| All That Jazz | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Bob Fosse |
| Written by | Robert Alan Aurthur Bob Fosse |
| Produced by | Robert Alan Aurthur |
| Starring | Roy Scheider Jessica Lange Ann Reinking Leland Palmer Cliff Gorman Ben Vereen |
| Cinematography | Giuseppe Rotunno |
| Edited by | Alan Heim |
| Music by | Ralph Burns |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | 20th Century-Fox (United States and Canada) Columbia Pictures (International) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 123 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $12 million[2] |
| Box office | $37.8 million[3] |
All That Jazz is a 1979 Americanmusicaldrama film directed byBob Fosse and starringRoy Scheider as an obsessive film and stage director. It is asemi-autobiographicalfantasy based on aspects of Fosse's life and career as a dancer, choreographer and filmmaker. It was also the final work of its producerRobert Alan Aurthur, who wrote the screenplay with Fosse and died a year before its release.
The story draws from Fosse's experience editing his 1974 filmLenny while simultaneously staging theBroadwaymusicalChicago, which he directed, choreographed and co-wrote. Like Fosse, Scheider's character attempts to stage an ambitious Broadway musical while supervising the editing of a film he directed and which, likeLenny, centers around astand-up comedian.Jessica Lange,Ann Reinking,Leland Palmer,Cliff Gorman andBen Vereen co-star in supporting roles. The film borrows its title from thesong of the same name fromChicago.
All That Jazz was released on December 20, 1979, to commercial and critical success, being praised by critics for its creativity, ambition, choreography, and Scheider's performance, although it was labelled by some as pretentious or "egomaniacal", in particular in regard to its autobiographical nature. It jointly won thePalme d'Or at the1980 Cannes Film Festival together withAkira Kurosawa'sKagemusha and received a leading nine nominations at the52nd Academy Awards, including forBest Picture,Best Director,Best Original Screenplay andBest Actor for Scheider, winning four:Best Original Score,Best Art Direction,Best Costume Design, andBest Film Editing. Following its release,Stanley Kubrick called it "[the] best film I think I have ever seen", and in 2001 it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by theLibrary of Congress and selected for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry.[4][5][6]
Joe Gideon is a theater director and choreographer attempting to balance staging his latest Broadway musical,NY/LA, while editing a Hollywood film he has directed,The Stand-Up. He is an alcoholic, a driven workaholic who chain-smokes cigarettes, and a womanizer constantly flirting and engaging in sexual encounters with a stream of women. Each morning, he begins his day by playing a tape ofVivaldi while taking doses ofVisine,Alka-Seltzer, andDexedrine, always concluding by looking at himself in the mirror and saying, "It's showtime, folks!" Joe's ex-wife, Audrey Paris, is involved with the production of the show but disapproves of his womanizing ways. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Katie Jagger and daughter Michelle keep him company. In his imagination, he flirts with anangel of death named Angelique in a nightclub setting, discussing his life with her.
As Joe continues to be dissatisfied with his editing job, repeatedly making minor changes to a single monologue, he vents his anger on the dancers and in his choreography. This leads to a highly sexualized number of topless women during a rehearsal, frustrating the show's penny-pinching backers. One of the few moments of joy in his life occurs when Katie and Michelle perform a Fosse-style number for Joe as an homage to the upcoming release ofThe Stand-Up, moving him to tears. During atable-read ofNY/LA, Joe experiences severe chest pains and is admitted to the hospital with severeangina.
Joe brushes off his symptoms, attempting to leave for rehearsal, but he collapses in the doctor's office and is ordered to stay in the hospital for several weeks to rest his heart and recover from exhaustion.NY/LA is postponed, but Gideon continues his antics from the hospital bed, smoking and drinking while hosting endless streams of women in his room. As he does, his condition continues to deteriorate, despite Audrey and Katie remaining by his side for support. A negative review forThe Stand-Up, released during Joe's hospitalization, comes in despite the film's financial success, and Gideon has a massive coronary event.
While Joe undergoescoronary artery bypass surgery, the producers ofNY/LA realize that the best way to recoup their money and make a profit is to bet on Gideon's death: the insurance proceeds would result in a profit of over half a million dollars. As Gideon goes on life support, he directs extravagant musical dream sequences in his head starring his daughter, wife, and girlfriend, all berating him for his behavior. He realizes he cannot avoid his death and has another heart attack.
As the doctors try to save him, Joe runs away from his hospital bed behind their backs, exploring the basement of the hospital and the autopsy ward before allowing himself to be taken back. He goes through thefive stages of grief—anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—featured in the stand-up routine he had been editing. As he gets closer to death, his dream sequences become more and more hallucinatory. As the doctors try one more time to save him, Joe imagines a monumentalvariety show featuring everyone from his past where he takes center stage in an extensive musical number ("Bye Bye Life", a whimsical parody of "Bye Bye Love"). In his dying dream, Joe can thank his family and acquaintances, as he cannot from his hospital bed, and his performance receives a massive standing ovation. Joe finally dreams of himself traveling down a hallway to meet Angelique at the end. Meanwhile, his corpse is zipped up in abody bag.
| Chart (1980) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[7] | 64 |
| Canada Top Albums/CDs (RPM)[8] | 26 |
| Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[9] | 25 |
| USBillboard 200[10] | 36 |
While trying to editLenny and choreographChicago in 1974, Fosse suffered a massive heart attack and underwent open heart surgery.[11] After recovering, Fosse became interested in the subject of life and death and hospital behavior. Alongside his friend Robert Alan Aurthur, they set out to make a film adaption ofEnding byHilma Wolitzer which had similar themes of death and marital problems. However, after completing the screenplay, Fosse decided against making it a film as he found the material too depressing and felt he wasn't strong enough to stick with it for over a year. Still wanting to stick with the subject matter of death and wanting to use what he felt were his best tools of song and dance, he instead decided to make a film based on his own experiences with makingLenny andChicago.[12] The story's structure closely mirrors Fosse's own health issues at the time and is often compared toFederico Fellini's8½, another thinly veiled autobiographical film with fantastical elements.[13][14][15]
The part of Audrey Paris—Joe's ex-wife and continuing muse, played byLeland Palmer—closely reflects that of Fosse's wife, the dancer and actressGwen Verdon, who continued to work with him on projects includingChicago andAll That Jazz itself.
Gideon's rough handling of chorus girl Victoria Porter closely resemblesBob Fosse's own treatment of Jennifer Nairn-Smith during rehearsals forPippin.[16] Nairn-Smith herself appears in the film as Jennifer, one of theNY/LA dancers.
Ann Reinking auditioned for and received the role of Katie Jagger, a role loosely based on herself.
Cliff Gorman was cast in the titular role ofThe Stand-Up—the film-within-a-film version ofLenny—after having played the role of Lenny Bruce in the original theatrical production of the show (for which he won aTony Award), but was passed over for Fosse's film version of the production in favor ofDustin Hoffman.[17]
The part of Joe Gideon was offered toPaul Newman, who turned it down as he didn't feel the character was redeemable and also didn't take Fosse into consideration. Newman would later call it a "dumb mistake".[18]
With increasing production costs and a loss of enthusiasm for the film,Columbia brought inFox to finance completion, and the latter studio acquired domestic distribution rights in return.[19]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 88% of 48 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Director Bob Fosse and star Roy Scheider are at the top of their games in this dazzling, self-aware stage drama about a death-obsessed director-choreographer."[20]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[21]
In his review inThe New York Times,Vincent Canby called the film "an uproarious display of brilliance, nerve, dance, maudlin confessions, inside jokes and, especially, ego" and "an essentially funny movie that seeks to operate on too many levels at the same time... some of it makes you wince, but a lot of it is great fun... A key to the success of the production is the performance of Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon... With an actor of less weight and intensity,All That Jazz might have evaporated as we watched it. Mr. Scheider's is a presence to reckon with."[22]
Variety described it as "a self-important,egomaniacal, wonderfully choreographed, often compelling film" and added, "Roy Scheider gives a superb performance as Gideon, creating a character filled with nervous energy... The film's major flaw lies in its lack of real explanation of what, beyond ego, really motivates [him]."[23]
Gene Siskel praised the film onSneak Previews finding it fresh and entertaining describing it as "an obituary of a creative man who's afraid his work just might be trivial." His colleagueRoger Ebert gave the film a mixed review, praising Fosse's choreography though criticizing the story finding it discombobulated and self-indulgent. He also found it inferior to8½ stating, "I think it's kind of ironic Bob Fosse makes a film about his own life and it turns out to be Fellini's life."[24] In 2003, Ebert said he had changed his opinion, and praised the film stating that he was "wrong" about it at the time and felt it was unfair of him to compare it to Fellini.[25]
Stanley Kauffmann ofThe New Republic wrote 'Except for one brief flashback, it's a latter-day self destructive agon in which the protagonist is beginning a complex Broadway show,'.[26]
TV Guide said, "The dancing is frenzied, the dialogue piercing, the photography superb, and the acting first-rate, with non-showman Scheider an illustrious example of casting against type . . .All That Jazz is great-looking but not easy to watch. Fosse's indulgent vision at times approaches sour self-loathing."[27]
Leonard Maltin gave the film two-and-a-half stars (out of four) in his 2009 movie guide; he said that the film was "self-indulgent and largely negative," and that "great show biz moments and wonderful dancing are eventually buried in pretensions"; he also called the ending "an interminable finale which leaves a bad taste for the whole film."[15]
Time Out London states, "As translated onto screen, [Fosse's] story is wretched: the jokes are relentlessly crass and objectionable; the song 'n' dance routines have been created in the cutting-room and have lost any sense of fun;Fellini-esque moments add little but pretension; and scenes of a real open-heart operation, alternating with footage of a symbolic Angel of Death in veil and white gloves, fail even in terms of the surreal."[28]
Upon release in 1979, directorStanley Kubrick, who is mentioned in the movie, reportedly called it "[the] best film I think I have ever seen".[29]In 2001,All That Jazz was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by theLibrary of Congress and selected for preservation in theNational Film Registry. It was also preserved by theAcademy Film Archive in the same year.[30] In 2006, the film was ranked #14 by theAmerican Film Institute on its list of theGreatest Movie Musicals.
The film would be the last musical nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Picture until Disney'sBeauty and the Beast was nominated in 1992, and was the last live-action musical to compete in the category untilBaz Luhrmann'sMoulin Rouge! was nominated in 2002.
TheDVD issued in 2003 features scene-specific commentary by Roy Scheider and interviews with Scheider and Fosse.20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released a "Special Music Edition" DVD in 2007, with anaudio commentary by the film's Oscar-winning editor,Alan Heim.Blu-ray and DVD editions were released in August 2014 with all the old special features, as well as new supplements throughThe Criterion Collection brand.[32]
The final dance sequence ofAll That Jazz is depicted inFX'sFosse/Verdon starringSam Rockwell asBob Fosse. The series' executive producer and Broadway starLin-Manuel Miranda played the dual role of Joe Gideon/Roy Scheider.[33] The "Get Happy" dream sequence musical number in the season 7House episode "Bombshells" was also inspired by this dance sequence.[34]
The film is referenced in theBetter Call Saul first-season episode, "Mijo". During the episode, there is a montage depicting the daily routine of protagonistJimmy McGill, which includes looking at himself in the mirror and saying "It's showtime, folks!", mirroring the words and gesture part ofAll That Jazz protagonist Joe Gideon's own routine; McGill acknowledges that the words are "from a movie" when a bystander sees him do the routine.[35]
Season 3 Episode 5 ofGLOW, "Freaky Tuesday", opens with thesame Vivaldi concerto music while the character Tammé is shown struggling, with the help of pills and wine and hot showers, to wake up every morning and tamp down her back pain while continuing to perform as a wrestler each night.[citation needed]
Season 3 Episode 10 ofGet a Life, "Zoo Animals on Wheels", features a rehearsal montage set to"On Broadway". During this sequence, Chris Peterson (Chris Elliott) mimics Joe Gideon's cigarette smoking and use of Visine before saying, "It's showtime, folks!" to himself in his dressing room mirror. Elliott would again reference the film in the finale of theAdult Swim seriesEagleheart, which concludes with a recreation of the "Bye Bye Life" sequence, with his character Chris Monsanto as Joe Gideon.[citation needed]
TheDavid Fincher–directed music video forPaula Abdul's song "Cold Hearted" is inspired by the "Take Off With Us" dance sequence inAll That Jazz.[citation needed]
The 2006 filmMarie Antoinette written and directed bySofia Coppola reuses the Vivaldi concerto in a montage depicting the daily routine of Marie's life with her husband.[citation needed]
