All That Jazz

Director:  Bob Fosse
Year Released:  1979
Rating:  2.5

Bob Fosse was an interesting fellow who lived a decadent life, made decadent plays and shot decadent movies. He wore black, drank, whored, took speed and suffered from numerous heart attacks - but these weren’t much of a surprise – if you abused your body like that, you’d probably experience a similar fate (noted exception: famous junky William S. Burroughs). “All That Jazz,” a semi-autobiographical film, feels like an amateurish “8 ½,” and where Fosse is mostly interested in the real, Fellini was with the unreal. “8 ½” was a dreamy masterpiece that was confusing yet mesmerizing and simply unforgettable. “All That Jazz” is pretentious (thank you, Mr. Maltin), dull and repetitive. Roy Scheider’s character of Joe is a chain-smoking, moody, thin theater director (modelled after Fosse) who has “creative block” and can’t seem to make both his play (which looks like “Cabaret”) and film (which looks like “Lenny”) work properly, can’t keep his social life in order (he’s divided between two women) or stop his addiction to Dexedrine (prescribed to narcoleptics!). All the while he daydreams that he’s venting his anxieties and troubles to the mystical Angelique, his “muse” (or ego-ideal?), played by Jessica Lange. I get his point – that his overindulgent lifestyle will kill him one day (hence the predictably downbeat – but appropriate - ending), but he can’t help being himself. “All That Jazz” doesn’t quite come across as “apologetic” as the Schneider character tells his lovers that he will continue to hurt them as long as he lives. And besides being completely depressing, somewhat pointless and entirely too negative, it’s also way too long, and gets bogged down with too many musical numbers that feel like filler. There’s only one scene in here about his youth – he could have included more (to make it seem more well-rounded).

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