Woody Allen’s tribute to Legendary Jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt. When we try to understand genius, or love, or “why?”, we run into the same problem that the Ancients like Socrates encounter. So here we have Woody telling a story about a storyteller, who talks and struts endlessly, but can only say anything through music, and he can’t explain a bit of it. Much like Woody, who prattles on about every neurosis, but speaks volumes through his control of the medium. It’s just something he’s born to do. And this is the only way to understand Django- with only two working fingers on his fretting hand ) accidental disfigurement), he reinvented the whole medium of guitar. The new shape of his hands for him into holding octaves – which can be done on guitar with two adjacent fingers unlike on the piano- i’m changing the way leads and compin- here, self-accompaniment- were played. His art wasn’t necessary step before Les Paul, and thence to Wes Montgomery, and so on to you and me. Here is devotion without hagiography, because all of this is wrapped into ” one of those Emmet Ray stories”, where you can ‘never be sure’ of what is truth, confabulation, or exaggeration.