ALL THAT JAZZ 1979lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2011/12/all-that-jazz-1979.html

All That Jazz is the movie I wish had inspired me to become a dancer. Bob Fosse's artily stylized, semi-autobiographical, cinematic dissertation on the artist as self-destructive skirt-chaser, is just the kind of self-mythologizing fable that appeals to the romantic notion of the fragility of the creative process.

As stated in an earlier post, the movie that actually inspired me to abandon my film studies and embark on a 25-yearcareer as a dancer, is the legendarily reviled roller-skatin' muse project, Xanadu (1980). Don't get me wrong...Xanadu, in all its flawed glory, is, and always will be for me, an infinitely more joyous, emotionally persuasiveexperience than All That Jazz ever was (those soaring notes reached by ELO and ONJ on Xanadu’s title track couldinspire poetry). It's just that when one is recounting that seminal, life-altering moment wherein one’s artistic destinyis met face-to-face, it would be nice to be able to point to a serious, substantive work like All That Jazz, instead of afilm dubbed by Variety as being about, "A roller-skating lightbulb."

Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon (a.k.a. Bob Fosse)

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Jessica Lange as Angelique (a.k.a. The Angel of Death)

Leland Palmer as Audrey Paris (a.k.a. Gwen Verdon)

Ann Reinking as Kate Jagger (a.k.a. Ann Reinking)

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Ben Vereen as O'Connor Flood (a.k.a. Sammy Davis, Jr.)

All that Jazz is the story of Broadway choreographer Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider); a pill-popping, chain-smoking,serial-womanizing choreographer/director who struggles to prevent the demons that fuel his creativity fromconsuming his life. Simultaneously mounting a Broadway show and editing a motion picture, Gideon's intensifyingabuse of his health (both physical and mental) manifests, surrealistically, as a literal love affair/dialog with death (ateasing Jessica Lange). Fosse makes no effort to mask the fact that Joe Gideon is Bob Fosse and All That Jazz isFosse's 8½; but, as gifted as he is, Bob Fosse is no Frederico Fellini. His essential shallowness of character(something he takes great pains to dramatize in the film) makes for the baring of guardedly superficial insights,leaving the larger philosophical questions of "what price art?" unaddressed.

Director/choreographer Joe Gideon engaging in his othertalent: disappointing loved ones.

In this case, his daughter, Michelle (Erzsebet Foldi) a.k.a. Nicole Fosse.

All That Jazz asks us to accept that while Joe Gideon is selfish, an adulterer, a neglectful father, a philanderer, amanipulator and a liar; but gosh darn it, at least he knows it! Nobody’s perfect, the film seems to be saying, but isn'ta little of that imperfection mitigated by their ability to bring art into the world? What Gideon offers as a means ofearthly penance for the pain he causes others, is his genius. And it's a point well-taken, for (at least to me) Fosse'schoreography in All That Jazz is so brilliant as to justify almost anything. Almost.And thus we land at what ultimately dissatisfies about All That Jazz. It purports to be introspective, but at its heart,it’s apologist. Fosse isn’t invested in getting to the root of what makes Gideon/Fosse tick, so much as pleading acase for the redemptive power of artistic genius.

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"It's showtime, folks!"

I buy happily into the enduring romantic myth of the tortured, suffering artist. The tortured, suffering artist asasshole? Not so much. It seems to me a curiously male perspective which allows for the emotional collateraldamage of a life of self-indulgence to be tolerated, and ultimately absolved, through one’s art. (The femaleequivalent: the fragile, too-sensitive-for-this-world type, more apt to do harm to herself than others.)

Although were given scene after scene of Joe Gideon indulging in the self-serving candor of the cheater (“Yes, I’m adog, but I’m up front about it!”), these confessions never once feel emotionally revelatory. Rather, they recall thisexchange from 1968's Cactus Flower-

(Walter Matthau's aging lothario prostrating himself before girlfriend Goldie Hawn)Matthau: I'm a bastard. I'm the biggest bastard in the whole world!Hawn: Julian, please...you're beginning to make it sound like bragging.

Personally, I'm waiting for the day when someone will make a film that sheds some light on what kind of womenattach themselves to artistic, self-centered men - never resenting having to play second, third, or sixth fiddle - asthey float, like interchangeable satellites, in the orbit of genius.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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Gaydar Setting? Off the ChartDime-store psychologists seeking the origins of Bob Fosse's serial-womanizingneed look no further than these two dishy publicity stills from early in Fosse's

dance career. This guy must have felt he had something to prove.

It couldn't have been easy being a heterosexual (possibly bisexual) dancer in anera when all male dancers were presumed to be gay (the 40s & 50s) and the

pervasive concepts of masculinity (none of which applied to the slight-framed,thin-voiced Fosse) were particularly narrow.

The phenomenon is dramatized in the 1977 ballet film, The Turning Point when aheterosexual male dancer admits to marrying and having a child at a young age in

an effort to prove to himself he wasn't gay.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILMIf you haven't yet gleaned it, I'm not overly fond of the autobiographical structure of All That Jazz 's plot. But muchlike the women who put up with Joe Gideon because he's a genius of dance, I confess that I endure theclichéd narrative just so that I can enjoy the stupendous dance sequences. Bob Fosse is my favorite choreographerof all time, and his work here is beyond splendid. It's absolutely amazing, and among the best of his career.

A legend on Broadway, director/choreographer/sometime-actor Bob Fosse directed but three movie musicals(Sweet Charity, Cabaret, and All That Jazz), yet their influence on dance and the genre of movie musical in generalhas been far-reaching and incalculable. Raked over the coals by critics for the stylistic excesses of 1969s SweetCharity (Pauline Kael went so far as to call the film "A disaster"); by the time these talents were honed and polishedto a fine gloss in Cabaret (1972), Fosse's fluidly kinetic camerawork and slice and dice style of editing eventuallybecame the definitive visual style for contemporary movie musicals.

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What has always struck me about Fosse's dance style was how it was so perfect for the female form. If the lines ofclassic ballet celebrated the idealized feminine form— ethereal and untouchable—Fosse's sensuous style tookwoman off the pedestal and celebrated her sensuality and reveled in her carnal vulgarity. Drawing from his days inburlesque, Fosse's style somehow sidesteps the passive, camp allure of the showgirl and captures an exhibitionistichyperfemininity that carries with it a touch of danger. To watch the way Gwen Verdon moves as Lola in DamnYankees is to see the pin-up ideal come to life. I've always thought that if a Vargas Girl portrait could move, she'dmove like a Bob Fosse dancer.

PERFORMANCESFosse elicits many fine performances from his cast. Roy Scheider, a non-dancer, is surprisingly good, displaying aneasy charm behind a keyed-up physicality that makes him believable as dancer and object of masochistic femaleaffection (my heart blanches at the thought of originally-cast Richard Dreyfuss in the role). Leland Palmer is perhapsmy favorite; a fabulous dancer and one of those actresses whose edgy quality makes you keep your eye on hereven when she's not pivotal to the scene.No surprise that Ann Reinking is a phenomenally talented dancer and truly a marvel to watch, but it's nice that shealso displays an easy, husky-voiced naturalness in her non-dancing scenes. Jessica Lange has had such animpressive career that it's easy to forget her debut in King Kong (1976) almost turned her into the Elizabeth Berkleyof the '70s. Wisely turning her back on Hollywood's blonde-of-the-month publicity machine, Lange took three yearsoff and reemerged in the small but pivotal role in All That Jazz which successfully showcased her ability to do morethan look pretty sitting in an ape's paw.

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Flirting with Death

The brilliance that is All That Jazz pretty much extends to everything but the central conceit of the plot (whichsomehow worked for Fellini and no one else. Rob Marshall's Nine was pretty dismal). Fosse gets Fellini'scinematographer, Giuseppe Rottuno (Fellini Satyricon), to give the film a smoky sheen, the music is sparkling, andthe dreamy stylization employed throughout is sometimes breathtakingly inventive. One just wishes they weren't inthe service of such meager emotional epiphanies.THE STUFF OF FANTASYIn the book, On the Line: The Creation of A Chorus Line , the collective of authors (several members of the originalBroadway cast) recall how, after sever years of film treatments, director/choreographer Michael Bennett was unableto land on a satisfactory method to translate his show to the screen. All involved in A Chorus Line thought that Fossehad, for all intents and purposes, beat them to the punch and delivered (in a virtuoso eight-minute openingsequence), everything that a screen adaptation of A Chorus Line should have been. And indeed, the opening of AllThat Jazz is a matchless example of film as storyteller. It's so perfect, it's like a documentary short.

THE STUFF OF DREAMSI'm crazy about all of the dancing in All That Jazz. Understandably, most people recall the remarkable "Take Off WithUs/ Air-otica" number, but I have a particular fondness for "Bye Bye Love/Life" number that ends the film. A fantasyfever dream/nightmare taking place in the mind of Joe Gideon as he slips away on a hospital bed, this number isoutrageous in concept and phenomenal in execution. We're in Ken Russell territory when you have a dying mandressed in sequins (complete with silver open-heart surgery scar) singing his own eulogy to an audience ofeveryone he's ever encountered in his life, while flanked by gyrating dancers dressed as diagrams of the humancirculatory system.

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WOW!

I never tire of watching this number, as it appeals to both the dancer and film enthusiast in me. Fosse, whosesignature style consisted of small moves, isolations, and minimal gestures, always seemed better suited to themovies than the stage. He ushered in the use of the camera and editor as collaborative choreographers, punctuatingthe rhythms and drawing the eye to the details.

Bob Fosse passed away in 1987, mere months after the death of his closest professional peer/rival, MichaelBennett. Broadway and dance suffered a loss that year that I don't think it has ever recovered from. Bennett didn'tlive long enough to leave his stamp on cinema, but lucky for us, Fosse left a recorded legacy that represents thebest of cinema dance as art. "Thank you" doesn't begin to cover the debt of gratitude.

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Bye-Bye, Love

Copyright © Ken Anderson

About Ken Anderson: LA-based writer and lifelong film enthusiast. You can read more of his essays on films of the’60s & ‘70s at Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For

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