Multitasking is a myth. The truth is that it is really hard to do more than one thing at once. Today, we assume that we can do a million things, all while checking our phones. Now, imagine trying multitasking at a larger scale. Try finishing a movie and directing a Broadway show simultaneously. If that doesn't kill you, you have to be Superman.
That's the center of Bob Fosse's masterpiece, All That Jazz (1979). Based on his own experiences of trying to make a movie while directing a stage show, the film has rightly found a snug place in film history alongside other epics that examine an artist's mind. Of course, it does closely resemble Federico Fellini's 8 ½ (1963), but a hair less radical. Both films feature a main character that is obviously a doppelganger for the filmmaker, yet All That Jazz is about a man who already has his subject. The problem is that he has one too many.
Roy Scheider gives one of the great performances of the 1970s as Joe Gideon, Fosse's stand-in. Joe already has countless health issues, but constantly smokes, drinks and sleeps with any woman available. But on top of that, he's also trying to put together a final cut for a movie about a stand-up comic. And, he's directing a new show that is just starting to come together. It will star his former wife, Audrey (Leland Palmer), with whom he shares a young daughter, his beloved Michelle (Erzsebet Foldi). He's also currently dating a dancer who is desperate for him to commit to their relationship, Kaite (Ann Reinking).
All That Jazz is a stream of consciousness trip through the mind of Joe as the line between reality and fantasy is often blurred. While there's a softness to the scenes between Joe and his own Angel of Death (Jessica Lange in her film debut), even these moments feel as realistic as what's going on in real New York. In these scenes, Joe is reliving his life in showbusiness and trying to prove why he should remain among the living. Still, there are other fantastical elements within his mind. After his heart surgery, he is met with visions from his past reenacted as show tunes. Then, while awaiting death, Fosse takes us to a show-stopping celebration of the end of life.
Fosse was a unique artist in every aspect, one who refused to follow any set of rules for musicals. In fact, All That Jazz doesn't even feel like a musical at most points. Like his film version of Cabaret, the musical numbers are confined only to the stage or in Joe's mind. The one exception comes in the film's brief moment of pure bliss, when Michelle and Kaite dance to “Everything Old Is New Again” for Joe in his apartment. Indeed, one might even wonder why Joe cares for showbusiness when the only time he is ever happy is with his daughter. It is even possible that Joe was torpedoing his own career. He had to know that square producers weren't going to like his sexy choreography for “Take Off With Us,” but he showed it off anyway. Push the envelope as far as it goes, even if it destroys you.
One thing you have to buy as a viewer for All That Jazz is that Fosse knows he's a master of his art. You have to have one heck of an ego to decide to make a movie about your own struggles, but that's what makes it work. Fellini had to feel the same way with 8 ½. That both directors got great performances from their leading men helps us view these movies as more than ego trips.
Joe is as much a creation of Scheider as he is Fosse's. There's no way anyone else could play this part with the dark grit and genuine cynicism that Scheider brings to it. Scheider wasn't a flamboyant actor, which is exactly what Fosse needed. It's jarring to think that Richard Dreyfus was first considered. If that happened, All That Jazz would be a very different film. Thankfully, we have the rugged Scheider, who doesn't really have to act like someone who's life has been put through a wringer.
Fosse and Scheider actually have a lot in common as two unlikely Hollywood stars. Scheider became an overnight sensation with his roles in two of the most important films of the 1970s, The French Connection and Jaws, despite his unlikely look and equally unique performances. Fosse was a bonafide Broadway legend who somehow managed to win the Best Director Oscar for Cabaret the same year The Godfather won Best Picture. (Fosse remains the only artist to win a Tony, Oscar and Emmy in the same calendar year for directing.) Both of these men felt incredible pressure to continue performing at the highest levels and that pressure is poured into every frame of All That Jazz.
While All That Jazz is a fantastic, engrossing film that is open to endless viewings, there is one elephant in the room that must be pointed out. It is overbearingly dark. Despite a title that recalls one of the joyous moments in Chicago, All that Jazz has a stark morbidity rarely found in movies with music. That, of course, is what makes it so unique.
Fosse was a singular artist. That's a word that's hard to attach to most directors, but it fits a man who could do nearly everything in the entertainment world and put every last bit of himself in whatever he did. He paid a heavy price to entertain us, but it was worth it.
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image courtesy of Walter McBride/INFphoto.com