1979: All That Jazz

All That Jazz (Fosse, 1979) 9/10

The freshness of a new day never seems to reach esteemed choreographer and director Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider). Each day, like the one before, Gideon embarks on a repetitious and ritiualistic cycle of ritual cleansing, dressing and re-fueling: washing away the previous night’s sins; costuming his body in his preferred black persona; and dulling the pain of another day with a lethal mixture of pick-me-ups and downers. Once his transformation is complete, he confers to his mirrored self his preferred mantra: “It's showtime, folks!”

It is fitting that a man whose career life cycle is built upon repetition (rehersals, re-viewing dailies) begins his day in such a fashion. As a cutting-edge choreographer and auteurist director, Gideon is in a continued battle with God to produce something as perfect as a rose; something which can be a testament to his genius and satisfy his ego. His streak of perfectionism is both his gift and his curse: producing moments of personal inspiration followed by crippling moments of internal anxiety. Even Joe Gideon’s name appears to symbolize his fears and aspirations. The ordinariness of the name Joe exemplifies his consternation at being ordinary; while the biblical Gideon trumpets his own celebrity.

Directorial indulgence was a charge laid against director and choreographer Bob Fosse upon the release of his 1979 magnum opus All That Jazz: a personal semi-autobiographical project in the vein of Federico Fellini’s 8½ about a director in the midst of a creative crisis. While often compared to Fellini’s film, All That Jazz is not as aesthetically surreal as 8½, but perhaps is more autobiographical than Fellini’s flirtation with anti-modernization, director’s block and the grotesque.

All That Jazz is based upon Fosse’s own experience of trying to edit his Lenny Bruce docudrama Lenny whilst simultaneously choreographing and directing the musical Chicago on Broadway. In the film, Roy Scheider becomes Fosse's alter-ego Joe Gideon, while the picture includes a slew of other actors and actresses playing either versions of themselves or parts relating to a similar individual in Fosse's life and career. Thus, All That Jazz perhaps even transcends Fellini's picture in its intimacy and autobiographical nature.

Interestingly like Fellini in La Strada and Il Bidone, Fosse utilizes in All That Jazz symbols and ideas found in the circus in order to re-affirm his celebration of performance, as well as identifying the unforeseen rapidity of death or injury as a result of the act. Fosse uses imagery of Gideon walking on along a high wire tight-rope, only to descend: noting the craft and balance required to master all facets of life, death and art in one single performance. Additionally, in one of his early hallucinations, we see Gideon dressed as a circus clown. Earlier, Fosse may have noted that "Life is like a Cabaret" (another medium that shares the circus' penchant for the absurd and the grotesque), but here he is more cynical: life is less of a continuing show, but a one-act performance.

This philosophy can be seen in Joe Gideon's attitude towards life as he burns the candle at both ends: slaving away to create the next groundbreaking dance number or brilliant cut, whilst destroying his body in a temporal womanizing, pill-popping, chain-smoking and alcoholic blaze. There is never enough time for anyone or anything. Lovers are dispatched quickly; his daughter is granted limited time with him; and his patience wears thin with performers unable to follow the minute details of his program. He is a figure like Liza Minelli's Sally Bowles in Cabaret who wants to be adored, but not loved; nor can s/he love. Thus the physical pleasure supplied from lusts and flirtations substitute for real intimacy; as Gideon rarely gives an insight into his true self: preferring to- like Sally Bowles- adorn himself in masks and personas.

Yet for all his recklessness toward the advice of his physicians, Gideon takes personal responsibility for his actions. Unfortunately for both Gideon and his physicians however work comes before his health. Perhaps through this attitude, Fosse is attempting to validate his own physical destructive streak and need for artistic fulfillment. With its pessimistic projection of his remaining years, Fosse appears to be confessing to his audience a lifetime of sins and a desire for repentance, or at the very least attempt to emit concurrence from his admirers and critics that his cycle of creation and destruction was not for nothing.

Rarely in any musical has death played such an integral role to the narrative, yet in All That Jazz the afterlife is ever-present. The appearance of an angelic blonde (Jessica Lange) in a dressing room filled with abstract mementos and souvenirs from childhood to present seems to further impress the concept of forgiveness- as though cinematic confession to a mass audience, replaces the traditional and intimate confession to one in the Christian framework. Clad in a white dress, Lange's angel represents purity and the divine, yet conversely she also corresponds with the weiße toned colour code Fosse associates with sexuality. Thus in terms of death, white is associated with the ascension to the afterlife; whilst in terms of life, white is associated with sex and sexuality, which itself perhaps corresponds to the French term for orgasm ( le petit mort) which translates as "the little death."

White is the colour of the trousers he wears as a teenager when he has his first sexual experience working as a tap-dancer in a burlesque cabaret. White is also prominently used in the clothing of female characters. Often Fosse places these female characters in situations were either intercourse ensues or the gendered sexuality comes to the forefront. The shades of black Gideon is clothed in from head to toe appear to represent power. This is significant as the female characters who often challenge Gideon's need for control are dressed in black when they attempt to subvert his power basin; red is associated with performance as noted by the rows of red seats in the theatres and the utilization of red to cover the bodies of performers via spotlights, clothes and so forth. Although the emphasis on individual colour coded symbolism fades as the film goes on, the colour green is briefly associated with jealousy and betrayal as noted by the green seats and use of green light on Gideon's rival director Lucas Sergeant (John Lithgow).

Like in Fosse's earlier film Cabaret there is also an overt accentuation on the erotic. As discussed earlier, white is equated with sexuality in the film, but there is also an emphasis on performance as sexual expression. Often throughout the film, Gideon's work (as Fosse's was) is charged by critics and paymasters as being obsessed with sexuality. Yet it is not the mechanics of sexuality which Gideon (or Fosse) appear to be mesmerized by, but rather sexual expression as art. From the burlesque dancers that goad a young Gideon backstage to aura of stripping in the proposed Airotica sequence, there are several instances in which sexuality is deployed as a verbalization of artistic intent.

Noticeably however, as in Fosse's other work such as Cabaret and Sweet Charity the director has his protagonists believe they are capable of usurping their boundaries. Gideon believes he has found the right balance for his excessive work and leisure through prescription drugs. In order to accomplish their lofty aims, characters such as Gideon and Sally Bowles resort to vanity, materialism and an excess of vices to elevate their highs and alleviate their lows. Yet, it is these internal catalysts, which end up destroying them as they become increasingly ignorant of their surroundings: falling prey to their egos and immoralities.

Notwithstanding its co-shared Palme d'Or with Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha, All That Jazz was considered a box-office failure upon its initial release, which divided North American critics who in both positive and negative reviews often derided it as indulgent. However, time has spared All That Jazz, the harsh penalties it has enacted on Martin Scorsese's ill-fated 1977 stab at the musical genre New York, New York :proving this zenith of Bob Fosse's career to be better than his more famous earlier project 1972's Cabaret. With its Oscar winning edgy editing by Alan Heim and a career-peaking performance by Roy Scheider, All That Jazz is a fast-paced thrill ride into the damaging effects of art on the artist, as well as being arguably the best musical of the 1970's.

* All That Jazz is released by 20th Century Fox Home Video in an upgraded DVD edition coming in April, 2007

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque