Emmet Ray - Grade: A PDF

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Samra Chouhdry April 13, 2017 Music 114 Professor Armandi Emmet Ray Emmet Ray is supposedly a mythical character from the 1930s, known for his striking guitar playing skills, but people are still torn about his actual existence. After viewing the documentary, I believed Emmet Ray was a real person. Although people weren’t sure how accurate the stories about him were, it just didn’t seem fair to exclude such a great artist from history. However, after doing some outside research, I have come to know that Emmet Ray was indeed just an invented character by Woody Allen to celebrate the vintage jazz of 1930s. Anyone who heard Emmet play his guitar admitted it was the most beautiful music they have ever heard. Not just the people, but Emmet himself believed he was brilliant and exceptional. However, Emmet never believed he was the best guitar player in the world. To him, his role model and his god was a French guitar player named Django Reinhardt. When Emmet heard Django play the guitar, he literally fainted. Not just once, but twice! He said Django’s music made him cry. He looked up to him and idealized him. While this motivated him in becoming as good as him, his idolization did become his downfall. He believed that to become like Django, he couldn’t settle or fall in love. He wanted to be free and did not want to marry. His love life wasn’t the only problem, his personal life was a shambles as well. He was a pimp, a womanizer, a spendthrift, and a drunk. His heavy drinking made him late or absent for his performances which eventually got him fired. His wasteful spending (mainly on cars, clothes, and booze) left him broke several times.

On one of his trips, he was picking up girls with his drummer for a one night stand by looking at their lips and their boobs. This was where he met this girl named Hattie. She was beautiful but he didn’t know she was mute. At first, he was really rude to her and wanted to “switch girls” but later on he grew a soft spot for her. Although Emmet never admitted to liking her, it was obvious that he did because he bought her presents, took her to his performances, and got jealous when she was participating in a kissing scene with a good-looking guy for a movie. He took her along on his journey, and even complimented her. He said “she is a sweet hearted, good person, I respect that but it won’t get you anywhere in life”. He opened up to her and told her about his parents. His dad was in the army, he used to hit him with a belt, and died from asphyxiation. He didn’t know his mother well but he remembered that she had a beautiful voice. Unfortunately, Emmet’s convinced himself to leave Hattie when he realized she was falling for him. It was true that she loved him, but in my opinion he left her because he was falling for her too. Between his passion and his feelings, he chose his passion. It might be why he ended up marrying Blanche so fast. Blanche was a beautiful blonde and a socialite with a penchant for artistic men. She married him because she wanted to write about him. To her, Emmet was a lower-class character who served as an inspiration for her book. On the other hand, Emmet wanted to prove to himself he was still free by marrying someone he didn’t truly love. In my opinion, the “Sweet” was his dream of becoming a true artist and the “lowdown” was him falling in love. Hattie represented the love in his life, and Blanche was his trophy wife who helped his career and shared similar interests with him; mainly clothes. Emmer Ray was the kind of person who would always get what he wanted. From an expensive car to sitting on a crescent moon prop, he wouldn’t think of the consequences and just lived in the moment. What fascinated me was that he didn’t want to record any of his songs

because he thought they would lose their beauty and originality. Another interesting thing about him was his hobby. He owned a gun, and would use it to shoot rats at garbage dumps. He loved watching the trains, and was very good at the pool table. In the film, Sean Penn who portrayed Emmet Ray didn’t actually play the guitar. There might be some people who were actually playing it in the background, but most of the soundtrack was mimed. Overall, my favorite part of the film was the last scene. When he came back to find Hattie thinking she would take him back, she told him she got married. He pretended not to care and took a girl out on a date. While the train went by, he played Hattie’s favorite song and realized he made a mistake. He realized he was in love with her and thought now that he has allowed himself to feel, he wasn’t a true artist anymore. He believed he could never play as good as Django and that now he wasn’t free. The film never told us what exactly the mistake was, but I think it was falling in love because it would explain why he faded from the public view under mysterious circumstances. Also, I don’t believe this movie is a true representation of him since no one really knew him well enough and all the stories about him are either exaggerated or rumors. Emmet Ray was a self-obsessed, kleptomaniac, arrogant, rude, violent and an aggressive person. He even thought about killing his wife when he discovered she was cheating on him. He thought every girl wanted him and that he was a great lover. He believed there was no one better than him at guitar, except Django. Keeping his feelings locked up, pimping, and being free was his idea of being an artist. He had ego issues and was full of himself. His sloppy ways of using money, his conceitedness, his stubbornness, his habits, and his arrogance became his downfall. However, to me, it is important to separate a musician from his music. His personality was a

problem, but his music held more power. His music represented parts of him that he wanted to keep hidden. His music is why he got famous, and his music is why he is still remembered today....