Sorry, this movie sucks

Powerful

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Editing is the life and breath of All That Jazz, the glue that binds every hazy strand of director choreographer Joe Gideon's life together. Sweet Charity had already demonstrated Fosse's prowess in syncing movement with sound - that's just basic choreography. Here he injects rhythm with the cuts themselves, condensing an afternoon of initial dance rehearsals into a montage bursting with vitality and colour. The dancer's movements are spliced and rearranged into a single cohesive unit - graphic matches merge their individual pirouette into one multicoloured blur, like a spinning top. They drag their feet to the sultry beat of George Benson's On Broadway, and leap into the air in perfect sync. The experience is a complete performance on its own, and already Joe has his eyes on a select few (and not just purely for their dancing). For him the only ritual more steadfast and constant is in his morning sacrament, a Dexedrine, AlkaSeltzer, and copious eyedrops, all enlarged in grotesque extreme close-ups. Is playing Vivaldi over it all an attempt to convince himself of some semblance of serenity? If so, it's an uphill battle. This daily intravenous drip allows him the zest to commit to several different creative projects at once, a string of women and a thick smog of chain-smoking, and then to do it all again the next day. Joe is a true artist in the sense that he is a perfectionist in his work, and a hurricane's wake in his private life. This being showbiz, the two often intermingle in an incestuous embrace, with dance as the sole bridge for conversation. That may be the only way to get his attention, as all three of ex-wife, girlfriend and daughter discover. Joe may have giddy tears in his eyes as the latter performs an impromptu rendition of Peter Allen's Everything Old Is New Again, but the acerbic cut to his morning routine suggests an unchanged man.Why does he throw himself into these projects, even at death's door? Some contemporary critics note the flaw of his impenetrable character; Joe's motivation remains ever-obscured behind a haze of drugs, sex and musical numbers, with hardly a moment devoted to why. Why? The show is his life, and his life is a show, forever destined to contest for centre stage. They can chastise his lack of devotion or loyalty all they want - it isn't something he doesn't already know anyway - as long as it's done in costume, and in time. Fosse's choreography suffers none from this maddened attentiveness; his bodies stuttering from movement to a frozen strut, limbs cocked at odd angles and splayed across each other. It's sexy and suave all at once, and none too pleasing for the anxious financial backers sitting in the test audience. "Now Sinatra will never record it," they moan as the dancers bare their chests (and see how Fosse splices together their yawns in the opening rehearsal). Joe is loyal only to Angelique, an angel of death played by the glittery Jessica Lange. Their tango takes place in an imaginary set decorated with both past and present relics of his life, costumes once worn and now discarded. She's his witty equal, an angelic figment of the imagination that is at his every beck and call - no other girl could suffice, or put up with his constant professional negligence. His daughter Michelle gives it her best shot, although her presence is one of the film's glaring oversights, a chatty, flippant teenager who only fits within this frenetic, showbiz lifestyle because Fosse pipes in her wit through poorly dubbed ADR. Watching her tease Joe on the free-flowing sexuality of one of his numbers is like witnessing a comedic skit of an entirely different film.Only in his daydreams do these dances attain his final seal of approval. While the business executives are busy musing over the potential financial gain of his early demise (bluntly overlaid graphic images of his dissection), he's hard at work stage-managing procession. It's usually here that detractors bemoan Fosse's excess, the self-indulgence of an artist who can't even bow out without a blasting fanfare and at least three elaborate set pieces. In some ways, they're not wrong (I like my dream sequences fleeting and with a devastating gut punch, like the finale of Claire Denis' Beau Travail). And yet, why would Gideon/Fosse ever want to hold back? A little heart attack never hurt anyone, not when there is dancing and directing to be done. It's showtime, and the show must go on.

Superior musical from the genius Bob Fosse,mixing reality and fantasy where telling your own life as the main character Roy Scheider in an unforgettable performance as workaholic director who living when is working,fantastic choreography seeking the perfection all time driven him to lives with pills,cigarettes and sex....stressed almost has a heart attack until has going to hospital...there continuous working in his masterpiece on a surreal time...fresh musical giving another dimension at this style...extremely sexy goes beyond of imagination...Resume:First watch: 1993 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.5

Particularly of interest in this film is the strong autobiographical quality of it. Fosse did, indeed, suffer his first heart attack during this 1973/74 period of his life. The film-within-the-film, "The Stand Up," is an interesting variation on LENNY (1974, with Dustin Hoffman and Valerie Perrine)--- much more irritating than that movie. LENNY ended up getting great reviews, for the most part, but it must have been a tough movie for Fosse to get his hands around, especially while dealing with his failed marriage to Broadway star Gwen Verdon (portrayed here by Leland Palmer). It's certainly portrayed as such in this film. And Chicago seems to have been a challenge for him, too. He obviously thought the original script for that show was lacking (as he actually went on record as saying) and that he had to spice it up for him to become interested in it. (How fascinating would a Fosse film version of CHICAGO have been? As it was, it looks as if eventual CHICAGO director Rob Marshall screened ALL THAT JAZZ many times in order to mine its many storytelling treasures, including the main conceit that most of the film's musical numbers appear in the minds of the main characters.)

The script is a bit of a jumble at times, with the odd groaner particularly with Wallace Shawn's one line(the worst line of the film and Shawn is wasted) and Schneider and Lange's chemistry comes across as a little wooden. But everything else about All That Jazz is so great, it is one of the better 1970s musicals and one of the most unique ones you'll see anywhere along with Ken Russell's The Boy Friend. All That Jazz looks spectacular, the editing, costumes and art direction all won Oscars that were richly deserved. The editing and cinematography is some of the most imaginative of any musical, the costumes are rich in colour and the art direction is wonderfully opulent. The score also won an Oscar which was also deserved, it captures all the glitz and glamour of musical theatre brilliantly with no over-sentimentalising. The songs are ones that you will have no trouble remembering, Take Off With Us being the highlight. And they are superbly staged and imaginatively shot with choreography that is unlike what you've seen before and since, plus it is very rhythmically driven(again the very erotic Take Off With Us is the standout, though Everything Old is New Again is very sweet). The reality parts of the story blend surprisingly well with the more fantasy-like ones, the reality stuff is often hard-hitting and unpleasant but very real like Joe Gideon himself while the fantasy has a real surrealism to it. Fosse's direction is truly impressive, yes some scenes like the death sequence is a touch self-indulgent but there is his usual pizazz and rhythmic precision while also very Fellini-esque, reminding one somewhat of 8 1/2. Roy Schneider gives a blistering career-best performance as a very sordid character with a good amount of complexity. Jessica Lange is alluring, Leland Palmer is equally solid and Ann Reinking is equally charming. The director-daughter relationship is touchingly done. Overall, a wonderful, if somewhat divisive, musical and one of Fosse's best alongside Cabaret. 9/10 Bethany Cox