All That Jazz

Bob Fosse’s fearless, unflinching, warts-and-all portrayal of his flaws through the character of Joe Gideon, masterfully played by Roy Scheider, is pure genius. Gideon is magnetic and self-destructive, a man you may not like but can’t take your eyes off. His journey, an unflinching exploration of the cost of artistic obsession, which often leads to self-destruction, keeps you riveted. What struck me most was how seamlessly Fosse weaves music, drama, and raw introspection. The dance sequences aren’t just performances; they’re narrative gold, expressing emotions and themes that words simply can’t. Every musical number feels essential to Gideon’s chaotic story, with the score elevating the whole experience to something unforgettable. The film’s take on mortality, addiction, and the relentless pursuit of perfection hit me hard. One moment I’ll never forget is Gideon’s fantasy sequence—a chilling, poetic confrontation with his mortality. The choreography and imagery make it devastatingly personal yet universally resonant, a haunting reflection on the cost of greatness. With its Oscars and Palme d’Or, All That Jazz more than lives up to the hype. It’s a dazzling, dark, and profoundly human exploration of life, art, and the toll they take. This is a must-watch if you’re drawn to the beauty and pain of the creative process.

Bob Fosse was an imperfect man and treated coworkers, esp. women badly. Nonetheless he produced great dance and this film, a thinly veiled autobiography, is wonderful to watch. The opening where dancers are auditioning for his next show is fabulous. The 1985 film "A Chorus Line" is similar but isn't nearly as exciting to watch.

I'm an older dancer, (Ann Reinking (rest in peace) and I share the same birth date. I am still dancing and teaching. This is of course VERY entertaining, and the Blu Ray restoration is superb. I have had the DVD version for years. Mr. Fosse was not Roy Scheider's character, Joe Gideon, but parts are VERY much Mr. Fosse. Roy Scheider inhabited Bob Fosse, the good, the bad and the ugly. And the cattle call scene? Oh yes! Anyone in theater and particularly dancers know what that is! That feeling of "thank you, next, next group!" is as real as it gets. You are a number, hoping your number will be the dancer that they want, and you will make the next cut. The extras included, particularly the interview with Ann and the now adult Ms. Foldi IS a master class, and revealed so much about the actual Bob Fosse. When I dance Fosse, or teach it, you can feel his guiding choreographic touch right next to you, and THAT comes out in this movie. Its not ballet, its not jazz, its Fosse! This is of course a story of nihilism and self doubt, and Bob Fosse directed and choreographed it. Anyone who gets on stage feels that self doubt (that "why am I even here" feeling) - "Its showtime folks!". This is a beautiful movie, that belongs on every dancers book shelf, particularly if you study Fosse or are dancing it. But it has lessons for everyone. FIVE stars plus another FIVE stars. Ah five, six, seven eight!!!

Bob Fosse was undoubtably a bastard and a genius. And, on top of both of those things, he was also incredible honest. Despite being a serial liar. This movie is basically his autobiography -- about the insane time when he was directing both the risky Broadway musical "Chicago" while ALSO directing Dustin Hoffman in the Academy Award nominated bio-pic "Lenny" (about Lenny Bruce). Unlike most filmmakers, Fosse does not shy from his faults. In fact, he puts them centerstage. He's a bastard. He admits he is. And he doesn't try to sugar coat it. That's why this brilliant masterpiece is one of the most gut wrenchingly beautiful emotional cadavers in film history. Hell, he put his own lover in the role of herself and had her play out scenes as they happened. Word for word. No rewrites. No apologies. Just the truth. Brutal and ugly. And dazzlingly entertaining. Roy Scheider (once again) shows why he was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1970s. He plays the fictional version of Bob and holy hell does he knock it out of the park. He was robbed of the Oscar that year (he was nominated). It's a performance that stands the test of time. Filled with humor, love, pathos, revulsion, pain and magic. There isn't a false beat in the whole thing. And I once again tip my hat to Criterion - they do one helluva transfer. This looks and sounds great. Top notch. Worth every dollar. This is a desert island movie for me - and I don't even like musicals. But it's not a "musical." It's all motivated (no stupid breaking out in song in the middle of a scene). This is quite simply one of the best movies ever made.

“Life is the wire, everything else is just waiting” Criterion has released the restored and beautiful version of All That Jazz. The colors, the skin tones, the atmosphere is perfectly and beautifully presented. For a 40 year old film the 3 channel DTS sound is very clear and dynamic. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and the technical aspects of the disc are outstanding. This is an unusual musical movie. In it Bob Fosse, the director, displays his own life and predicts his own death. And he paints a picture of show business that is cynical, cruel, selfish, self-destructing and enormously appealing. I enjoy seeing the movie a second time, more than the first because you learn who the people are and what they are doing. Oh, you know that the spectacular performance of Roy Scheider is there to duplicate the director, Bob Fosse. But Jessica Lange is beautiful, mysterious and dangerous, and someone who Fosse, here named Joe Gideon, had been courting all of his life. “Do you think Stanley Kubrick ever gets depressed?” The movie is a genuine and also a fantasy, with realism enhanced by fantasy, often in dance. Gideon (Fosse) is man who smoked too much, drank too much, took too many drugs to often and never worked to maintain a relationship. You like him and maybe feel sorry for him, but you never really root for him. This movie was made in 1979 and, almost a decade later, Fosse died of the same ailment that befalls Joe Gideon in this film. Upon seeing the movie after his death, the penultimate scene with Ms. Lange, will go to your heart.

Bottom Line First: All that Jazz can be an intense and difficult to watch. This is a rewarding movie for a thinking viewer. It is not recommend for date night, light entertainment. It is not entirely family friendly as there can be rough language and exposed flesh. There are views of actual open heart surgery. All That Jazz is a dramatic exposure of a person's inner life as he forces himself to see past his own weaknesses. Along the way there is great dancing, moments of satire, love of family and love of the flesh. If you are open to a serious and complex movie I recommend All That Jazz. Director, choreographer and writer Bob Fosse invites you to watch this as a film autobiography. Roy Scheider who performs the Fosse role as Joe Gideon reemphasizes this approach in the commentaries attached to this copy. Many who knew Fosse reacted to this view of the movie commenting with equal passion that Bob Fosse was not that bad of a person and that he was worse. This is fiction. Fosse used elements from his life to create a fictional world. Joe Gideon is not (exactly) Fosse. Gideon is an exaggeration of those elements, good and bad that make for a dramatic movie. I take this stand against the counter argument that no autobiography is an exact retelling of the writer's life, because the writer is never able to remove himself from the retelling. Fosse makes the deliberate decision to pick and choose because fiction allows/Demands that he change reality to fit the demands of his story. Joe Gideon is a man slaved to the classic addictions: booze, drugs, sex and work. Against the claims of all these `unreal' aspects of being a person he will sacrifice every real value: His real love of his daughter, his abiding love for his ex-wife and the burgeoning love for his girlfriend. He is deeply committed to the production of Broadway musical comedy and his next movie. All that is real in Joe Gideon is on view and available for his customers, those who care most about him get what is left. As the movie open we can see that what is left is dwindling. We are here to watch this man die. We are invited to judge him. We see him from the view of his business partners, fellow performers, and loved ones. We will watch him judge himself before death. Rather the Angel of Death played, rather perfectly underplayed by Jessica Lange. Death clearly does not judge, and is never fooled. She is everyone's ultimate lover and is beyond caring about anyone's artifices, dodges or self-delusions. Director Fosse refuses to blink or excuse Joe's failures. It is this honesty that can make this movie difficult to watch. If you can see this much into another man's life and not ask yourself to see past your own excuses, then watch All that Jazz again. You may be razzled dazzed by the sex and dancing and all that jazz, but ultimately Fosse asks that you see your truth.

I'm a straight man, and I think Fosse is a god. I could never handle sappy musicals like "Brigadoon," where jelly-spined men sit in fully-orchestrated (?) forests singing their maudlin hearts out to the woman of their dreams. Please! I couldn't even handle the lowly Elvis flicks that weakly attempted a similar Broadway treatment, but Fosse is different. Yes, these are musicals, but the music and the productions are VERY COOL -- hot, sexy, productions that will knock your socks off. AND, Fosse doesn't employ the artifice of staging the musical numbers in Central Park or in the clouds somewhere. His stuff is steamy, gutsy, visceral production (think rock video, but MUCH better), and the music only shows up where it would in the real world. "Cabaret" was a Fosse flick -- great story, great acting, great production. "All That Jazz" is actually somewhat autobiographical. It features Roy Scheider as a Fosse-like choreographer/producer pushing to cement a stage production and ultimately suffering a heart attack from the stress. It's a totally involving, often surreal experience, and you won't have to give up any of your manhood to get off on it. Oh, I forgot to mention that a subplot running throughout this movie is Fosse's editing efforts to refine the final cut for the movie "Lenny" (his Lenny Bruce biopic starring Dustin Hoffman and Valerie Perrine -- also a recommended flick, non-musical).

and all…. That….. JAAAAZZZZ!!!!!!! Very interesting movie. I don’t like Bob Fosse very much though. Bob Fosse using the lyrics from one of his most iconic shows which he didn’t even want to choreograph but his wife that he was cheating on wanted to do it and star in it as the original Roxie and so he begrudgingly took the job, and now names his autobiography in which he’s not even painted in a good light, after one of the songs 😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹

recommended

Masterpiece with a great amount of special features and great commentary and booklet

great

El envío lo califico con cinco estrellas, el paquete llegó bien y sin demora. Reseña: Voy a ser muy sincero: a mi nunca me han gustado los musicales. Pocas excepciones han sido de mi agrado como la reciente La La Land o Bailando en la Oscuridad de Lars Von Trier, o la más exagerada y rara Cry Baby de John Waters, donde actúa un muy joven Johnny Depp. Sin embargo All That Jazz, va más allá de ser un musical y ha hecho que vea los musicales de manera diferente. O por lo menos solo esta película. Bob Fosse, el director de la película, fue muy reconocido más como coreógrafo, bailarín e inclusive actor de cine, antes de incursionar como director . Su incursión en la dirección cinematográfica si bien consta de una filmografía muy corta, pero con películas como Cabaret de 1972 y All That Jazz de 1979, marcaron su carrera como director para siempre. Ésta última incluso le valió ganar la palma de oro en el festival de Cannes, y sin duda alguna, llevó al género musical hacia otro terreno. All that Jazz, cuenta la historia de Joe Gideon, un coreógrafo y director de una obra de teatro de Broadway, que goza de una gran fama y prestigio. Por las mañanas se encarga de dirigir y ensayar su nueva obra de teatro, mientras que por las noches, se encarga de editar su nueva obra cinematográfica. Joe Gideon, interpretado por Roy Scheider (conocido por su papel en Tiburón) vive una vida caótica y acelerada, siendo un perfeccionista obsesivo, vive en una espiral acelerada entre las obras de teatro y su película que va dirigiendo y editando hasta la saciedad. Gideon es la representación de la vida misma de Fosse, y esto hace de All That Jazz, una película semi autobiográfica. All that Jazz es una reflexión que Fosse hace de su propia vida en la piel de Joe Gideon, un hombre acelerado y ocupado, que consigue también a la par de sus proyectos, vivir su vida personal que lo aleja más de su propia novia, o de sus propias infidelidades y también más aparte de su propia hija. Con Gideon, Bob Fosse hace de All That Jazz su testamento cinematográfico anticipado de su propia vida, ya que tan solo ocho años después, Fosse murió de un infarto a los 60 años, justo cuando se encontraba en la preparación de una nueva obra de teatro. All That Jazz es un musical que va más allá, es una reflexión alegre y agridulce sobre la vida y la muerte, es una reflexión sobre la existencia de un hombre, que en cuerpo y alma fue capaz de entregarse a sí mismo a su pasión que eran los trabajos a los que se dedicaba. Y al entregarse a todo eso, también a las consecuencias que acarreaban. La edición de Criterion es magistral, y está repleta de varios extras muy interesantes que hacen la pena cada peso gastado en la edición, y que sirven de mucho para entender más allá la obra de Fosse. Lo único (y que siempre será lo malo) es que Criterion nunca va a tener subtítulos en otro idioma más que en inglés, en cada una de sus ediciones. Lo mejor: El inicio de la película, con la canción On Broadway de George Benson. La escena donde Gideon lee junto con los miembros de la obra de teatro el guion. Los diálogos con la mujer bella que tiene Gideon, y por supuesto, la secuencia final: magistral. Lo peor: ¿Puede haber algo malo en esta película? Para mi no, pero quizá el ritmo tan rápido que tiene quizá pueda ser confuso, pero es digno de representar la vida que Gideon tiene a lo largo de la película. Sin duda alguna, una obra maestra total del cine contemporáneo. Si no te gustan los musicales, ver All That Jazz hará que tu opinión cambie de parecer, no importa en qué medio la veas, es una película que vale la pena ver por lo menos una vez en la vida. 10/10

So happy to have found the Criterion remastered version of this movie. It has always been one of my most favourite films and yet another career milestone for the late, great Bob Fosse, Everything about this movie works and holds up today. It's what I'd say would be a "dark" musical but there are still laughs, a look at the real Broadway, and a whole lot of That Jazz. Ann Reinking is at her dazzling peak here. The musical numbers are all knockouts. And hey it's not everyday you see a showstopper number interspersed with heart surgery.:-) I had the DVD previously, but if you are a fan of this movie like I am, you must get this amazing blu-ray. The picture and sound quality are beyond what I even expected. I'd have to say that of the Broadway adaptations to film, this film and "Hello, Dolly!" are easily the most dazzling restorations to be seen and heard. And last but not least, a truly great performance by Roy Scheider. Only Fosse would be genius enough to cast an actor one just wouldn't expect to see cast in a role like this......which is more or less, reflecting Fosse's own life. It's a keeper. Amazing find. Thank you Amazon.