All That Jazz (1979)

Superior musical from the genius Bob Fosse,mixing reality and fantasy where telling your own life as the main character Roy Scheider in an unforgettable performance as workaholic director who living when is working,fantastic choreography seeking the perfection all time driven him to lives with pills,cigarettes and sex....stressed almost has a heart attack until has going to hospital...there continuous working in his masterpiece on a surreal time...fresh musical giving another dimension at this style...extremely sexy goes beyond of imagination...Resume:First watch: 1993 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.5

I don't particularly like this film, which isn't to say I dislike it. It has a very strong central performance from Roy Scheider, which is all the more remarkable when you focus on just how trite and badly written the central character is. The film has a lot of sequences that are remarkably put together, and it's also got a lot of plain outright stupidity. I'm less interested in what the film has to say about Fosse than in what the fact that he made it has to say about him. This is the product of a rather dazzling mix of raging ego and vicious self- loathing. Ultimately. I don't know why I should care about Joe Gideon. Everyone in the film loves him to death (perhaps literally), but he has no admirable qualities outside his talent.

I wasn't clear what kind of film All That Jazz would be before I sat through it. Would it have the same attitude of a vehicle that features Liza Minnelli throatily singing about how much she loves New York, wrapped in a scarlet feather boa and draped in jewels? Or if it would be the kind of thing The Band Wagon was, only covered in pills and booze? All That Jazz is thankfully neither. Directed by legendary choreographer and director Bob Fosse, All That Jazz is painfully autobiographical; we know it, and so does Fosse. What we receive is a film that is both robust but recklessly uneven, uncompromising in its vision. Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) is aging in his long and paramount career. As a man in love with the stage and never willing to invent a normal, strictly crowd-pleasing production, he has become exhausted; he works only with frenetic energy and is willing to stay up hours upon hours to perfect his goals. But all those years of light sleeping, pill-popping, alcohol consuming, womanizing, and smoking have finally caught up with him. Joe can barely handle it.In All That Jazz, Fosse's ideas are fearless, conveyed only in lightning speed. But only about half of them are thoroughly successful. His inhibitions are sometimes extremely dynamic, energetic, even touching, while others remain dynamic and energetic but lack that impassioned stinger. Take the "Take Off with Us" sequence, for example. The scene sees Gideon previewing his planned dance numbers for his upcoming play to executives who are offensively conservative but scared of being, dare I say it, mean. The one that comes before "Take Off with Us" has all of that theatrical ambition of a Fame piece; the executives already have the feeling that they're witnessing moments from their newest blockbuster. But what follows turns the practice studio into a smoking orgy of choreography, dubbed "Airotica," leaving its dancers nearly nude, sweating profusely, and rumbling around in sexual energy. It's one of the best dance sequences I've ever seen in my life. It's the pinnacle of the film. Nothing truly follows it with that same brash excellence.Fosse is a treasure in the world of Broadway and a sporadic genius in the movies. All That Jazz is his 8 1/2, both stylistically and in tone. In style, it's slightly Truffaut, unafraid to jump cut, use "natural" music, and combine the contempts of real life and the joys of fantasy. In tone, it's almost uncomfortable in its self-reflexiveness, as the film mirrors Fosse's life.Yet in the end, All That Jazz is split down the middle between annoying self-indulgence and filmmaking brilliance. Fosse's boldness is easy to appreciate, but there are times when the film's in your face style leaves you with a headache rather than a new lease on life. But Scheider is terrific and so is Fosse's choreography; All That Jazz is the definition of a mixed bag, if there ever was one. Read more reviews at petersonreviews.com

All That Jazz is a fantastic film. It's cinematography, acting, and script are almost flawless. I always thought how would be a film that mixed the existentialism of Ingmar Bergman and the fantastic and surreal of Fellini, and perhaps this one would be perfect for those who are fan of both directors, or expanding the subject, of both the entire 'existentialist' and 'surreal' sub genres. And in fact, this film's structure is often compared to Federico Fellini's 8½, another thinly-veiled autobiographical film with fantastical elements.Again, this is perhaps one of the best musical films that i've seen so far. The choreography is dawn good, there's really a lot of effort put in it. The numbers are really great as well, specifically the last one. The acting by Roy Scheider is without a doubt great. He brings to the screen the perfect image of a baroque mix of the disturbed and egocentric man. The editing is also perfect. The sequence which repeats multiple times in the film, where Joe is awaking up, going to shower, taking his pills and playing the music is priceless.The art design is good as well. I sometimes thought that i was myself into a Peter Greenaway film, due to the familiar and similar use of colors to turn the ambient and the atmosphere into a weird and beautiful one at the same time.So, what else can i say about this film? Go watch it! 9.5/10