All That Jazz
The name Bob Fosse is synonymous with both the American musical and contemporary dance, and he practically invented “jazz hands.” His erotic and energized choreography changed what we talk about when we talk about dance — in fact, Fosse’s massive contributions to the concept of movement onstage have eclipsed his outstanding run as one of the great New Hollywood film directors. Between 1969 and 1983, Fosse directed a recklessly original handful of movies that make up one of the most consistently excellent filmographies in American cinema.
On April 9, FX will premiere Fosse/Verdon, an eight-episode limited TV series spotlighting the work/love relationship between Fosse (played by Sam Rockwell) and Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams), one of Broadway’s greatest dancers. Anticipating the premiere, the Belcourt Theatre is revisiting Fosse’s cinematic oeuvre. The series, titled All That Fosse, kicked off last week with the 1972 movie musical Cabaret, which won eight Academy Awards — including Best Actress for Liza Minnelli and Best Director for Fosse. Cabaret’s music and performance sequences definitely make it a “big screen” picture, and Nashville film lovers shouldn’t miss this chance to see the rest of these masterworks in the cinema.
Fosse made his directorial debut with 1969’s Sweet Charity (Feb. 9-10). It was a smart start for Fosse, who’d directed and choreographed the stage version of this musical about a young dancer (Shirley MacLaine) whose buoyant optimism helps her cope with romance and career frustrations. Sweet Charity gave Fosse a firm foundation in his first film foray, and his use of a montage of still images to evoke the aftermath of a broken relationship demonstrated a deep understanding of visual storytelling. That technique foreshadowed a career behind the camera that ultimately proved almost as restlessly innovative as his groundbreaking work on the stage.
Fosse’s third film (after Cabaret) was his first nonmusical feature, and it marks the director’s maturing into a visionary American auteur. Shot in gorgeous black-and-white by cinematographer Bruce Surtees, 1974’s Lenny (Feb. 16-17) is a biopic about pioneering stand-up comic Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman), who became famous for his controversial, taboo-tweaking act. Obscenity laws and a heavy drug habit sent Bruce’s life and career into a spiral of chaos, and the comedian died of a morphine overdose at age 40. Bruce is still considered the godfather of a strain of comedy that runs from George Carlin and Richard Pryor to Bill Hicks and Chris Rock, and his status as a champion of the First Amendment makes his story especially timely in our current atmosphere of dissent and censorship. The #MeToo movement exposed Dustin Hoffman as an alleged sexual abuser, and Lenny reminds us he’s also one of the great actors of his generation.
Star 80
Star 80 (Feb. 17 & 19), released in 1983, is Fosse’s darkest film, and it also gives us the best performance of Eric Roberts’ erratic career. Dorothy Stratten (Mariel Hemingway) is a beautiful teenager with dreams of Hollywood stardom. Paul Snider (Roberts) is a conniving Svengali with grand delusions about money and fame. This true story of love and murder reflects Fosse’s filmic fascination with the hellish underbelly of show business, and his juxtaposition of palm trees and perversion results in supremely skanky cinema. Roberts oozes menace as the snakelike Snider, and if you know Julia’s brother only from his Best of the Best films, this tour de force performance — which earned him a Golden Globe nomination — is going to hit you like a roundhouse kick.
If you see only one of Fosse’s films, 1979’s semi-autobiographical All That Jazz (Feb. 23 & 26) is my pick to get you primed for the Fosse/Verdon premiere. Here the master turns the camera on himself — with Roy Scheider as Fosse stand-in Joe Gideon — in a bravura display of dynamic dance and drug-fueled decadence. Outstanding editing and outlandishly staged fantasy sequences make All That Jazz a surreal love letter to the stage from one of its most talented and tormented stars. Ann Reinking plays Gideon’s girlfriend Katie, and her sex-lectric strutting to “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” is a pure distillation of Fosse’s dance choreography.
