Midnight Double Feature: All That Jazz

This month is the first Midnight Culture: Double Feature! With five Fridays in July, that means you get an extra week of culture and obsession and what better way to mark the first Midnight Double Feature than by exploring the legendary Broadway partnership of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon. Last week was a deep dive into the FX series Fosse/Verdon (which is here if you missed it) and this week we are looking at the ‘fictional’ Fosse film All That Jazz (1979).

Growing up All That Jazz was a permanent fixture on our DVD shelf and for years I had no idea what it was about, but I knew that it shared it’s name with one of my favourite songs from my favourite musical. When I eventually watched it, late one night during a summer holiday I knew from the opening audition sequence (which I am sure was direct inspiration for the opening of the film of A Chorus Line, released six years later) that I was going to LOVE this film.

The first ten minutes tells us everything we need to know about Joe Gideon, played by Roy Scheider: addicted to alcohol, pills and sex, juggling his ex-wife, daughter and girlfriend and his job as an acclaimed director and choreographer for Broadway and on film…sounding familiar?… the film charts Gideon’s final few months before a fatal heart attack. Fosse claims that the film was in no way autobiographical but the parallels are indisputable. The opening audition montage is everything you hope it would be, set to George Benson’s ‘On Broadway’, there is plenty of vintage dance wear (I am OBSESSED with the assistant choreographer dancing in brown, leather, knee-high boots), travelling sequences and so much sweat! Perfection!

Like I mentioned last week, in his real life Bob Fosse directed and choreographed the musical Chicago while simultaneously being in the editing room for the film Lenny. In All That Jazz, Joe Gideon is in the cutting room for ‘The Stand Up’ while simultaneously creating new musical ‘NY/LA’. The film cuts between the real world and a fantasy space, where Joe entertains Angelique, the angel of death (Jessica Lange).

The three most important women in Joe’s life are his ex-wife, Audrey (Leland Palmer), girlfriend, Katie (Ann Reinking) and his daughter, Michelle (Erzesbet Földi) but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are always a priority. Broadway legend Ann Reinking was Bob Fosse’s girlfriend in real life when she auditioned for the part of Katie (she was basically auditioning to play herself in the film). In Episode 8 of Fosse/Verdon you can see how intense her audition was with Fosse making her read the same scene again and again, until she snaps accusing him of taking their real life and putting it in the script. The scene can then be seen in the final cut of the film.

You can also see in Episode 8 of Fosse/Verdon how Fosse took moments that happened with his daughter Nicole and put them on screen, including a tender choreography session where in between improvising a pas de deux they discuss his love life. When I first saw this in Fosse/Verdon I thought that they had purposely mirrored the scene from All That Jazz until we see Nicole’s reaction to that scene being shot in the film. (Spoiler: She is not happy!)

With All That Jazz being so closely inspired by Fosse’s actual life and Fosse/Verdon revealing what was going on behind the shimmer curtain, I now can’t watch one without the other. If I watch an episode of Fosse/Verdon I instantly want to dip into All That Jazz and vice versa, the two feel like they will now forever be in conversation in my head.

All That Jazz has Fosse’s signature all over it, from the choreography, to the shots, to the edit, Fosse is meticulous and the film has his voice, his dry sense of humour and the tightrope of dramatic irony he strings throughout. Here are some of my highlights:

NY/LA
From the show’s composer and musical director performing the whole ensemble opening number as a solo, complete with chair-ography in the initial rehearsal, to Audrey desperately tap dancing for the rest of the cast to raise morale after Joe is admitted to hospital basically on death’s door, the NY/LA process is chaotic.

It appears that NY/LA is about a young star moving from New York to Los Angeles and at some point taking a flight which is where the staple aeroplane number, ‘Take Off With Us’ takes place. We see ‘Take Off With Us’ in rehearsal, as Joe wrestles with choreography, the cast repeating the same eight counts while Joe paces up and down the studio completely blocked.

Joe re-stages the number just in time for an open rehearsal with the show’s producers. In a dusty dance studio what starts as a toe-tapping number with hats and gloves descends into a smoky, torch-lit exploration of Air Rotica: the airline that doesn’t just get you to places, it gets you off! The cast strip down into underwear and body stockings, the music is stripped back and honestly, the choreography is beautiful, especially the male pas de deux. With the dancers in only jockstraps you can appreciate the lines of their limbs and the shapes they make in counter-balances and lifts. It then goes one step further as a dancer reminds us about the airlines ‘group fun, fun, fun plan’. There are sweaty naked bodies, earnest presentations of group sex and a climatic solo on top of some scaffolding where pelvic thrusts match the sound of clashing keyboards and it is then that you wonder if it is supposed to be completely off the mark or completely genius.

Everything Old Is New Again
This is such a fun, playful number performed by Katie and Michelle to celebrate the release of ‘The Stand Up’. It reminds me of when you would put on shows for your parents as a child, making them sit in the living room while you perform the dance you’ve forced your sibling to learn all afternoon. Only, in this house, Michelle’s dance partner is a Broadway star! The chemistry between Ann Reinking and Erzesbet Földi is so natural and you truly believe that this is something they have choreographed together in an hour, rather than something that was rehearsed relentless for the shoot. Reinking’s long limbs look stunning in the arabesques and as she sweeps across the floor there are some gorgeous quintessential Fosse details in the choreography making it look both homemade and heightened. There is a great video on YouTube of Reinking and Földi talking about the process of working together on the film, I would highly recommend watching the whole thing but their take on rehearsing ‘Everything Old Is New Again’ is from 18.30 to 19.50.

Watch the whole song here!

There’ll be Some Changes Made
The film wryly plays with fantasy and the hospital hallucination sequence has four routines that take place while Joe is in recovery from open heart surgery. My favourite, and perhaps the most famous is ‘There’ll Be Some Changes Made’. With Reinking in the centre, in a bedazzled bowler hat and jacket, the number starts with a driving vamp and Reinking travels forward scooping her feet up into the neatest cou de pies’ I’ve ever seen. The choreography showcases her incredible control as she quickly transitions from sweeping high kicks to back bends while keeping her long body compact. She is also wearing what look like the LaDuca ‘Annie’ boots, originally designed for her and now a staple shoe for the brand and dancers worldwide.

While Bob Fosse perhaps took away some of the softer aspects of his nature when creating Joe Gideon, after watching Fosse/Verdon I now often get muddled between what was featured in the show and what was in All That Jazz. My love of the film is perhaps why I became as obsessed with the series as I did, it was like getting four more hours of a story I was completely enamoured by. The DVD bonus features and then some!

I think what I love most about All That Jazz is that it is simultaneously a love letter to Broadway, to show business and all the neurosis and narcissism that comes with it, but that Fosse shows the audience how hard these dancers and performers work. He purposely shows the sweat, the grit and the discipline that sits alongside the talent. Fundamentally, it is a story about Joe Gideon’s final months and his dance with death but the theatricality of the story, the sequences in all their technicolour glitter and glory are what keep me coming back and make the harsh reality of health and hearts hit even harder.

*Now it wouldn’t be a Double Feature without a little Midnight Bonus so if this hasn’t given you your Fosse fix you can listen to Fosse (Original Broadway Cast Recording) on Spotify. And as we saw Ms. Verdon last week, check out this rare footage of Ann Reinking being an absolute master of her art!