Delayed Reaction: All That Jazz

The Pitch: An American Broadway response to 8 1/2.

A theater director slowly falls apart as he tries to put together an expensive Broadway production, edit a film that isn't working, and juggle the relationships with the many women in his life.

It's really annoying when you try to insult someone, then he or she just nods and agrees with you ("Yeah, I know I'm a selfish asshole"). And that's how I feel about All That Jazz. It's narcissistic, indulgent, and pretentious. Fosse transparently pulls from Fellini's 8 1/2 while adding faux shame. So much of the film feels like an inside joke, that I suspect no one should be allowed to watch it without watching a couple of his movies and reading through his Wikipedia page first. The thing is, I could tell Bob Fosse (RIP) all this to his face and he would nod and agree. This film is confidently the exact thing that Bob Fosse intended it to be. For all his flaws, Bob Fosse earned the right to make a two hour therapy session in the form of a movie.

I am aware that I don't have enough context to fully appreciate the movie. I didn't realize until after the fact that the comedian movie Roy Schneider is editing is a reference to Fosse's own troubled production of Lenny with Dustin Hoffman. I don't know how many characters were stand-in's for real life people, like Gwen Verdon. Watching this without more knowledge of Bob Fosse is like watching the commentary track for a movie before seeing the movie. I didn't care that much for the movie, even though I do recognize that some parts are pretty great. Many of the song and dance numbers are entertaining. However, it is surprising to see a director with so much history in stage production using so many edits. Personally, I liked the performance his daughter and girlfriend put on for him the best.

The end is exhausting. Whether or not that's a good thing is up to you. I got a little tired of all the dream sequences that all seemed to say the same thing (He should have done better by those in his life. I get it.). That very last number is a dizzying mix of tones and symbolism that felt like Fosse said "yes" to every idea that he wrote down. For someone who was already sucked into the movie by then, I imagine the ending is awesome to behold. As someone still searching for a way into the movie, it got tedious and lost my attention.

I liked Roy Schneider. He made it easy to ignore my issues with the film in the moment. It's really only when reflecting on it that I realize how little the film did for me.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend