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All That Jazz

All That Jazz – 1979
Depressing but brilliant,
Director
Bob Fosse

Writers
Robert Alan Aurthur
Bob Fosse

Producers
Robert Alan Aurthur
Wolfgang Glattes
Daniel Melnick
Kenneth Utt

Cast
Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange,Leland Palmer

Review by Wayne Malin

The life and times of Bob Fosse–oops! sorry!–Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider). He directs, choreographs and writes Broadway musicals and the occasional movie. He also has sex with every woman he can, is a chronic smoker…there’s more but I don’t want to ruin it.

Basically, this is a character study and an absolutely fascinating one. This is Bob Fosse doing a movie about himself and showing his life in an extremely negative light. I saw this movie when it first came out in 1980. I thought it was one of the most depressing things I had ever seen–but went back to see it three additional times.

The acting is just great all across the board–Scheider is cast against type…and pulls it off. In fact he was nominated for an Academy Award for this performance (he lost to DeNiro for “Raging Bull”). Jessica Lange is playing…let’s call her Our Lady of the Oxygen Tank (you’ll see what I mean). Seriously, she has a difficult role and plays it beautifully.

The direction is superb, mixing fantasy with reality seamlessly. The songs are good and the dancing is just great (especially in one VERY erotic number about casual sex).

This movie is not for everyone–I know of one theatre in which half the audience walked out demanding their money back–but, if you’re game, you probably won’t be able to take your eyes off the screen.

Depressing but just great. Fosse’s best film (even better than “Cabaret”!)

Review by Zetes

All That Jazz – 1979

Self-congratulatory, but, without a doubt, brilliant,

A brilliant movie from a brilliant artist, and you’ll be reminded of that constantly as you sit through All That Jazz, both in positive and negative ways. This, Fosse’s fourth and also penultimate film, is his version of 8½. But the great success of Fellini’s semi-autobiographical masterpiece, easily one of the five or ten best films ever made, is that its author depicts himself with the greatest humility. And not only great humility but, most importantly, honest humility (or at least believable humility). Fellini’s constant self-deprecation felt like honest self-criticism, and it felt as if he was truly exposing his inner self to his audience. In All That Jazz, Fosse tries to do the same, but the self-deprecation comes off almost as back-patting. Fosse presents his alter ego, Joe Gideon (well played by Roy Scheider), as a lovable cad. Oh, he might bang every chick in sight, but it’s very much applauded.

I can complain about these more arrogant aspects of All That Jazz, but what is undeniable is how great a filmmaker Fosse really is. It may be extremely self-congratulatory, but, judging from this film itself and its three predecessors, it can be argued that Fosse deserved the adulation that he supplies himself. As a fan, I loved the way he incorporates semi-fictionalized versions of his previous films into this one. 1974’s Lenny plays a major part, as Gideon is going through the process of editing his new film The Stand-Up throughout the film. He brings his daughter to its premier, and, it being her first R-rated movie, she thanks her dad and then asks him why that guy wanted to sleep with two women at the same time. The reference to Cabaret is less pronounced but clear, when, stemming off from the daughter’s question about threesomes, Gideon flashes back briefly to himself recreating the “Two Ladies” number. This number, of course, was famously created for the film version of Cabaret by Fosse. I’m not 100% sure if there is a reference to Sweet Charity (which would make sense, since it bombed horribly and almost ruined Fosse’s filmmaking career), but the musical number with Gideon’s girlfriend and daughter begins sort of like the “If They Could See Me Now” number, with Shirley MacLaine in Ricardo Montelbahn’s bedroom.

The musical numbers are something to behold. I think this is a given in a Bob Fosse film, but every single one is breathtaking. The sexy rehearsal number, which leads into the even sexier “Airplane” number, would be pilfered by singer/choreographer Paula Abdul in her video “Cold Hearted Snake.” More silly trivia, John Lithgow was so goofy looking in his relative youth, that guy who was the captain of the Love Boat and also the dad in ALF has an important part, and Wallace Shawn, of Manhattan, My Dinner with André and The Princess Bride fame appears in the most poorly calculated scene in the movie (Fosse wasn’t scrutinizing his film enough if he left it in), has one line, and it is the worst line in the entire film. Damn, I wish I could remember it! 9/10.

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70s Films

A tour through the great and not so great films of the seventies The seventies saw a huge change in styles and genres from the advent of the slasher horror movies like Halloween and the blockbuster summers films started by Jaws. More...

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