“Nothing I ever do is good enough. It's not beautiful enough, it's not funny enough, it's not deep enough, it's not anything enough. Now, when I see a rose, that's perfect. I mean, that's perfect. I want to look up to God and say ‘How the hell did you do that? And why the hell can't I do that?’” Joe Gideon
“Oh, you give all right; presents, clothes. I just wish you weren't so generous with your cock.” Kate Jagger.
Bob Fosse is the iconic actor, dancer, choreographer, and director for the screen and the stage behind musicals like Chicago, and I spent my Sunday watching his 1979 film All That Jazz, a fictionalized autobiographical work about that time he had a heart attack trying to finish the edit of his film Lenny while simultaneously prepping the aforementioned Chicago for Broadway.
In the role of Bob is Joe Gideon (Roy Schneider) as he navigates his failed marriage, his relationship with his daughter, his mistress(es), executive meddling and, of course, editing a film while staging a Broadway show.
And a heart attack.
I watched All That Jazz because a musical theater podcast gassed it up. I expected to like it but I really didn’t expect to love it and oh hell, I love it.
All That Jazz is not an adaptation. It is a film that is a musical first and foremost, rather than a stage show that has been turned into a film.
Never have I seen a film capture dancing so well. Forget La La Land, forget the frankly exquisite editing in Beyoncé’s Homecoming. The shot selection, the cuts, and even the moves themselves all work together flaw free, like a grand symphony of systems coming together.
It is because the dancers are so talented that their art shines—even when they are conveying bad or discordant dancing. It is because the shots are so masterfully framed that every focal point of the dance is captured, every pivotal moment, every ebb and flow. And it is because of the editing that we cut from shot to shot so masterfully and so carefully.
I could feel the obsession at work in this film. I felt it as surely as my heartbeat, as my foot tapping. As if I was the mad, destructive and self-destructive genius, looking upon my work. And despairing.
For a musical, there really isn’t much singing in All That Jazz. The primary musical storytelling medium is dance. When Gideon engages in a (for them) typical conversation about his doubts and insecurities as an artist with his ex-wife, she is performing an elaborate dance, bending and twisting around him as she rebukes his doubts while also needling him for his constant infidelity.
In a similar scene, Gideon parents his daughter while picking her up and posing her through various moves. Though a neglectful parent, we see in these scenes a potent communication between father and daughter: body movement as metaphor as dialogue.
But what I love most is the sort of documentary aspect of the film. It is first and foremost a process film, a film about the making of a film—or rather about the editing of a film and the staging of a Broadway show simultaneously. Scenes of dance and dialogue intercut with conversations between Gideon and a woman in white as he reflects on his life and his choices. It feels almost like a Greek Chorus.
But mostly I love All That Jazz because it resonates. The line between success and failure. The inevitably of death. Self destructiveness. And choices. Always choices.
In a few words? All That Jazz is an S-tier musical that fucks.
5/5
“If I die, I’m sorry for all the bad things I did to you. And if I live, I’m sorry for all the bad things I’m gonna do to you.” Joe Gideon