“All That Jazz” (1979)

All That Jazz

Grade: A+

Director/choreographer Bob Fosse is certainly full of himself — All That Jazz is one of the most self-indulgent films ever made. But all pretentions are forgiven, because it’s also one of the best-looking. Providing a verité glimpse at Broadway backstage life while taking a musical trip inside the subconscious mind, Fosse communicates in a visual language that rivals the best of Kubrick or Bergman or Fellini. Seriously: this is all-time stuff.

Roy Scheider, too, delivers an all-time performance as Joe Gideon — the fictionalized Fosse; a stressed-out, sympathetic, self-loathing, Dexedrine-addled, death-obsessed, adulterous, alcoholic, artistic genius. The character is so interesting, and the aesthetic vision so intoxicating, that we become as fascinated with Fosse as he is of himself. A mesmerizing portrait of the artist as a middle-aged, dying man.

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More by Bob Fosse

• Cabaret (1972) A
• All That Jazz (1979) A+

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