All that Jazz (1979)

 

All That Jazz

It is now two days since I watched “All That Jazz” and I am still not certain what to think of it. It is a movie that balances on a number of knife edges, and I have yet to decide whether or not it falters. One thing is certain, it is a rather unique movie.

We follow Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider), a choreographer and manager of sort and alter ego of Bob Fosse, director of “All That Jazz”. One stream is a narrative about setting up a musical and editing a movie of his. Another is a string of flashbacks to earlier events and encounters. A third is a conversation Joe is having with an angel of death, Angelique (Jessica Lange), though whether he is dead or imagining the conversation is unclear. Finally, Joe is imagining other events of various sorts.

Which of the streams we are in at any given moment is not immediately clear, which at times makes this a confusing watch. It is clear however that all streams serve to portrait Joe Gideon as a person and the events leading up to his death.

Joe lives life in the fast lane. He is super engaged in his stage production and in his movie. He smokes and drinks in excess and he beds every pretty girl he sees and, yes, in his position he sees a lot of pretty girls. It is as if his life never takes a break but is constantly at full speed. The is plenty of damage from this lifestyle. On a personal level he is neglecting his daughter, Michelle (Erzsebet Földi) and leaves an unhappy wake of ex-wives and ex-girlfriends behind him. His health is deteriorating rapidly and his unwillingness to take a rest is what finally kills him. But also on a professional level his manic lifestyle has consequences. His productions are way ahead of his audience, and he is either deemed a genius or a disaster, but certainly not an average-Joe.

We see glimpses of these productions. Disjointed glimpses, that is, and I am sometimes in doubt if we are watching stage, movie, deep-flashback or dreamshows. Always they are extravagant (his stage production has a significant amount of nudity) and often it centers around death. A particular sequence has a comedian telling about the five stages of dying: anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance and the movie keep retuning to this sequence and even takes Joe through them.

In fact, the narrative could be wrapped up as “Life and Death of Joe Gideon”.

There are a lot of women in this movie. They are all long-legged, pretty dancers. They, almost, all end in Joe’s bed and I keep getting them mixed up. The two major roles are Joe’s ex-wife Audrey (Leland Palmer) and the current (or one of them) girlfriend Katie (Ann Reinking). Both do a lot of dancing.

It is no secret that Bob Fosse used himself as template for Joe Gideon and essentially wrote his own eulogy, predicting that this life of his would kill him. I cannot help thinking that either he had enough insight to see his own flaws or he was a narcissist who wanted the entire world to know what a brilliant asshole we was. Not unlike Fellini in “8½”. Either way, there is a level of navel gazing here that I am not entirely comfortable with. Is it too much? Maybe. That is really the question.

That apart, there is no doubt that the format of the movie with its non-linear structure is interesting, if not confusing, and the show performances spectacular. As readers of this blog will know, dancing does little for me, but it is difficult to ignore the spectacle of this and the eroticism is on Very-high, regardless of your sexual persuasion.

I doubt it is a movie I will go back to, but it is also a movie that cannot be ignored, so I guess it is a must-see-once sort of movie. Let that be my recommendation.