All That Jazz

Wednesday 2 July at 7.30pm

Bob Fosse | USA | 1979 | 123 mins | M

Brazenly turning the camera onto a fictionalised version of his own life, gifted director and choreographer Bob Fosse delivers a wildly imaginative backstage musical masterpiece.

“‘It’s showtime, folks!’ That’s the refrain of anxiety-ridden and unhealthily driven choreographer and stage director Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) at the center of Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical musical extravaganza, which also features star turns by the likes of Ann Reinking (playing a version of herself), Ben Vereen, and Jessica Lange. Scheider is never less than captivating in his portrayal of Gideon, a complicated figure not so secretly patterned after Fosse himself, as he navigates a frenetic array of personal and professional commitments and the lingering spectre of his own mortality.”—Film at Lincoln Center

“Blending Broadway and filmmaking razzle-dazzle with American New Wave grit, and incorporating nonlinear editing techniques that had begun in early 20th century experimental cinema and blossomed in mid-century art house classics like Hiroshima, Mon Amour, this is one of the most aesthetically sophisticated, morally complex, and sheerly pleasurable films ever made.”—Matt Zoeller Seitz