Wednesday, August 24th at 7:30 PM
Roy Scheider in
Bob Fosse’s
ALL THAT JAZZ
Members $10 | Public
$15
Hosted by Fred Craden
This special screening is presented by Circle of Friends
volunteer April Anne Goldson who won our ‘Programmer for a Day’ prize at a CAC
fundraiser.
The preternaturally gifted director and choreographer Bob
Fosse turned the camera on his own life for this madly imaginative,
self-excoriating musical masterpiece.
Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1980 Cannes film festival, All
That Jazz is Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical love
letter to Broadway, show business, and himself, based on Fosse’s own
experiences surrounding his heart attack while working on the Lenny Bruce
biopic Lenny and the Broadway production of Chicago. Roy
Scheider plays a thinly-fictionalized version of Fosse named Joe
Gideon, a workaholic, sex-crazed director and choreographer who “allowed
himself to be adored, but not loved.” Gideon is a serial womanizer whose
addiction to pills, partying, work, and sex have led him to betray everyone
important to him: his ex-wife, Audrey (Leland Palmer, in a character
based on Fosse’s ex Gwen Verdon), his daughter Michelle (Erzsebet
Foldi), and his current lover, Katie (Ann Reinking, who is basically
playing herself). Weaving a narrative of Gideon’s work and personal life with
incredibly staged fantasy sequences featuring Jessica Lange as
the Angel of Death, All That Jazz fully unlocks the
manic power of the motion picture musical and throws away any concern about
what that should be. Scheider (whose resemblance to a younger Fosse is
downright spooky) got addicted to making the movie, and said he wished the
production could go on forever. Though the film is probably most resonant to
egomaniacs — Stanley Kubrick once described it as “the best
film I think I’ve ever seen” — it is an accurate portrayal
of how it feels to be burning the midnight oil even in the most menial part of
show business: thrilling and disappointing, life-defining and meaningless, and
unexplainably, undeniably important. As expected in a Fosse film, All
That Jazz boasts some of the most memorable musical numbers ever,
from the opening auditions, to the poignant, lovely dance number Michelle and
Katie stage for Gideon in his loft, to the over-the-top, intentionally tacky hallucinations
at the film’s unforgettable finale. (USA, 1979, 123 min., color, DCP |
Director: Bob Fosse)
