The dance choreography of Bob Fosse is as distinct as the Production Design of a Wes Anderson film. It’s a fairly limited set of moves, but complicated, precise and delightful as hell. I’ve seen all five features directed by Fosse, and most anything where he was the choreographer, but All That Jazz is on a whole other level.
One of the best Edited films of All Time and bookended by two incredible musical sequences, with a lot more in-between. In fact, the back half of the film mostly ditches any narrative for a dance-fueled exploration of Fosse’s proxy Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) on his way to the final curtain. Thank God Fosse had enough ego to realize how compelling it would be to watch an exploration of his art by deconstructing him as a person. The best bio-pic ever? Certainly the most unapologetic. And that final scene is brilliant on all its meta and non-meta levels.
The finale is easily the scene I would want to work on, and thanks to the FX miniseries Fosse/Verdon I can get a feel for the energy of the day with the added meta-layer of Sam Rockwell as Fosse and Lin-Manuel Miranda as Roy Scheider.
Leave A Comment