All That Jazz is hypocritical; it both loves and hates its subject matter, making it both beautiful and disgusting. This cynical semi-autobiographical account of the fictional Joe Gideon (director and choreographer of stage and screen) comes from the very real director, choreographer and co-writer of the film, Bob Fosse.
The film follows the final months of Gideon’s life through the eyes of the since-deceased man in heaven; making the final edits on his latest directorial film effort “The Stand-Up”, struggling with growing anxiety and heart problems, choreographing and directing his latest sexually ground-breaking Broadway show and dealing with the many failed relationships in his life. The film’s main theme is the blending of reality and fiction, a line that is often blurred in a world where your job is to be fake. A theme that is extenuated due to the many similarities between Fosse and Gideon, the film is mainly based on Fosse’s real life heart attack while both editing his film Lenny (1974) – “The Stand-Up” – and simultaneously directing the original 1975 Broadway production of Chicago (the title “All That Jazz” is a reference to the opening of Chicago, which opens with a very sensual number of the same name).
The primary difference between the real life account and the film is that Fosse didn’t die and went on to live eight more years after the films initial release. The main way Fosse shows the blurring line between reality and fiction is through the use of music and musical numbers. As the film goes on and Gideon’s condition worsens, the numbers begin to be directed straight at Gideon, with lyrics referring personally to his connections to the singers. The numbers also begin to become more extravagant and larger than life as the film begins to focus more on death. As Gideon becomes more dependent on his drugs and the medication he is being given by the hospital to deal with his heart attack, the audience begins to need relief as well from the depressing subject matter and Fosse knows this, and so whenever things get too tough, we cut to a musical number. However, Fosse comments on his tendency to do this in his films by having Gideon watch a TV review ridiculing his latest film effort “The Stand-Up” for making the film too theatrical, having the critic give the film a rating of half a balloon out of four. This rule is followed all the way to the end of the film when Gideon’s final moments are shown metaphorically by a large song and dance version of 'Bye Bye Love' by the Everly Brothers, renamed 'Bye Bye Life'. The audience of the show comprises of all of his friends, foes, lovers and family. Just when you think that Fosse is going to subvert this trope at the end of the film when Gideon is taken to Jessica’s Lange aptly named angel Angelique, the film abruptly cuts to Gideon’s lifeless corpse being zipped into its body bag. But instead of leaving his audience on this unsettling image highlighting the lengths that Gideon’s drug use, sex addiction and chain smoking habits have led to, we suddenly hear the dulcet tones of Ethel Merman blasting out 'There’s No Business Like Show Business'. It is clear that Fosse can’t decide whether his love letter to his industry is in fact a love letter at all and so creates a mirage of both affection and distaste for a world that is, in its simplest nature, fake. To quote Fosse’s surrogate Gideon, “sometimes I don’t know where the bullsh*t ends and the truth begins.”
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A brief, but eternally strong recommendation.
-Thomas Carruthers
: Fosse's Masterpiece){kind=link}
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