by Masha Makutonina, Fall 2021
All That Jazz (1979) is a film about a naked, unsentimental, and cynical exploration of one man’s relationship with mortality and legacy. Naturally, it comes in the form of a musical.
The contrast between subject and genre appears striking at first but ultimately plays to the strengths of the story. After all, it’s not easy to explore the topic of death and dying without plunging into melancholic reflections. The musical form infuses life into these dreadful questions of the mind. It also plays to the strengths of the director and co-writer of the film, Bob Fosse, who was professionally forged in this genre. The story of the main character is based on his real-life experience of facing death during an extremely busy period in his career. So All That Jazz blends not only genres but also fiction and reality. Which truths about the human experience and Bob Fosse’s life are revealed in this process?
“It’s showtime, folks!”
Roy Scheider plays Joe Gideon, a fictional version of Bob Fosse in the story. He is a hot-shot Broadway director and choreographer working on multiple artistic projects with little to no satisfaction or happiness. His days of choreographing a Broadway production blend into afternoons of editing his film, which blend into nights of booze and sex with brief interspersed moments of being a father. This routine is sustained with millions of cigarettes, tablets of Dexedrine, amphetamines, and a dash of self-hating inner monologue. If they say routine can be lethal, then Joe Gideon’s routine may have originated this saying.
The opening of the film immediately cues us into the vicious cycle that is Joe’s life. We watch him drink Alka-Seltzer, pop Dexedrine like gummy bear vitamins, take a shower with a cigarette, put some eye drops in his exhausted red eyes — all to the accompaniment of Vivaldi. Before we even meet Joe properly, extreme close-ups of these actions give an idea of the kind of man he is and the kind of life he is living. Unlike ordinary people who at most require a cup of coffee to start the day, it takes a substantial array of various sorts of drugs to get Joe going. Ease and tranquility that we hear in the musical tone of the scene contrast dramatically with the cold artificial light of the bathroom and the exhausted physique of our protagonist. Another audio motif that accompanies this sequence is Joe’s menacing cough that foreshadows the inevitable health issues this daily grind inflicts on his body.
We momentarily leave the bathroom for a surreal shot of Joe walking a tightrope and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue with a mysterious figure sitting in a bizarre void setting. “That’s very theatrical, Joe” comments the figure, establishing a self-reflexive tone of the story. We cut back to the bathroom where Joe says to the mirror: “It’s showtime, folks!”. The phrase announces the beginning of the film, reminding us of the fictional nature of everything we’re about to see on the screen. It also cues the start of the busy day ahead of Gideon.
This is the only private moment he will have for a while and it shows us that Joe considers his interactions with others as a sort of show where one needs to be performing. He practices a grotesque happy face everyone wants to see in the mirror. The blending of the performance and the mundane, the underlying cynicism of the film’s hero, and the contrast between the audio tone and visual narrative — are all the core themes of the film that are established in its opening sequence.
This opening montage of Joe’s morning is repeated 5 more times in the film and there is something Dantesque about its circularity, descending lower tonally with each passing day and bringing us closer and closer to the final interruption: Joe’s death. The viewers of the film do not necessarily expect it as the mere fact that this picture was co-written and directed by Bob Fosse, who was alive at the time, presages for a happy end. If the film follows the circumstances of Fosse’s life at the time of the heart attack closely, Joe’s eventual death is the one plot point where fiction and reality clearly diverge. The New York Times Vincent Canby wrote in the review of the film in 1979:
“It’s a little bit as if Mr. Fosse had invited us to attend his funeral — the wildest show-business sendoff a fellow ever designed for himself — and then appeared at the door to sell tickets and count the house; after all, funerals are only wasted on the dead.”[footnote]Vincent Canby, “The Screen: Roy Scheider Stars in All That Jazz: Peter Pan Syndrome,” The New York Times, December 20, 1979, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/20/archives/the-screen-roy-scheider-stars-in-all-that-jazzpeter-pan-syndrome.html.[/footnote]
This metaphor really gets at the conflicting tone of the film. One moment it expresses the real gravity of the incident, the serious regrets, fears, and memories associated with it, and the next moment it is all suddenly undercut by a cynical joke. One moment we see Joe saying he believes in saying“I love you,” then he adds “when it works of course.” One moment we see him overwhelmed with fear in the face of death, the next minute he breaks the fourth wall to say “Don’t you just love a musical comedy?”, subverting the drama of the scene. This cynicism portrays our very real desire to laugh off our deepest feelings. Vincent Canby’s quote also exposes two conflicting traits of Bob Fosse’s persona: the crashing ego and open vulnerability to display his vices, regrets, and fears in the public eye for criticism, which he was very sensitive to.[footnote]Fosse famously joked that his dying wish was to hear one good thing about his work from The New York Times, and there is a great scene in the Fosse/Verdon mini-series where he jumps out of the window after reading a review from them. See Judy Kinberg, Bob Fosse: Steam Heat, PBS, 1990.[/footnote]
Going through a near-death experience, and then making a Hollywood picture about it that grosses three times its initial $12 million dollar budget, is one of the most commercially Hollywood-esque schemes you can imagine (and it definitely paid for his health bill). But All That Jazz is also very different from a typical Hollywood film. In the spirit of New Hollywood that brought unique perspectives of individual directors into the Studio System between the late 60s and late 70s, All That Jazz does not follow conventional rules of storytelling and is not afraid to take risks with its editing choices. Fosse said himself that the only limitations he had in his films are the limitations inside the director’s mind.[footnote]”Bob Fosse,” The Dick Cavett Show, 1980. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvWNh4jAIQc.[/footnote]
“Cut!”
The use of montage in the film’s opening sequence continues through the rest of the picture. Notoriously in the cattle call scene that captures brilliantly the atmosphere of the auditioning process:
Alan Heim who received an Oscar for editing All That Jazz has magnificent timing when it comes to cutting Fosse’s dance numbers employing jump cuts and dramatic angle changes between takes that further emphasize the inherent edginess of Fosse’s signature choreography.
Outside of dance numbers, the scenes are often combined in a way that lets the audio from one trickle down into the visuals of another, often resulting in tonal contrast we have touched upon in the opening sequence. For example, the scene in the editing room (that stars the editor of the film, Alan Heim, as himself) ends with Joe saying he can’t come back to the lab to edit more in the evening. We cut to the scene in his apartment with the audio of Joe from the previous scene still running. “I have to work more on my Broadway production,” he continues to say back in the lab but visually we see him grabbing two glasses of wine and opening the front door to a chorus girl who comes into his apartment. It serves not only as comedic relief but reveals crucial aspects of Joe’s character, like lying, womanizing, and self-indulgence.
There is another fascinating example of unconventional editing in the table read-through scene that depicts a group of actors reading the script with Gideon. There is no sound in the scene apart from Joe’s pacing around the room, the sound of a broken pencil, and heavy breathing. It shows very effectively the isolation of the main character from others and is a bold choice artistically for a Hollywood picture.
All That Jazz (1979), Table-read scene
Another example of abrupt and brilliant editing is the ending of the film, where we watch a ten-minute big, elaborate, and shiny dance number starring Joe Gideon. Towards the end of the show, the camera moves to an extreme close-up of his face that is experiencing a mosaic of emotions in the face of death. The extremely catchy tune of the final song begins to reach its peak as Joe is full of vitality when suddenly everything is abruptly interrupted by a cut to his body in a plastic bag in the morgue. The contrast from bopping to the music numbers of a spectacular show merely a second ago to seeing somebody zipped in a plastic bag is one of the most shocking visual sensations I have experienced watching a film. There is only a short pause to catch your breath from this blow and the next moment “There is no business like show business” starts to play as the titles roll on a black screen. Once again the contrast between audio and visuals electrifies the scene and floods the viewer’s mind with images and conflicting emotions.
All That Jazz (1979), Final Shot
This contrast between the tragedy of what is happening, and the bright, happy musical shape of how it is presented is what makes the story of All That Jazz most compelling for me. The contrast powerfully magnifies the tragedy while allowing it to escape over-dramatization. It exploits our expectations and plays with the peculiar sense of uneasiness that this mismatch of tone and substance creates in our hearts. It exposes brilliantly the darkness behind the exploitation of performers in the entertainment industry and the ephemeral nature of all great performances, including our lives. The power of the contrasting form and substance is something we will come back to when talking about a choice of using a musical genre.
In addition, the documentary style of filming is employed heavily in the first part of the film. Fosse expressed that he wanted to invoke realism outside the musical numbers in the story.[footnote]”Bob Fosse,” The Dick Cavett Show, 1980. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvWNh4jAIQc.[/footnote] Hence many scenes of Joe in the streets of New York are shot on location, on a wide lens where we observe the main character from a distance. The documentary nature is also mimicked in the structure of the first act where we follow an actual day in the life of a Broadway choreographer.
Other artistically risky choices include the theatrical void scenes interspersed throughout the film where the main character reflects on the narrative of his life, graphic depiction of open-heart surgery, and an erotic dance number in the middle of the story. “I think we just lost the family audience,” expresses one of the Broadway producers in the scene.
“What’s the matter, don’t you like musical comedy?”
Musicals are usually great for family audiences, as they conventionally tend to have a cheery disposition, very veiled romantic plot points, and great visual entertainment that is accessible to all ages. This is what would be typically labeled as the classical Hollywood musical, a genre is universally recognized for its grand settings, shiny costumes, heartwarming characters, and overwhelmingly happy endings.
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
If this does not sound like the tone of All That Jazz, that is because Bob Fosse is attracted more to the cabaret side of musical performances, which brings sweat, unflattering light, eroticism, darkness, and edginess to the genre. Fosse grew up performing in such venues and brought their slouched, strained, and provocative movements with him to Broadway, where he worked first as a dancer and later as a choreographer and director.[footnote]Hilton Als, “All That Jazz: Stardust,” The Criterion Collection, August 25, 2014, https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3275-all-that-jazz-stardust.[/footnote] If you watch Fosse dance in some Hollywood musicals of the 1950s, you can still see those unique characteristics, even in the typically classical choreography he performs like in this scene from My Sister Eileen.
There are some references to the classical musical tropes in All That Jazz as well, recognizing that past of Fosse’s life. Interestingly, they arrive in moments of a break where the main protagonist seemingly takes a breather from himself as we take a break from Fosse’s choreography, like in “Everything old is new again” number.
Ann Reinking as Gideon’s girlfriend
There is also a clear reference to Singin’ In The Rain in the final montage of Gideon wandering around the hospital. He splashes the water in a manic manner, referencing Gene Kelly’s iconic routine in the rain. The grim setting of a flooded hospital basement and the fact that Gideon is trying to run away from death paint a deeply depressing picture in contrast to the romantic mood of the scene in Singin’ In The Rain. Gideon proceeds to break the fourth wall with the audience and say directly into the camera: “What’s the matter, don’t you like musical comedy?” The phrase cynically pokes fun at All That Jazz for being the most depressing musical comedy, while simultaneously poking fun at how ridiculous and distant musical comedies of the past appear from real life.
Do not allow this homage to lead you to believe the film shares any happy disposition of old musicals. Instead of bright colors, we see the palette of black, white, and grey most of the time (apart from the epic dream sequence at the end of the film that treats us with some sequin outfits and bright stage lights). The rest of the time we see characters in their rehearsal clothes. The scenes take place in rehearsal rooms, backstage settings, or poorly lit apartments and hospital rooms. The romance is at the most unromantic it can be, provided the main character is unfaithful at every opportunity he gets, sometimes even exhibiting predatory behavior. The film takes the tools of dance and music to paint emotions of lust, hate, pity, and arrogance invoking shock and spectacle, produced through this combination of forced joyful form and tragic subtext.
In the end, the combination of the autobiographical story and musical numbers works to the benefit of All That Jazz on multiple rich levels. Bob Fosse is above all a Broadway choreographer by calling. It would be impossible to do away with musical numbers when telling a story based on his life. And if it was possible, Fosse would not take up such a project. He noted that the film started as an adaptation of a kitchen-drama play, but he could not force himself to spend a year making a film about death without tapping into the absurdism of the musical genre, as it would be too depressing on a psychological level.[footnote]”Bob Fosse,” The Dick Cavett Show, 1980. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvWNh4jAIQc.[/footnote] In addition, that’s where his strengths lie as a director and creator, as his previous musical film Cabaret did receive eight Oscars. Finally, the main protagonist of the film is working on a biopic while staging a musical. It is only fitting that both genres come together to tell this story.
In addition, the song and dance bring striking vitality to the film. Fosse’s choreography is full of tension, sweat, grit, and precision. The film is flooded by different bodies: all types of different dancers auditioning in the opening scene, workshop rehearsals with the ensemble, Katie’s elegant dance number with Gideon’s daughter, and the epic “Bye-Bye Life” sequence at the end. All of these characters breathe with vitality in contrast to our protagonist, who is chipping away at his body and physically decaying daily. Movement is life and the hospital is death. As Joe becomes constrained physically to his bed, the dance numbers continue in his head as phantasmagoric delusions. The last final dance sequence inadvertently reminds of The Dying Swan solo choreographed by Mikhail Fokine, not necessarily in style but definitely in the concept of life’s last attempts to defeat death which brings the ultimate stop to any movement.
The movement also brings poetic beauty to the viewing process of the film. The footage captures all these dancers moving in elaborate routines. As a viewer in 2021, you cannot help but imagine how many of them are gone now, along with stars Schieder and Reinking. The film immortalizes the vitality of these performers forever and adds another layer of emotion to the story. What could be more beautifully symbolic and fitting for a film about death and legacy? In addition, unlike dances of classical Hollywood that display beautiful choreography and incredible training, movement in All That Jazz is filled with internal tension and communicates visually specific emotions of lust, grit, love, hate, and so on. When you see Audrey Paris slouch her legs across the floor, forcing Joe to give her space, there is a whole vocabulary of power, ease, loathing that reads through the movement adding to the subtext of the characters’ dialogue.
An excellent example of how much dance numbers enrich storytelling visually is “The Hospital Hallucinations” segment, which includes some of the most emotionally striking choreography of the film that resonated with me for multiple reasons. First of all, there is the setting of a film studio set where Joe’s surgery takes place in the background on a high scaffolding construction (which calls back to the surreal scenes in Fellini’s 8 ½ ). Here, four extravagant musical numbers take place, all depicting female figures in the life of the main protagonist. Each says their last goodbyes to Joe who is lying in a hospital bed on set while his healthy alter-ego directs the filming of this performance. The doctors wear cabaret-like makeup and join in on the instruments for some scenes. The whole affair is very surreal and fabulous and captures that contrast between the form and substance touched upon earlier. The movement of dancers in the scene is a mixture of elegance and sharpness, following Fosse’s signature style, that effectively communicates the superior, almost gloating tone of “After you’ve gone” and the reproachful, warning subtext of “You better change.”
While the dances are strikingly beautiful, their messages are full of regret and longing, as well as an underlying nightmare tone that burlesque numbers can create when put in the context of high-stakes situations. From today’s vantage point, Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs comes to mind—while nothing could be more different in genre from All That Jazz, they share a conflicting, striking, and highly engaging emotional resonance born when cheery music and painful visuals or text come together, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps my favorite thing about watching All That Jazz is just how often such a feeling appears when you are watching it.
Despite the dark topic and extremely miserable main character, there is a lot of humor within the cynicism of the story and Joe Gideon as well as Bob Fosse is not at all afraid to laugh at himself.
JOE
I once tried living with two girls/…/ Woke up one morning one of them was gone and left a note that said
“I can’t share you with anyone. I want you all to myself or none at all. I have to leave.”
I was very flattered she felt so strongly about me.DEATH
How did you know the note was to you?
Fosse reveals to us the darker side of the life of a successful artist. When watching the film, you don’t want to be Joe Gideon, despite all of his success and alluring showbusiness lifestyle. There is a constant need to work summarized by this short dialogue Joe has with death:
DEATH
Family?
JOE
Screwed up.
DEATH
Work?
JOE
All there is.
Additionally, we see his constant dissatisfaction with the results of that work, as showcased in the scene of Joe’s time in the editing studio where he misses every deadline for submitting the final cut because he’s unhappy with the product of his work.
The contrast between his public adoration and private dissatisfaction is something that Fosse knew very well. Gwen Verdon, his wife and longtime artistic collaborator, mentions that his biggest competitor was always himself.[footnote]Judy Kinberg, Bob Fosse: Steam Heat, PBS, 1990.[/footnote] The film is based directly on Fosse’s manic efforts to edit the biopic Lenny while staging the Broadway production of Chicago, as All That Jazz borrows its title from the Kander and Ebb’s opening number from that show. This stressful period in his life took place only two years after Cabaret won eight Oscars, including Fosse receiving the best director award over Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather. Considering all this success, it is extremely interesting for the viewer to see the darker side of Fosse’s life at that period and the cynicism that he infuses in the near-death experience at the height of his career.
Readers might have noticed how liberally I interchange the analysis of the film’s main character with judgments about Bob Fosse’s persona. It is almost inevitable due to the autofictional nature of the picture that grounds itself in telling things that were true (or at least felt true) within one individual’s experience of facing death. Where does Joe Gideon end and Bob Fosse begin?
“Sometimes, I don’t know where the bullshit ends and the truth begins!”
When watching All That Jazz, it is impossible to avoid creating a detailed portrait of its author. Despite changing names and the dark alternative ending to his real hospitalization incident, even the modern viewer realizes early on that this film is about Bob Fosse by Bob Fosse. There is just so much specificity, personal detailing, and insider knowledge about the life of a Broadway choreographer and filmmaker that you believe you are really getting a glimpse into somebody’s specific life experience. Whether you trust that feeling, or like me, frantically pause the film to Google specific details of Fosse’s life before resuming the film, at the end of the process you have an idea of a persona behind the camera. Or at least you think you do. Or at least the film wants you to think you do…
This knowledge of a distinct authorship produces an interesting duality of judgment. On one level, we are evaluating Bob Fosse as a character, the film’s protagonist directly based on a real person who also functions as the film’s author. On another level, there is a sense of Fosse as a real person, the Fosse who survived open-heart surgery and who directed and co-wrote this film.
The way All That Jazz is organized prompts us to think about this complex figure. We are consciously aware of him due to all the scenes that take us backstage behind the creative process. When we see Joe Gideon watching edits of the biopic about Lenny Bruce, we cannot help but think about Bob Fosse going through the same painful process of editing the film we are currently watching. When we see Joe on the set directing his actors, we cannot help but think of Fosse on the set of All That Jazz directing this very scene. When we see dancers audition for the musical in the film, we once again cannot help but think of all the actors doing their screen tests for All That Jazz. The filmgoers at the time the picture came out were perhaps more aware of the fact that Ann Reinking (who plays Katie Jagger in the film) is playing a version of herself, as she was Fosse’s actual girlfriend during the real-life events depicted in the film. Reinking famously had to audition for the part, which speaks further to Fosse prioritizing art in his life over personal relationships.
The nature of the story’s setting demands audience awareness of its reflexivity. Awareness is the word that comes to mind a lot while watching this film. Self-awareness of the protagonist, who recognizes his shortcomings but is unable to change the course of his actions. Self-awareness of Bob Fosse, who does not shy away from the ugly parts of himself and puts them out for everybody on display. Self-awareness of the film, coming through the breaking of the fourth wall that results in its funniest moments. And of course, self-awareness of the audience, who navigate the surreal experience of watching what is essentially an extravagant biopic made by the man it is about.
Given how much Fosse’s persona dominates the film on- and off-camera, we as an audience have plenty of evidence to dislike the man. And time has not worked in his favor either. I imagine it was easy to dislike the protagonist of All That Jazz back in 1979 due to some obvious character flaws: selfishness, arrogance, lack of self-control, and general assholeness about his relationships with others. The film’s humor and self-reflexivity help turn the tables a bit. The characters in Joe’s life continue to forgive him, accept his behavior, or give up on changing it. Their relationship impacts our view of Joe and we begin to give him more leniency as well. The film flirts with the myth of a tortured artist, but to our relief, doesn’t fully commit to it. In fact, when the plastic bag zips at the end of the final sequence, the film poses powerful questions about the legacy of work in the entertainment industry and if the price Joe paid for it could have been easily avoided: was his creative legacy worth the pain and suffering he caused?
However important these questions are, as a female viewer in 2021, I couldn’t help but be more preoccupied with the role of women in the film, and how easily, almost naturally, the character of Joe Gideon exploits them. In the story, the three main figures of wife, lover, and daughter hold peculiar roles of muses, comforting figures, and artistic advisors, functioning as both rivals and caretakers. But their main role is summarized by Katie’s line, “I just want to love you, Joe.” They do not exist outside the world of Joe Gideon, probably because Joe’s character (and perhaps Fosse himself) does not imagine or even think about their world outside of his own life. This creates an interesting phenomenon: the film is filled with strong female characters, and even death itself takes a breathtaking female shape, but all of them solely exist in relation to Joe, without really ever holding power over him. One is the ex-wife figure that needs him to direct her musical production, one is the lover who is being constantly cheated on, one is a child who is repeatedly abandoned by her father.
Ann Reinking as Gideon’s girlfriend Katie (based on herself), Erzsebet Foldi as daughter Michelle, and Leland Palmer as Gideon’s wife, based on Gwen Verdon.
Throughout the film, female figures are openly objectified by Joe, as the film’s secondary female characters are defined by their bodies. Joe Gideon continuously objectifies nurses and abuses his power at work. The dance with female nudity is breathtaking artistically, but I couldn’t help thinking about the darker, voyeuristic, humiliating power dynamic that could have taken place on set that day. The female body needs to be seductive in a musical, as the industry in some sense is based on simultaneously elevating and exploiting female bodies. Fosse himself inadvertently calls this out in the final hallucination of his daughter Michelle (who was thirteen years old at the time) trying to be a part of the musical world by embodying a typical star in high heels, a tight dress, and heavy make-up. It’s terrifying and draws attention to how all adult women were portrayed so far in the film.
Scenes like this add to the complexity of the film as a whole and save it from the romanticization of certain dangerous showbusiness tropes, as well as the personal flaws of Bob Fosse. However many dark flaws are present in Joe Gideon, Fosse is the first to point them out and put them on display for discussion, oftentimes openly making fun of them. And as Claire Dederer said in her article about art by problematic men: “It’s always good to see a white cisgender man examine his monstrosity.”[footnote]Claire Dederer, “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?”, The Paris Review, November 20, 2017, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/20/art-monstrous-men.[/footnote] Such a vision is even more complicated in retrospect after watching Fosse/Verdon, the 2019 miniseries that portrays the fascinating female figures in Fosse’s life outside of only their romantic or familiar relationships with him—watching Fosse/Verdon made me wish Gwen Verdon made a musical about her own life, but alas such self-indulgence takes Fosse’s masculine levels of self-interest.
I think what still appeals to me within All That Jazz is the vulnerability of an artist putting all these ugly sides of himself on a big screen without excusing any of his behavior. At no point in the film do I feel like the protagonist or the author behind him tries to redeem any of Gideon’s actions. It’s a capsule of a man at a particular moment in his life, his regrets about it, and some ugly sides that led to his fictionalized death—sides that to some degree, we all have inside of us. The shameful things are put right out on a medical table to examine, at times in cold hospital light, at times in the warm forgiving stage spotlight. An incredible performance from Roy Scheider brings complexity to the role, at times making Joe Gideon dangerously cool and at other times strikingly pitiful.
Bob Fosse strives to depict a moment true to his life and is quite generous with self-criticism about his persona leaving no redemption for his protagonist. Here’s how Bob Fosse stages the introduction Joe Gideon at the end of the picture, completely demystifying any glamour that could still vaguely remain about him, as voiced by Ben Vereen’s emcee character:
“What can I tell you about my guest? This cat allowed himself to be adored but not loved, and his success in show business was only matched in failure in his personal relations. Now that’s where he really bombed. He came to believe that work, show business, love, his whole life, even himself, and all that jazz was bullshit. He became a numero uno game-player to the point where he did not know where the games ended and the reality began. Like this, cat! The only reality is death, man. Let me lay on you a so-so entertainer, not much of a humanitarian and this cat was nobody’s friend.”
To some it seems Joe Gideon does not care if he dies or lives, so for viewers, it’s hard to empathize with him. The character who does not change over the course of the film and then dies is hardly following the conventional story arcs we are used to. Unlike the protagonist of It’s a Wonderful Life, the near-death experience does not produce any growth in the life of Fosse’s character—in fact, it did not produce that much change in Fosse’s real life, according to the people close to him.[footnote]Judy Kinberg, Bob Fosse: Steam Heat, PBS, 1990.[/footnote]
And yet, we care that Joe Gideon dies, that he fails to change, that he pushes away love from people around him. This is where life takes over fiction, which in the end, was just an elaborate route to depict most ordinary human tragedies. Failure to change, failure to be kind, failure to express love, and failure to do enough. Failures that life offers generously to us and we so rarely see in heroes on the screen. There is one failure that Joe Gideon avoids though thanks to Bob Fosse. The legacy of his work in the film lives on four decades later and is truly a testament to a unique, creative, and captivating artistic vision. Fiction provides this very real legacy in the end.
Bob Fosse (left) and Roy Scheider (right) on the set of All That Jazz.
All That Jazz breaks the clearly defined borders between fiction and reality, bringing private into the spotlight, burlesque into the sacred, theatre into film, and us onto the backstage of the stress-induced artistic process of one eccentric individual.
Bibliography
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Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvWNh4jAIQc [Accessed 17 December 2021].
Canby, V. “The Screen: Roy Scheider Stars in All That Jazz: Peter Pan Syndrome.” The New York Times, December 20, 1979. https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/20/archives/the-screen-roy-scheider-stars-in-all-that-jazzpeter-pan-syndrome.html.
Dederer, C. “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?”. The Paris Review, November 20, 2017. Available at: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/20/art-monstrous-men [Accessed 17 December 2021].
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Kinberg, J. Bob Fosse: Steam Heat, documentary film, PBS, 1990.
Neumeyer, D., 2021. Chapter 9 on Genre Theory and Film Musical by Cari McDonnell. [online] The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies. Available at: <https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sWdBAQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA245&dq=film+musical+genre&ots=XfJLMdDeaF&sig=zvutiWPMn0tm1zYwishiC8WCRls#v=onepage&q=film%20musical%20genre&f=false>.
Seltzer, Alvin J. “‘All That Jazz’: Bob Fosse’s Solipsistic Masterpiece.” Literature/Film Quarterly 24, no. 1 (1996): 99–104. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43796705.