Review of All That Jazz (1979) by Edith N — 16 Oct 2008

I am bewildered by this film. Really. It stops making sense so gradually that you can't really pick a point and say, "This is where it stops making sense." After all, we are watching the biopic of a man speculating about what would have happened if he had died. He directed it himself, but his character still dies. And his character steps out every day as if it's a show--unto wearing the same costume. He is also, incidentally, doped to the gills on dexedrine. He sleeps around. He drinks. He smokes. He's not, when you get right down to it, a very appealing character, and that alone makes me start to wonder about what Bob Fosse was thinking when he created this. Did he think we would like him like this? Did we think we would think he was a crazy, glamorous show biz type that we would admire?

Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) is one of the most famous director/choreographers on Broadway. And all that jazz, apparently. (The title is taken from the song in [i]Chicago[/i], another Bob Fosse production. The song does not appear in the film.) He's in the middle of working on a hot new Broadway show, starring his ex-wife and the mother of his child (Leland Palmer, I believe, though the name sparks considerably different memories from me). He's under stress, to add to the cocktail of what's wrong with him. He's cheated on his girlfriend, who leaves him for another show and another man. His health gets worse. He stops having enough time for his daughter (Erzsebet Foldi). And, in time, the stress and drugs combine to give him a heart attack.

It's fascinating to me that people keep referring to Gideon as "exhausted." Even his daughter, Michelle, know that's bogus. She knows that he's seriously ill, and that the grownups are using "exhausted" as a dodge for what's really wrong. But the grownups somehow believe it themselves. They seem to believe that the dexedrine makes him who he normally is, not that he's high. He's a bad parent, but that doesn't matter. He's a [i]great[/i] choreographer. I guess. He doesn't seem to be all that great of a director; his lousy people skills do not just extend to being chronically unfaithful. Then again, what do you want from a guy who chooses dancers based on whether or not he thinks he can sleep with them? Then again, a dancer at the beginning of the movie declares that she [i]did[/i] sleep with him and still does not get a role.

I don't really care for this movie. I can see its basic quality, enough to give it a marginally positive review, but frankly, I don't see what's so great about it. It won four Oscars and was nominated for several others. It's apparently a Film I Should See Before I Die. But it just doesn't do anything for me. I am left a little bit put off, frankly. I don't like any of these people. Even Michelle is kind of annoying. The ex-wife is smug. The pianist is a piece of work. The backers are a pain in the butt. The string of women frankly should know better--they all know going in that he's a womanizer, but the girlfriend seems to think that he'll stop sleeping around just because he's with [i]her[/i]. There isn't even as much music as you would expect from a Fosse show.

I like [i]Chicago[/i]. [i]Cabaret[/i]'s decent. [i]Pippin[/i] wasn't bad. Okay, [i]Sweet Charity[/i] was, but the directing was about the best part of it. ([i]The[/i] best part of it was that one song that Sammy Davis, Jr., sang.) I never did get to see much of anything live onstage. Bob Fosse may have been an interesting figure--though his death in this one seems eerily like a death from AIDS, not a heart attack--but this is not, I think, a terribly interesting movie.