In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based on where my interests lead me and what’s available from my local public library.
When I think about films that are completely nuts and yet absolutely work, Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz is always near the top of the list. The fact that Fosse co-wrote and directed this rather unflattering portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man, based on his own life and career, just makes it that much crazier. Strippers, sequins, Emil Jannings allusions, coronary bypass surgery, an angel of death: it’s a mad mixture is held together by a biopic frame and Fosse’s central obsession of sex and death.
All That Jazz is loosely structured around Fosse’s life in the mid-1970s, when he was editing Lenny (his film about comedian Lenny Bruce, convicted of obscenity in 1964) and rehearsing the Broadway production of Chicago. In the movie, he’s also writing a new show, NY/LA, which features some seriously erotic choreography. A closeup of a bottle of Dexedrine in the opening sequence gives you some idea of how Fosse stand-in Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) manages it all, while the presence of his ex-wife Audrey Paris (Leland Palmer; the character is based on Fosse’s third wife Gwen Verdon) and young daughter Michelle (Erzsebet Foldi) during an audition scene tells you what he’s pushed to the side.
The screenplay, by Fosse and Robert Alan Aurthur, works by juxtaposition, cutting between naturalistic scenes, wildly expressive dance sequences choreographed by Fosse, stylized flashbacks to Gideon’s early career in sleazy strip clubs, and surgical scenes so graphic they caused some audience members to leave the theater. While I don’t love every minute of All That Jazz equally, the scenes that really work are so good they convey a whole movie’s worth of meaning in just a few minutes.
The famous cattle call audition scene, reportedly featuring 700 dancers and set to “On Broadway,” is basically A Chorus Line in 5 minutes. The “Everything Old is New Again” sequence, featuring Gideon’s girlfriend Kate Jagger (Ann Reinking) and daughter Michelle is a brilliant dance performance that also encapsulates the ambivalent relationship between Gideon and the people who love him. And the table-reading scene, in which Gideon’s fallen expression overrides the cheery demeanor of the unheard cast, tells you everything you need to know about his inability to deceive himself about his work.
All That Jazz is a wonderful showcase for performers, with even small roles creating big impressions. Jessica Lange plays “Angelique” a.k.a. the Angel of Death, with whom Gideon has regular conversations. John Lithgow plays reptilian producer Lucas Sergeant, who appears to be modeled on Broadway producer/director Harold Prince. Anthony Holland plays composer Paul Dann, and Deborah Geffner plays Gideon’s latest infatuation, dancer Victoria Prince. The film also features many dancers and theatre people playing characters similar to their professional selves, including dance captain Kathryn Doby, actor/dancer Ben Vereen, comic Frankie Man, rehearsal pianist Arnold Gross, and film editor Alan Heim. Fosse’s real-life daughter Nicole even has small part as a dancer (she’s the one stretching on the soda machine).
All That Jazz won the Palme d’Or in 1980 (shared with Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha), won four Oscars (Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Film Editing) and two BAFTAs (Best Cinematography and Best Editing) and was dubbed by Stanley Kubrick “[the] best film I think I have ever seen.” If that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 724
Technical details: 123 min.; color; screen ratio 1.85:1; English.
Edition reviewed: DVD (2 discs)
Extras: Audo commentary with editor Alan Helm; select scene commentary with Roy Scheider; an interview with Ann Reinking and Erzsebet Foldi; excerpts from the talk show Tomorrow featuring Fosse and choreographer Agnes de Mille; interview with Alan Helm about how he and Fosse developed the film’s distinctive editing style; interview with Fosse biographer Sam Wasson; a clip from The South Bank show featuring Fosse; a Gene Shalit interview with Bob Fosse; clips from the filming of the cattle call sequence; a 2007 short documentary, “Portrait of A Choreographer,” about Fosse; a featurette about the film’s soundtrack; and an interview with singer-songwriter George Benson about the song “On Broadway” which is featured in the film’s cattle call sequence.
Fun Fact: The clips of The Stand-Up seen in All That Jazz (standing in for Fosse’s film Lenny) feature Cliff Gorman, who played the title role on stage, rather than Dustin Hoffman, who played the role in Fosse’s actual film. It’s an interesting choice and give the viewer a chance to see some of Gorman’s much grittier performance (Alan Heim, who edited both Lenny and All That Jazz, noted in an interview included in this release that he developed a fragmented editing style for Lenny to get around the fact that Hoffman lacked the Bruce’s edge).
Parting Thought: For a guy that seemed to live entirely in the moment, Fosse was surprisingly ahead of his time. I’m not sure America is yet ready for the story of Star 80, for instance, and Chicago, while hardly a flop, was overshadowed in 1975 by Michael Bennett’s A Chorus Line (only with the 1996 revival did Chicago get its due). But Fosse’s choreographic style has become part of the common vocabulary of the theatre, and several of his films (including Cabaret) are modern classics. So which is better: to be of your time and enjoy success while you’re there to enjoy it, or to push the stylistic envelope so you create the future before people are ready for it?
