. One technique figure artist/filmmaker. that Allen has used in several of his films is Nowhere has Allen more thoroughly that of the mockumentary, a documentary- explored the narratological nuances of this like presentation of a non-existent historical cinematic form than in the two mockumen- person or event, employing all of the tech- taries he created after the 1990s. Not only niques of a documentary—including the use does this approach afford the filmmaker of talking heads and B-rolls in the manner of a unique kind of narrative control—com- cinéma vérité—for parodic, satiric, and ana- bining as it does the documentary and the lytical purposes. In his filmsTake the Money dramatic modes, and then complicating and Run (1969), Zelig (1983), Husbands and distinctions between the two—but the very Wives (1992), and Sweet and Lowdown (1999), nature of that control complements the the-

Volume 31, No. 2 53 Post Script matic concerns of the film. Both Husbands debut, Take the Money and Run, “document- and Wives and Sweet and Lowdown reveal ed” the life of Virgil Starkwell, a schlemiel the lives of broken and decentered subjects, criminal of profound ineptitude, tracing and the documentary-like presentation of its his life from the petty crimes of childhood subject matter highlights the fragmentation (trying to steal from a gumball machine of these lives. Put more directly, if the docu- and getting his hand caught in the process) mentary genre is one made up of cinematic to the bungled attempts at prison escape fragments, separate bits of interviews and (with some of the most memorable scenes historical footage that edited together create being those where Virgil carves a gun out a larger coherent story, then Allen’s more re- of a bar of soap, only to have his scheme cent mockumentaries challenge the notion of foiled by a rainstorm, and when he, as part narrative unity. In both Husbands and Wives of a chain gang, escapes by disguising the and Sweet and Lowdown, he “falsifies” the group as one large charm bracelet). What is documentary project by problematizing, or most notable about this film, at least within mocking, its reliability as a genre of revela- the scope this essay, is that Allen constructed tion. Instead of emphasizing a more coherent this early film through what could be called historical narrative, as we get in the tradi- the classic modes of the documentary. There tional documentary, Allen actually calls into is an omniscient narrator—performed by question the legitimacy of the documentary voice actor and radio announcer Jackson form as a “valid” narrative system. Yet at the Beck—who recounts the life of Virgil Stark- same time, the mockumentary mode in these well and whose presence in the film is never two works allows for the “reconstructive” revealed, except through his voiceovers. The role of the filmmaking artist, emphasizing narratively loose and episodic nature of the one of Allen’s most persistent themes, one film, reminiscent of the linked sight gags found throughout his career, from his early found in the films of Jerry Lewis,2 is given stand-up days to his most recent films: that coherent structure through this detached art is an attempt to bring order to the chaotic authoritative voice and the interspersed and fragmentary state of existence. It is a on-camera interviews with figures from preoccupation perhaps most memorably Starkwell’s past (e.g., his parents, his music articulated in Annie Hall, when Alvy Singer teacher, his psychiatrist, and his neighbors). addresses the audience after watching the Furthermore, the still footage and “staged” rehearsal of his first play, and says, “[Y]ou’re reenactments—dramatic episodes from always tryin’ t’ get things to come out perfect Starkwell’s life that the viewer, watching in art because, uh, it’s real difficult in life” the film within certain generic assumptions, (Four Films 102). By self-reflexively pointing assumes to be part of documented history— out the limits of historical reportage—using give credence to the film as montage of a mock-documentary form to highlight the actual recorded events.3 weaknesses of documentaries—and doing Allen revisits this straightforward style so through the guise of an orchestrating art- of mockumentary filmmaking fourteen years ist figure, Allen is, in essence, foregrounding later in Zelig, the story of the depression-era the constructedness of narrative. In other phenomenon and now long forgotten celeb- words, and ironically, the artist/filmmaker rity, Leonard the Lizard, a man who both attempts to make sense of the fragments of physically and psychologically transforms reality by pulling the pieces together while in order to blend into his social surround- at the same time pointing out the medium’s ings. As in Take in Money and Run, in this problems with “getting it right.” film Allen incorporates the off-screen voice One could argue that the mockumen- of an omniscient narrator—this time played tary technique is something that has pe- by actor Patrick Horgan—one who, we as- riodically defined Allen’s films across the sume, is not an artist filmmaker but who trajectory of his career. His 1969 directorial merely functions, along with the on-screen

Volume 31, No. 2 54 Post Script interviews, as a structuring device guiding other words, if we momentarily accept the us through the unlikely life of Leornard fact that what we are watching is an actual Zelig. Elaborating on his earlier attempt documentary, there is really nothing in either with Take the Money and Run, Allen enhances film to indicate that the narrated lives we are the documentary feel of his 1983 film with watching are anything other than true. This actual and faux newsreel footage (albeit being the case, there is nothing problematic doctored to look old and blend in with the about the lives of Virgil Starkwell or Leonard real historical segments) and by providing Zelig (outside of their own chaotic existenc- interview subjects who assume their actual es, which are comedic givens). This sense identities—e.g., Saul Bellow, Susan Sontag, of verisimilitude is created largely though Bruno Bettelheim, Bricktop—and are not the classical documentary form, with the played by actors, thereby giving an added detached and god-like voiceover that nar- and ironic twist to the film’s self-reflexive rates the film, the stills and the reenactments, dynamic between fact and fiction. In Zelig, and the various on-camera interviews that Allen creates a more “authentic” mock- authenticate the documented lives. documentary than he did in Take the Money Such is not the case with Allen’s more and Run, in that the episodes that illustrate recent examples of the mockumenary tech- the life of Leonard Zelig are presented not nique. In both Husbands and Wives and Sweet as straight dramatic narrative—where we and Lowdown the filmmaker complicates his just assume that what we are seeing is a narrative subject by metafictionally, or meta- re-presentation of historical events—but cinematically, drawing our attention to the are more overtly contextualized as old film kind of film we are watching. He does this footage or as unambiguous reenactments in three ways. First, he inserts the presence (as in the case of the film within the film, of the author filmmaker, an overt creative The Changing Man). force behind the scenes of the narrative What is important to note about these we are watching and who takes part in the earlier examples of mockumentaries is that events that unfold. In this way, the artist the artist filmmaker, the authoring pres- figure becomes a homodiegetic narrator, a ence behind the films we are viewing, is participant in the events that he frames. (In absent from his creations, with no on-screen Husbands and Wives, the narrating presence appearances, commentary, or narrative appears on film in voiceover, and in Sweet voice-overs marking them in any way. The and Lowdown the filmmaker/interrogator is guiding voices that we hear throughout both absent—we never see or hear him ask- both films, those of Jackson Beck and Patrick ing questions—and present, in the onscreen Horgan, are merely components of docu- appearance of Woody Allen himself.) Along mentary convention and not instances of with this, in both films Allen highlights the direct artist presence and intervention. Put fact that what we are watching may not another way, a self-conscious filmmaking in fact be a realistic depiction of the lives persona—whether played by Allen or by a revealed. Unlike both Take the Money and stand-in—is nonexistent and as such, does Run and Zelig, we are never lured, however not function as a narratively binding force. mockingly, into believing that the lives on Because of this, neither of Allen’s two earlier screen actually existed in history. Third, both mockumentaries foreground the role of the Husbands and Wives and Sweet and Lowdown filmmaker, drawing attention to the act of combine elements of the documentary— filmmaking and thereby making it one of voiceovers, off-screen narrators, interview the themes. What is more, the stories that are subjects—with straight dramatic narrative. told are presented in such a way that, outside These narrative segments are significantly of the fact that we are knowingly watching more “realistic”—and thereby of a less a mock-documentary, we assume them to mocking nature—than the assumed reenact- be straightforward and uncomplicated. In ments of Take the Money and Run in that they

Volume 31, No. 2 55 Post Script are more serious and less comedic, and they novel—so, too, are the narratives that unfold tend to take up the majority of the film’s before our eyes. Presented as they are, with running time, punctuated less frequently by temporal jump cuts, episodic segments, and documentary voiceovers and interviews. If narrating insertions sprinkled throughout, one edited out the disembodied commentar- both films leave the viewer with a sense of ies and interview segments in each of these incompleteness. In this way, the emphasis films, what remained could conceivably is placed not so much on the product that stand alone as a coherent fictional narra- results—especially as a coherent and self- tive, the kind of film we have with Crimes contained instance of cinema—as it is on the and Misdemeanors (1989) and Midnight in process of narrative-making itself. Paris (2011). In other words, Allen gives a Nowhere is this seen more clearly than further twist to this hybrid genre by com- in Husbands and Wives, especially in its mingling the mockumentary and straight authorial voiceovers. Throughout the film, dramatic forms—similar to the ways that Allen incorporates twenty-two on-screen mockumentary combines the documentary interviews with a total of seven subjects, and dramatic forms—thereby complicating most with microphones conspicuously not just the documentary as a genre, but also placed and visible, and all of which are our understanding of his earlier attempts at commenting on the lives of Gabe (Woody the mockumentary. Allen), Judy (Mia Farrow), Jack (Sydney There is another significance to be Pollack), and Sally (Judy Davis), two mar- drawn from these later instances of the ried couples who go through a series of mockumentary, and that lies in each film’s infidelities, break ups, existential crises, and authoring subject. The self-referential relational readjustments. Along with these presence of the filmmaker figure, whether interviews Allen inserts the voice of the on-screen—as in the case with Sweet and Low- documentary investigator (played by Jeffrey down—or through off-screen voiceovers—as Kurland, who was also the film’s costume we have in Husbands and Wives—not only designer) whose on-screen questions prompt draws our attention to a specific creator the responses of the interview subjects, and behind the film we are viewing, but gives as such, determine the narrative trajectory us a sense that the documentary/mocku- of the film. These investigative questions, mentary project is incomplete and perhaps a typical convention of documentaries, not the final word on its subject matter. complement the hand-held camera work Again, these more recent examples of the that constitutes Husbands and Wives. The mockumentary technique are a significant jumpy, fast-sweeping, and erratic shooting twist on the form. Whereas in the earlier of the subject matter, most evident in the mockumentaries Woody Allen is using this opening scenes of the film, give it a cinéma style of filmmaking to humorously highlight vérité quality, as if the documentarian/inves- the absurdities of his subjects—and doing so tigator is right there on the scene and trying against the contrastive backdrop of “serious” desperately to keep up with the actions as documentary-style commentary—in both they unfold.4 What is more, Allen presents Husbands and Wives and Sweet and Lowdown these twenty-two interview segments as if he is holding up for examination the actual they were both spatially and temporally act of filmmaking itself. As such, both films dispersed. We as viewers, reading the film become commentaries on the fragmented, within documentary conventions, assume equivocal, and imperfect nature of storytell- that most of the interviews have taken place ing. Just as the lives of each film’s subject are after the narrated events—the temporary disjointed and unfinished—Emmet Ray lives breakup of Jack and Sally, the eventual split a nomadic life and fails to attain the fame between Gabe and Judy, and the final pairing he seeks, and Gabe Roth divorces Judy and of Judy and Michael (Liam Neeson)—but never completes his latest and more personal not all at the same time.5 Allen presents the

Volume 31, No. 2 56 Post Script interview subjects in different dress and in An example of this boundary blurring different locations, suggesting that the docu- occurs toward the end of the film when Gabe menting presence in the film (represented and Judy Roth decide to separate, and the in Kurland’s voice) conducted his various documentary filmmaker interviews each interviews over time.6 In all, the presenta- of them about their decision. These scenes tion of the various interview segments adds are particularly telling in that before the legitimacy and authenticity to the film as a on-screen interviews, the documentarian’s vehicle for documentary. voice is used as a narrating device, setting At the same time, Kurland’s narrative up the segments that follows: “Several days voiceovers also serve as linking sound later, Gabe moved out of his apartment and bridges between no less than eight different into a hotel.” In her confession, Judy admits scene changes.7 As such, they occasionally to being in love with Michael, and then Gabe provide a context to the dramatic compo- is interviewed about his growing infatuation nents of the film, functioning in ways simi- with his young creative writing student, lar to the heterodiegetic narrators in Vicky Rain (Juliette Lewis). Also significant is the Cristina Barcelona and You Will Meet a Tall fact that during this interview with Gabe, Dark Stranger. In this way, the voiceovers we hear the questions and prompts posed in Husbands and Wives work in at least two by the interviewer, asking him about his different ways: paired with the interview relationship with Rain: “Why didn’t you subjects, they contribute to the (mock-) stop yourself [from pursuing Rain]?,” “Rain documentary feel of the film, and in contex- had a boyfriend,” and “So what is it, you tualizing the various scenes, they suggest have a self-destructive streak?” In these a dramatic work of fiction recounted by a instances, Kurland’s voice is reminiscent detached narrator. These two functions may of the more traditional kind of documen- work at cross-purposes—Is the film a kind tary, or mockumentary, technique found of documentary/mockumentary, or is it a in both Take the Money and Run and Zelig, fictional work of drama?—but this narrative a detached narrator linking scenes and tension is what distinguishes Husbands and setting up on-camera interviews that lend Wives from Allen’s earlier, and more straight- a coherence to the documented story. But forward, mockumentaries. The blurring of what stands out in these scenes, and what occurs throughout the film, is the aural presence of the documentary filmmaker as he questions his in- terview subjects. Allen could have easily cut out the questions posed by this faux filmmaker, giving this example of mockumentary the feel of a more conventional or “real” documentary. However, his choice to leave in the documenting voice gives Husbands and Wives a feel of raw incompleteness, a tone that is Judy (Mia Farrow) in one of her six on-screen inter- further enhanced by Di Palma’s views in Husbands and Wives. hand-held camera technique found throughout most of the film. This documenting style “jolts” viewers generic boundaries helps to foreground the into an awareness of the kind of film they film’s constructedness and self-consciously are watching, similar to the ways in which draws our attention to mockumentary proj- the unstable framings and abrupt jump cuts ect that is underway. jar the viewer’s smooth and more passive

Volume 31, No. 2 57 Post Script escape into the film’s dramatic narrative. during this conversation, choosing instead to By doing so, Allen is drawing attention to look straight ahead. By staging such scenes the form of his art, not so much targeting in this manner, replicating the atmosphere the subject of his film, as he does in his ear- of the interview segments in what is sup- lier mockumentaries, but self-consciously posedly the straightforward dramatic por- parodying the very process of documentary tions of the film, Allen is questioning the filmmaking itself. conventional distinctions among (mock-) Indeed, there are moments in the film where boundaries between interviewer and interviewee, docu- mentarian and documented sub- ject, becomes blurred. Take, for example, the instances where char- acters in the dramatic segments of the film respond to the camera as if they were being interviewed. On her first date with Michael, Sally discusses her marriage to Jack and recalls a time where she catches him in a lie. Jack had told her that "Rain (Juliette Lewis) responding to off-screen pres- he was going out of town on busi- ence in Husbands and Wives. ness, but she sees him in the city buying lingerie for, she supposes, another lover. As Sally reveals this episode to documentary, fictional cinematic narrative, Michael, she does so in great detail and while and even docudramatic recreations. looking slightly off to the side of the camera’s In addition to foregrounding Allen’s direct gaze, similar to the ways in which she blurring of generic differences, the taxi ride responds to the interviewer elsewhere in scene with Rain is significant for yet another the film (as if the documentarian were sit- reason: it is the one moment in the film where ting right across from her with the camera the artist figure, as artist, and his artistic by his side). A similar incident occurs later product are critiqued for any sustained pe- in the film, when Gabe and Rain are sitting riod.8 During this exchange, Rain criticizes in the back of a cab on their way to pick up Gabe’s novel in terms of its attitudes toward Gabe’s lost manuscript. While they discuss women—calling his representations “so ret- the merits of his writing, and whether or not rograde, so shallow”—its cavalier treatment she might have unconsciously misplaced the of affairs, its trivializing of conventional manuscript on purpose—“It’s so Freudian,” marriage, and its problematic lead character. she utters as she begins her self-critique— Indeed, it is on this last point that Rain levels Rain is presented in close-up and centered her most biting analysis of the manuscript, on the screen. During this exchange Gabe is citing a weakness that sounds suspiciously outside of the frame, to Rain’s right, and his similar to the character of Gabe in Husbands questions—and her responses to them—are and Wives. She asks, “Isn’t it beneath you as a reminiscent of the various interview seg- mature thinker to allow your lead character ments of the film. Much like Sally does in to waste so much of this emotional energy the previously cited episode, Rain replies obsessing over this psychotic relationship to her questioner while looking to the side with a woman that you fantasize as pow- of the camera, again recalling the gestures erfully sexual and inspired, when in fact and composition of the film’s “authentic” she was pitifully sick?” This observation is interview scenes. Only occasionally does she not without significance. “Maybe it meant turn to her right and directly look at Gabe something,” Rain says, in way of prefacing

Volume 31, No. 2 58 Post Script her loss of Gabe’s manuscript. And we as in the film) questioning her ex-husband’s viewers are similarly invited to find meaning believability and curiously linking it to his in this scene. While Rain’s words are obvi- “impotence,” his wanting a woman like his ously a criticism of Gabe’s writing, at the mother, and his lack of romantic involve- same time they can also be read as Allen’s ment with her. In other words, she attempts meta-cinematic commentary on the film to rewrite the story of the Hamptons party we are currently watching. Allen’s films, by discrediting her former husband’s char- Husbands and Wives being one of these, have acter. This episode, and by association the been similarly criticized for their attitudes story behind Judy’s machinations, is given toward relationships, their representation of a further twist immediately after Judy’s women, and their protagonists’ romantic ob- refutation of her ex-husband’s accusations, sessions. In other words, Allen in this scene and then the ex-husband’s final response is drawing attention to himself as an artist, to Judy. In the dramatic narrative segment and his film as art, momentarily collapsing that follows, Judy voices concern about a distinctions between Allen as actor and Al- passage in Gabe’s novel-in-progress. She len as filmmaker, and even having a laugh is worried that his highly autobiographical at his own expense.9 And Rain appears to account of their meeting in the Hamptons be on the mark. “I must have hit a nerve paints her unsympathetically as a dull with you,” she says, after Gabe responds lover—strikingly similar to the charge she angrily to her critique. All of this is signifi- levels at her ex-husband—and this is ac- cant because if we approach Husbands and companied with another visual analepsis of Wives as not only a mock-documentary, but the Hampton gathering, similar to the first. as a self-reflexive mockumentary drawing What Allen presents, in essence, are at least attention to itself as a ill-defined cinematic three interpretations of the same event: the object, then Rain’s critique of Gabe becomes ex-husband’s account of Judy’s manipulat- a microcosmic commentary on the larger ing Gabe from the very beginning, Gabe’s film. Her questioning the believability of novelistic account of when he first met Judy, Gabe’s manuscript becomes synonymous and Judy’s contentious reading of both of with Allen’s problematizing his own film. these descriptions. This moment in the film Along with its meta-cinematic question- represents, in miniature, one of the larger ing of generic stability—how much is moc- issues raised in Husbands and Wives, namely, kumentary and how much is drama?—the the ability of documentary style filmmak- film also throws into question the reliability ing to get at the truth of its subject matter. of the story itself. Indeed, questions of nar- As with the foregrounding of the unedited rative consistency and believability occur interviewer voiceovers, Allen is holding up throughout the film, and are of a kind with for examination the very form of his film the film’s style: just as the camerawork is dis- and asking us to question the reliability of jointed and erratic, so are the stories that un- documentary—or, in this doubly ironized fold. One such episode occurs in the first half twist, mock-documentary—filmmaking as of the film, with the first interview segment window onto the real. with Judy’s ex-husband (Benno Schmidt). Allen makes a similar move in Sweet and During his time on screen, he is explaining Lowdown, a mockumentary about the sec- to the documentarian Judy’s devious nature, ond greatest jazz guitarist of the twentieth calling her passive-aggressive and accusing century, Emmet Ray, played by Sean Penn her of manipulating him, as well as Gabe, (the first being the great Django Reinhart). in order to get what she wants. What fol- Similar to what he does in films such as lows is an analepsis (or reenactment?) of Take the Money and Run and Zelig, Allen here Gabe’s first meeting Judy at a party in the documents the life of a schlemiel artist figure Hamptons, and then that is followed by an and his fumbled attempts to create some interview segment with Judy (her second kind of meaning in his life. But as he does

Volume 31, No. 2 59 Post Script in Husbands and Wives, Allen problematizes graphical context). He also appears more the very project of documentary filmmaking frequently than any other interview subject. by underscoring the role of the documentary What is more, his is the first interview that filmmaker himself.10 Whereas the previous sets up the story of Emmet Ray, and he has film accomplished this through an unknown the last word in the film, telling what seems and disembodied interviewer/narrator, to be an off-camera interviewer that nobody with his voiceovers guiding his subjects’ really knows what happens to the jazz responses and serving as narrative bridging guitarist, that Ray “just, you know, seemed devices, in Sweet and Lowdown the document- to fade away” (much as a cinematic scene ing subject is given onscreen presence: he is would fade to black). These structural clues Woody Allen himself. There is nothing in suggest that Allen himself is the primary the film that directly tells us that Allen is the interviewing presence—or, if you will, both one orchestrating this documentary, other the interviewer and the interviewee—and than the fact that we know we are watching the one coordinating the documentary we a Woody Allen film. Allen is just one of six are viewing. In this way, Allen draws atten- interview subjects—including journalist Nat tion to himself, meta-cinematically, as the Hentoff, disc jockey Ben Duncan, and film- documenting filmmaker. maker Douglas McGrath—who recount the Yet, while we are prone to view Allen life of Emmet Ray. However, his on-screen as a reliable source of information—not presence stands out from the others in that only is Allen the filmmaker, but he is also a he is the only one interviewed without any jazz aficionado—such is not necessarily the accompanying context. Each of the other case with the other “authorities” in the film. five interview subjects is introduced, the Indeed, in Sweet and Lowdown Allen prob- first time they are on screen, with a brief lematizes the very idea of critical authority biographical note revealing who they are by mixing otherwise believable sources with and what they do. Allen appears on screen false experts. Actual, or at least conceivable, without these cues, thereby privileging his specialists on jazz history—Allen, Ben Dun- presence and making him stand out as a can (a former disc jockey on WBGO out of filmic subject (the assumption is that because Newark and WQCD in New York), and Nat he is Woody Allen, there is no need for bio- Hentoff (music critic)—are intermixed with a real figure who is a non-expert (filmmaker Douglas McGrath) and two fictional experts played by actors: A. J. Pickman11 (Daniel Okrent), author of Swing Guitars: American Perspective Series, and Sal- ly Jillian (Sally Placksin), author of Guitar Kings. And to confound our understanding of critical authority even further, Allen lists one of his real jazz historians, Ben Duncan, as a disc jockey at WFAD-FM, a radio station as fictional as the jazz histo- ries of Pickman and Jillian. (WFAD is actually an AM sports radio sta- tion out of Middlebury, Vermont.) Disc jock Ben Duncan, interviewed as an "real" Through his interweaving of real authority on the fictional Emmet Ray, in Sweet and and imaginary, actual and faux, Al- Lowdown. len provides an added twist on the kind of critical commentary embed-

Volume 31, No. 2 60 Post Script ded in Zelig, a film where genuine cultural Thurman) infidelities and thereby becomes figures provided testimony to a fictional an important emotional breakthrough13— historical subject. In Sweet and Lowdown, listed along with the genuine songs is just the subject of the film is also fictional, but another example of Allen’s playful mixture the focus of this mockumentary is not just a of the real and the imaginary. Similar to his satirizing of the genre’s format and conven- intermingling of fictional jazz historians, tions. Going one step further than he did in the biographical data that opens the film his earlier mock-documentaries, Allen is also contributes to Allen’s larger project: creat- calling into question biographical authority ing a false documentary, comprised of both and how we construct history. historical and fictional components, that This mockumentary examination of challenges our understanding of narrative “the real” is carried out in ways similar to authenticity and what we accept as “real.” that of Husbands and Wives: an intermixture of Also like Husbands and Wives, Allen’s interviews and episodic narrative, the latter jazz film uses the narrative itself to under- of which could conceivably stand on its own mine its own legitimacy. There are anecdotes as straight drama without the dialogues. of Emmet Ray that conflict with other his- There are nineteen interview segments that torical accounts, and the interview subjects structure the film—three successive inter- themselves are never entirely clear if what view events open the film, and two close the they have heard is actually what happened. narrative—and provide its faux biographical Indeed, tentative language permeates the and cultural contexts.12 What is more, the dialogue in most of the interview segments, film augments its narrative “legitimacy” by and many refer to their information as providing a brief history that immediately something approximating hearsay. In his precedes the opening credits (and which are first time onscreen, Ben Duncan admits that accompanied by Django Reinhardt’s version “[t]he problem is, there’s just so little known of “When Day Is Done,” a comic pairing, about [Emmet Ray],” and then goes on to given Ray’s legendary fear of meeting the expound on “a story going around” about great Reinhardt). “Emmet Ray,” according Ray fainting when he sees Django Reinhardt. to the text, is a “little known jazz guitarist Later Duncan admits that he “heard stories” who flourished briefly in the 1930s,” and he that Ray was a kleptomaniac and that he “was considered second only to the great had once stolen an alarm clock from Hoagy Django Reinhardt and is best known by jazz Carmichael, making Carmichael miss an aficionados.” Accompanying this introduc- important recording date. When we first tion is a list of six songs that Ray recorded for see A. J. Pickman, he states that there “are RCA Victor. Yet even here, in the historical few Emmet Ray stories before [he meets setup of this (mock-)documentary, Allen is Hattie (Samantha Morton)], but I have no creating a fiction comprised of both real and idea if they are true or not.” Elsewhere in false facets. Five of the six songs purportedly the film, Pickman says of Ray’s infamous recorded for RCA Victor—e.g., “I’ll See You moon idea—a wooden prop in the shape of a in My Dreams” and “I’m Forever Blowing crescent moon on which Ray would descent Bubbles”—are actual compositions written during his performance—that “the story is during or before Ray’s supposed career. The that it came to him, apparently, I guess, in other tune, “Unfaithful Woman,” is, accord- a dream.” Douglas McGrath, in relating an ing to Allen in his sixth interview segment, incident where Ray is fooled into thinking Ray’s only recorded original composition. that Django Reinhardt is in his audience, (“Unfaithful Woman” was, in fact, written prefaces his story by saying, “I don’t know by Dick Hyman, who arranged the music for if this is true or not, or just one of those Em- the film.) This faux historical recording—a met Ray stories.” And Allen himself, in his significant one, we can assume, since it was interview segments, uses similarly uncer- written after his discovery of Blanche’s (Uma tain language. When setting up the story

Volume 31, No. 2 61 Post Script of Hattie’s brief stint as an actress, he says, recounting, Ben Duncan interjects, “Well, “Now, as the story goes…,” and in recount- that’s not what I heard. But let me tell you, ing the episode of Ray spying on Blanche like all Emmet Ray stories, you never know warns, “I’ve heard stories about this from what’s made up, or what’s exaggerated, musicians. I’ve read about it. I don’t really what’s true. You never know what to be- know.” What all of these dialogical contexts lieve.” Duncan then says, “What I heard was suggest is the uncertainty of the story they this,” and tells a different version of the story are all telling. Emmet Ray is a legend, and as where Ray confronts Blanche and threatens such, his history is filled with myth, rumor, to shoot himself over her betrayal. Duncan’s and innuendo that may or may not have any account is then followed by another instance of Allen, who corrects Duncan’s story: “Believe me, he never tried to kill himself, because Emmet Ray had much too much ego for anything like that.” He then tells a third version of this story—one that curiously contradicts his ear- lier account—where Torrio holds up the store and fires shots. This frightens Ray, who then leaps into the front of the car and drives off, only to crash into an oncoming car that just happens to be driven by musicians, including the great Django Reinhardt. And Ray, in the presence of his idol, faints. In one several instances of narrative uncertainty in Yet Allen’s final account is neither Sweet and Lowdown, Emmet Ray (Sean Penn) might definitive nor certain. He prefaces attempt to kill himself. this third version of the story by telling the camera that jazz guitar- ist Eddie Condon is its source, but anchor in reality. that Condon is “definitely not a reliable Nowhere in Sweet and Lowdown is nar- source because he was a big embellisher rative uncertainty more evident than in the himself.” So what we have here, in essence, episode where Ray spies on Blanche, an is a legendary and defining moment in the event that stands as a keystone to the film. life of Emmet Ray, but one that can never be In this series of scenes, we are told how agreed upon, and further, is substantiated Ray’s marriage to Blanche falls apart when by questionable sources. Again, Allen the he discovers that she is having an affair filmmaker draws attention to himself as a with a known mobster, Al Torrio (Anthony (mock-)documentary filmmaker, not only LaPaglia). According to Allen, the narrator/ by placing himself on screen as a “reliable” interviewee who first sets up the story, Ray source of jazz history, but by problematizing secretly hides in the backseat of the car that any effort to get at the real story of Emmet Blanche and her lover take on a drive first Ray. Much as what happens in Husbands and to the movie theater and then to the country. Wives, narrative consistency is undermined, He then reveals how the adulterous lovers uncertainty is woven throughout, and the stop at a country store being held up by two film self-consciously deconstructs itself. robbers, how the thieves steal the car with What we can take away from Sweet and Ray in the back, and of the police chase and Lowdown is a theme that is also common to gunfight that ensue. Immediately after this Allen’s other post-1990 mockumentary: that

Volume 31, No. 2 62 Post Script everyone is a storyteller, and that the line terview, narrative voiceovers, docudramatic between interviewer/author and intervie- reenactments, and expert testimony—and to wee/subject is not as clearly defined as we show them to be similar to the conventions have been led to believe. The narrative of found in fictional storytelling. In doing so, Emmet Ray is not a singular chronicle, but he foregrounds the role of the documentar- a participatory event in which many histori- ian as a narrating agent and, by associa- cal “authorities” have their say, contributing tion, his own responsibilities and limits as bits and pieces that at times overlap and at an artist/filmmaker. With his most recent others appear inconsistent. Jazz aficionados mock-documentaries, Allen self-reflexively such as Ben Duncan and A. J. Pickman are uses the films’ formal elements to inter- not only interview subjects, responding to rogate the kind of truth-telling we assume an assumed documentary filmmaker whose to be embedded in traditionally legitimized presence is never revealed, but also authors systems of narrative—those that purport- in their own right. Their stories are what edly get at “the real”—and to challenge our compose the film. The same could be said understanding of what “narrative authority” of the interviewees in Husbands and Wives. actually means. Gabe, Judy, Sally, Jack, and Michael all re- spond to the film’s interviewing persona— the constructing presence in the film and No t e s who often serves as its direct narrator—but 1A full understanding of the mocku- at the same time they themselves become the mentary genre is inextricably linked to the primary storytellers, at times eliminating the system of documentary, both its various con- middle-man (the official interviewer) and ventions and its cultural functions. As Jane addressing the viewer directly.14 Notice, for Roscoe and Craig Hight point out in their example, how easily Sally assumes narrative pioneering study, the mock-documentary authority when she recounts the first time form (their preferred term) is characterized she suspects Jack of adultery (seeing him in by fictional texts “which make a partial the city while he is supposedly on a business or concerted effort to appropriate docu- trip), or how dominating a presence Rain mentary codes and conventions in order becomes as she reveals to Gabe her allure to represent a fictional subject” (2). More to and history with middle-aged men. In specifically, this parodic or satiric genre both of these instances, their stories are ac- displays “an (often latent) reflexive stance companied by episodic analepses, fragments toward documentary—a ‘mocking’ of the of story that supplement and illustrate their genre’s cultural status” (5). In expressing narrations in ways that are similar to the dra- the primary function of the genre, Cynthia matic episodes that accompany the unseen J. Miller describes it this way: interviewer’s commentary. By framing his One part humor, two parts transgres- mock-documentaries in this way, Allen is sion, the many forms and variations using documentary conventions not only to of the mockumentary genre hold a satirize and have fun with the genre, but also mirror up to our flaws, poke fun at to raise larger issues concerning narrative our assumptions, and refuse to let us authority and our assumptions of the real. look away from our most cherished Documentaries are made up of frag- notions about reality, the “truth,” and ments, separate bits of interviews and his- the taken-for-granteds of everyday life, torical footage that, edited together, create a laying bare the audacities, frailties, and cohesiveness story, a tale whose authenticity well-guarded fantasies that bring them is implied through the persuasiveness of its into being. (3) construction. Woody Allen, by contrast, uses mockumentary to question or falsify the le- Of particular significance in Miller’s gitimacy of these various fragments—the in- description is her emphasis on “truth” and

Volume 31, No. 2 63 Post Script mockumentary’s ability to interrogate and Michael. Lacking any clues to the contrary, even undermine our assumptions of what is we may assume that all of the other inter- real. In this essay, I will focus on this aspect views in the film were conducted—or were of the genre and apply it not only to how meant to appear to be conducted—after the Allen’s films question the “real,” or what ac- final narrated events in the film (i.e., Jack and tually happened, but how film itself narrato- Sally getting back together, Judy becoming logically frames those questions and thereby involved with Michael, and Gabe left on draws attention to the form, self-reflexively, his own). as a truth-producing medium. 6Among the instances of interview 2Indeed, the very structure of Take the subjects who appear more than once, Gabe Money and Run reflects Lewis’s own episodic is interviewed seven times and is wearing style of comedy filmmaking and in many three different outfits but only presented in ways explains why Allen turned to Lewis one location, in front of a bookcase; Judy is as a possible director of the film. See Lax interviewed six times (twice with Michael) (Biography 255-56) and Allen (Woody Allen and is presented in five different outfits and 16, 18). four different locations; Sally, interviewed 3One could even argue that in mocku- three times (once with Jack), is wearing mentaries such as Take the Money and Run, three different outfits in two different loca- Allen exploits our assumptions of dramatic tions; Jack is interviewed twice (once with reenactments—framing them in ways that Sally) dressed differently both times and call to mind the docudrama, a form that in two different locations; and Michael is presents historical events through dramatic interviewed twice (once with Judy) in two recreation—thereby giving still another twist different outfits but in the same location. to viewers’ understanding of the genre(s) in Judy’s ex-husband is the only figure inter- which he is working. viewed more than once, in the same location 4In his conversation with Stig Björkman, and dress. Allen admits that the hand-held, jump-cut 7These voiceovers function not only as technique was used in the Husbands and audio bridges between scenes, but narra- Wives “to make it more disturbing. … I tive contexts setting up Judy’s reaction to wanted it to be more dissonant because the dinner with Jack and Sally following their internal, emotional and mental states of breakup announcement; Sally’s dinner date the characters are dissonant. I wanted the with her co-worker, Paul; Judy’s lunch with audience to feel that there was a jagged, Sally where she first mentions Michael (Liam nervous feeling. An unsettled and neurotic Neeson); Judy presenting Michael with some feeling” (Woody Allen 252). As Peter J. Bai- of her poetry; Jack and Sally getting back ley, among others, have observed, Carlo Di together and celebrating over dinner with Palma’s ragged cinematography contributes Judy and Gabe; Gabe breaking up with Judy to the theme of broken lives and ruptured and moving out into his own apartment; relationships brought about by each char- Judy helping Michael get over the loss of acter’s narcissistic desires (184). For more Sally; and the year-and-a-half narrative el- on the technical choices Allen makes in the lipsis between the previous events and the film, see his conversation with Björkman film’s final interview segments. (244-46, 253-54). 8There are other moments in the film 5The one exception to this is the in- where a character’s art is discussed—e.g., terview with Judy’s ex-husband (Benno Judy mentioning Gabe’s novel, Rain’s Schmidt). During his first brief segment in parents praising Gabe’s short stories, and the film, he mentions Gabriel Roth as “her Michael commenting on Judy’s poetry—but current husband,” suggesting that his inter- these instances are fleeting and function only views were conducted before Gabe and Judy as minor plot points. broke up and Judy became involved with

Volume 31, No. 2 64 Post Script 9I do not want to suggest here that Allen his best recordings. He never played more in Husbands and Wives is being intentionally beautifully, more movingly. Something just autobiographical in the way he presents seemed to kind of open up in him. It was Gabe and his relationship with Judy, espe- amazing, because he was, finally, he was cially as it applies to his breakup with Mia every bit as good as Django Reinhardt.” Farrow. Allen has told Eric Lax that the script The irony here is that one of Ray’s most was written two years before the couple split significant recordings, something that made (Conversations 54). However, I do hold that him as great as Django Reinhardt, is, in fact, this is one of those scenes where Allen is a complete fabrication. highlighting the role of the artist, as he does 14When asked by Stig Björkman, “who in most of his other films; and since Gabe in your mind is this investigator [in Husbands is the obvious artist figure in Husbands and and Wives], the interviewer in the film?,” Wives, and Allen by choice plays that role, Allen responds, “I never thought of it. Just then Woody Allen by association becomes the audience. It’s a convenient way of letting the subject of his own critique. the characters explain themselves” (Woody 10As Allen discusses with Eric Lax, Allen 246). Sweet and Lowdown is a modified version of The Jazz Baby, a manuscript he wrote in the early 1970s (Conversations 128). John Baxter Works Cited notes in his biography that the original Allen, Woody. Four Films of Woody Allen: script, centered around the early days of Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, Star- jazz, was intended as a follow-up to Take dust Memories. New York: Random, the Money and Run, but that those at United 1982. Print. Artists balked at its serious dramatic content —, dir. Husbands and Wives. TriStar Pictures, (177). It is telling how Allen transformed the 1992. Film. drama, almost thirty years later, into a light —, dir. Sweet and Lowdown. Sony Pictures, comedy as well as retooled the narrative into 1999. Film. documentary form. —, dir. Take the Money and Run. ABC Films, 11Given the topic of Pickman’s expertise, 1969. Film. jazz guitar, Allen’s choice for a fictional last —, dir. Zelig. Orion Pictures, 1983. Film. name adds to the comedy of his project. —. Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conver- 12Of the nineteen segments, Allen ap- sation with Stig Björkman. New York: pears in seven of those, one with only a Grove, 1993. voiceover; Ben Duncan in four; the fictional Bailey, Peter J. The Reluctant Film Art of Woody A. J. Pickman in three; Nat Hentoff in two; Allen. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2001. Douglas McGrath in two, one with only a Print. voiceover; and the fictional Sally Jillian in Baster, John. Woody Allen: A Biography. New one. York: Carroll & Graf, 1998. Print. 13Several times throughout the film Lax, Eric. Conversations with Woody Allen: Ray’s friends and lovers accuse him of bot- His Films, The Movies, and Moviemaking. tling up his emotions, a condition which New York: Knopf, 2007. Print. prevents him from reaching his full artistic —. Woody Allen: A Biography. New York: potential and actually rivaling Django Re- Knopf, 1991. Print. inhardt. But his last recordings, the ones Miller, Cynthia J. “Introduction: A Play in he made after Blanche and including “Un- the Fields of the Truth.” Post Script 28.3 faithful Woman,” are “great…absolutely (2009): 3-8. Print. beautiful,” according to Allen in his final Roscoe, Jane, and Craig Hight. Faking It: interview segment. A. J. Pickman puts it this Mock-Documentary and the Subversion way in his last onscreen appearance: “He did of Factuality. Manchester: Manchester make, though, in those last couple of years… UP, 2001. Print.

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