Wednesday
Aug142013
Morning Truth Tell: All That Jazz is a Freaking Masterpiece
Wednesday, August 14, 2013 at 8:00AM If you haven't yet seen All That Jazz (1979) or haven't yet loved it -- you better stop and change your ways, daddy! Joe Gideon deserves the kind of hallowed cinema rep that Michael Corleone and Charles Foster Kane enjoy.
Live this truth. Carry it with you today.
Reader Comments (33)
Preach it, Sister!
Amen!
Can I just add that there's a lovely small detail in "Some of These Days" where the surgeons playing tambourine rest them on their laps at the end of the song? I've always thought that was really well done.
Sometimes I even think All That Jazz > Cabaret.
Or as I like to call it--All That Jess!
Oh, yes it is!
Fantastic film. Its fosse's 8 1/2.
Me too, Cal....
Even if "Cabaret" is a wonderful film, in "All That Jazz" Fosse pulls down all the boundaries of the genre and takes us further beyond.
i actually think this is a much better film than Cabaret =/
For serious! Easily one of the 10 Greatest Musicals of all time - and one of only three musicals to win the Palme d'Or (along with Dancer in the Dark and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - although technically the latter won something called the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, which was at the time the festival's highest honor). Roy Schneider's is one of the all-time greatest performances. And the Airotica sequence ("Take Off With Us") still gives me chills. Freaking beautiful.
Deserved Palme d'or winner. I like to think that it and Apocalypse Now split the vote in every competing category because I cannot deal with the thought of Kramer vs. Kramer beating either one at the Oscars. Benton beat Coppola AND Fosse for goodness sakes.
KRAMER won because it was critically acclaimed, timely (divorce, etc.), uber-serious, and the No. 1 box-office hit of the year. The Academy tends not to ignore all that.
This is not an argument for. It's just the why.
Yeah, it is. I don't think it edges Cabaret which has better songs (which has to count for something when comparing musicals, even pseudo ones) and does so much while being economical in its storytelling (beautiful as it is to look at, I can never help but think that some of the moments leading up to "Bye Bye Life" could've been trimmed a bit), but that very unwieldiness and go for broke energy is probably the thing that pushes All That Jazz to the next level.
But I do love ALL THAT JAZZ - more than CABARET. This was a viral video for me a few years ago. I couldn't stop watching it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL22e30bFic
I kept trying to imagine the film career Ann Reinking might've had if the movies (which is us) cared about musicals in the 1980s.
Ah, Ann Reinking! Ah, Sandahl Bergman!
I've always loved this movie. It has such a leanness about it. Could a movie like this be made today?
wonderful movie indeed. (but I still prefer "cabaret")
One of my favorite films of all time.
My #1 film of all time. Not even joking.
FANTASTIC movie... I was a dancer, so loved this one a tad more then Cabaret ... but the movie Cabaret had a great musical soundtrack...
OH! And Ann Reinking. That bitch is so fucking fabulous it HURTS.
The way Fosse fetishizes Reinking's fabulous legs alone makes this worth watching - endlessly. That it's also Fosse's best movie and one of the best American films of its era is just the cherry on top.
Must bow in the presence of this amazing movie.
You know when a movie musical is clearly one the best when EVERY SINGLE number is absolutely flawless. My personal fav is the intro with " On Broadway" and all those wonderful dancers auditioning. Basically pulled off in 7 minutes what the movie version of A Chorus Line couldn't do in two hours. Work of a master, that is.
Also, can we talk about the sexual openness of this movie? Quite a few gay elements that are treated completely normal and frank. I mean, I know this is the same guy who did Cabaret and he clearly worked with and was around tons of queens on B'way throughout his career but that element is such a breath of fresh air and seems so modern watching the film in the 2010s. Kudos to him.
BTW you know how Jerome Robbins won Best Director for WSS but also got a bonus Honorary Oscar for his choreography? Yeah, that should've happened here too.
Mark, you bring up a searing point about the openness of this movie. I will never forget the image of that guy in the suit meeting that dancer's gaze and spritzing with the breath spray. An indelible image from my boyhood. LOL
Oh and Leland Palmer should've been a Best Supporting Actress nominee.
Ann Reinking too if we're being generous. Which, with this movie, might as well. They both could've replaced Jane Alexander and Candice Bergen, fillers in that category.
brookesboy -- That's a really fun, sexy throwaway moment that you'd never see nowadays. Doesn't mean anything to the plot of the movie but it's such an important little detail about the world they all live in. I loved it and more importantly, it's something that Joe would indeed notice within the room. I remember being a young teen and watching the middle third of the Air-otica number with the three couples dancing (straight, gay, lesbian) and having my jaw on the floor when it was it over. So sexual and beautiful and he gave equal time to all three! LOL.
I've only seen the movie once, but immediately considered it a masterpiece. While so many filmmakers have tried to emulate what Fellini did with 8 1/2, few have managed to make something as personal and original as Fosse has (though arguments could be made for Woody Allen or Charlie Kaufman). The self-reflexive character study is fascinating - Fosse takes aim at his career ups and downs, relationship troubles and awareness of death. This soul searching is equally matched by his own skill as a filmmaker and flair for showmanship. The way All That Jazz (and Cabaret for that matter) is shot and edited to reflect the rhythm and nuance of dance and music is just pure brilliance in the same vein as the boxing-like editing in Raging Bull. My favorite moment in All That Jazz might seem a bit minor, but it's the part where Joe watches his daughter and girlfriend perform a playful dance to "Everything Old Is New Again".I can't pin point exactly why, but the expressions on Roy Scheider's face in the reaction shots moved me deeply. Great movie.
Mark, that number definitely did a number on me too. LOL. Now I want to watch this movie again.
One of the great movie musicals- featuring some of the sexiest dancing ever.
Sometimes this is my favorite Fosse, sometimes it's Cabaret, either way they're both masterpieces so it's win-win for me. As Mark The First already said, Leland Palmer was so deserving of a nomination and I'd give Reinking a nod for her legs and voice alone.
Ann Reinking is one of the great dancers. Although I am sure it was not easy, she is lucky that Fosse decided to cast her, after making her audition repeatedly for a role she knew intimately, because her all of dance sequences are the best things in the movie. This is where I think I first saw Jessica Lange, and she and Meryl and Sissy and Carrie Fisher were all happening at the same time.
ben: I'm with you on that - and I don't think it's minor at all: the 'Everything Old Is New Again' scene is beautiful. His girlfriend and his daughter, both of whom we have seen him treat badly, put on a show for him with the express intention of cheering him up - and it works for him! His pride at what they can do, their pride in doing it, the song itself... I also think of it as the last (or only?) truly happy moment in the film. After that, he's on his long slide to 'Bye Bye Life'.
I really like All That Jazz. And it's grown on me over the years. I also really like Cabaret. I'm not sure if I can pick one over the other. Cabaret has some clunky stuff in the dramatic sequences, but all the musical numbers are amazing. The second half of All That Jazz is a bit of a slog, just because it's all so sad, but the whole film is so artfully made, it's exhilarating.
It's genuinely embarrassing how many times I've watched that video over the years. It should be mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to direct a modern movie musical (COUGH Rob Marshall!) But really that whole surgery sequence is just perfection. Weep like a baby every time. Like total loss of all motor skills level breakdown.
It should've won Best Actor and Director at the Oscars that year.