All That Jazz

All That Jazz is a fascinating and imaginative, yet overly indulgent semi-autobiographical film by the late Bob Fosse. Looking back on it after close to fifty years it’s easy to forget just how big Fosse was in the dance and stage scene yet those who were alive in the era will likely remember that there was once a time when dance and choreography was synonymous with the name Bob Fosse. All That Jazz takes a hard look at a life of excess and the results of heavy smoking, drinking, popping pills, sex and over working. The stand-in for Bob Fosse, Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider), does all of this and more, eventually ending up in the hospital from an angina attack. This is not a flattering look at Bob Fosse who is barely disguising the autobiographical nature of this film, but it is a candid look at the background and the drive of a man who didn’t know how to take it easy and pushed himself into an early grave. 

Joe Gideon (Scheider) is a theater director and dance choreographer who is overtaxing himself by staging a Broadway Musical, NY/LA, at the same time as editing a Hollywood film he directed, The Stand-Up. He is a workaholic, a chain smoker and an alcoholic, pushing his body through a combination of stimulants, alcohol and women he seduces from the potential performers he is auditioning. His ex-wife, Audrey Paris (Leland Palmer), is a part of the show’s production team and disapproves of his womanizing, a major proponent in their divorce. He also has a girlfriend, Katie Jagger (Ann Reinking) and a young daughter, Michelle (Erzsebet Foldi), who adores him but is frustrated that he rarely keeps his promises to spend time with her because of his self-induced work load. When he is able to spend time with Michelle the two practice her dance moves with his guidance while she quizzes him about his work, his many love affairs and whether he will ever give her a younger brother.

Joe’s frustrations with the editing of The Stand-Up spill into his rehearsals for NY/LA and, more specifically, the dancers and his choreography. This leads him to stage a highly sexualized number with topless women and nearly naked men that frustrates the financial backers who see this as losing the family audience. Later, during a table read, he experiences severe chest pains and is admitted to the hospital with angina. Joe dismisses the symptoms and attempts to leave the hospital but collapses in the office and is ordered to stay for several weeks. Even with all the physical pain he takes his condition lightly, continuing to sneak cigarettes, alcohol, and women into his hospital room. Meanwhile the financial backers begin exploring alternative options with NY/LA, including scrapping the show altogether. Their best bet, financially, would be for Joe to die and they collect on the insurance payout which would cover double what they already have invested.

Right out the gate it becomes apparent that this film is not going to play out like a typical drama. There is a lot of quick editing, cuts of Joe popping alka seltzer, dropping Visine in his eyes, showering and others are repeated often to the music of Vivaldi. He concludes these repeated moments with a look in the mirror, saying to himself, “It’s Showtime.” We get a lengthy flashback to his early days in burlesque where he is humiliated in front of an audience when the back stage affections from the erotic dancers has embarrassing results. There are repeated imaginary moments between Joe and an angel of death named Angelique (Jessica Lange) where he discusses his life retrospectively. It’s a way for Joe to open up and get introspective and the revelations are fascinating though all too brief. 

At several points in All That Jazz we see a clip from Joe’s film The Stand-Up that outlines the five stages of grief: anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Each of these will play out for Joe as he faces his own mortality in the hospital, spelled out aurally as we see him rapidly go through these stages. This is played for laughs but also carries with it a sense of melancholy and foreboding as we can see that Joe is literally dying.  This is soon coupled with a hallucinatory sequence where Joe sees himself as a director overseeing various dance numbers involving his girlfriend and his daughter enacting through dance what it’ll mean when he dies. Throughout these numbers he is both behind the camera and also in a hospital bed, barely cognizant. He is the writer, the director and the star of his final moments on this planet. As this leads into the final musical number “Bye Bye Life,” a whimsical parody of the Everly Brothers’ “Bye Bye Love,” the real Joe is taken to the operating room for open chest surgery. He sees the people in his life as an audience for his final musical number and sings this rousing and depressing tune to them. His life has been a music and dance number and he closes it in style to an excited and animated audience. 

This film has a lot to say about a lot of things. It opens with a stage crammed full of young hopefuls auditioning for a spot in NY/LA and this large group is whittled down quickly to just a small group. The judgement and selection is brutal and the dancers are dripping with sweat as they desperately try to win a spot in the show. Joe makes a quick decision on the woman cast, picking one specifically that will sleep with him to get the part, and putting off until later his decision about the men. He abuses his position to satisfy his lust for beautiful women, something his girlfriend knows about and is resigned to. His financial backers are quick to turn on him after his angina attack, turning to a possible replacement, Lucas Sergeant (John Lithgow), a man who lives in the shadows of Joe Gideon and hates that he’s considered second rate to him. The backers count everything based on what it will cost and make for them, disinterested in the personal issues at stake and focused instead on the clicking keys of a calculator dissecting the cost of their production. It’s a cold look at the business and one Bob Fosse would have been intimately familiar with. There is an inherent cynicism to the whole thing but without that cynicism it would feel inauthentic. This is the world as Bob Fosse knew it and he has brought it to the spotlight, warts and all. It’s unflattering, often ugly and vulgar, but it’s honest. Joe is a repugnant person, someone we shouldn’t relate to or pity, yet in the end as we cut to that abrupt zipping up of his body bag, we kind of do anyway.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Robert Alan Aurthur

Best Director: Bob Fosse

Best Actor: Roy Scheider

Best Original Screenplay: Robert Alan Aurthur and Bob Fosse

Best Art Direction: Philip Rosenberg, Tony Walton, Edward Stewert and Gary Brink (won)

Best Cinematography: Giuseppe Rotunno

Best Costume Design: Albert Wolsky (won)

Best Film Editing: Alan Heim (won)

Best Original Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score: Ralph Burns (won)

____________________________________________________

Release Date: December 20, 1979

Running Time: 123 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Ann Reinking, Leland Palmer, Cliff Gorman and Ben Vereen

Directed By: Bob Fosse