It takes a lot of courage and immense self-centeredness to write and direct a film about your own death. This is exactly what the director and choreographer Bob Fosse did in 1979, the creator of some of the great successes on Broadway between the ’50s and ’70s of the last century and of several memorable films among which this one – ‘All That Jazz‘ – was declared by Stanley Kubrick as ‘the best film I’ve ever seen’. Creating the character he named Joe Gideon in the film, Fosse transformed his own life and a possible path to death into an exuberant musical spectacle as only he knew how to imagine and create in images, sets, music and dance. Bob Fosse would die 8 years later in the arms of his ex-wife, as if wanting to prove that sometimes not only life imitates the film, but that death can also imitate the film.
I think the best way a viewer can enjoy watching a movie like ‘All That Jazz’ is to approach it like a Broadway musical. To sit comfortably in the armchair, to listen to the music, to enjoy the ballet numbers, to appreciate the performances of those on the screen especially by their vocal qualities and physical presence. The difference is in the case of this film that the subject matters too. The stressful life of the actors and producers of such shows is not for the first time the subject of self-exposure (see ‘The Producers’ or even ‘Chicago’), but here the personal element is added. Bob Fosse brought his own life and even some of its protagonists to the screen. The raw honesty of the revelation cannot fail to impress.
To a large extent the success and quality of the film is also due to the impressive acting performance of Roy Scheider. It was probably the best role of his career and the one that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Dustin Hoffmann won that year for ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’, the other nominees being Al Pacino, Jack Lemon and Peter Sellers). Scheider acts, dances, sings, lives and dies, but most of all he breaks down the character in all its details and presents it to the audience like on a dissecting table. The intense and ruthless, competitive and creative world of Broadway is presented under the harsh light of the strongest spotlights. The cast around is formidable, but the main goal is to put the character at the center of the universe in this film. The notion of ‘the movie of his life’ has never been better exemplified than in ‘All That Jazz‘.