The director of Cabaret and the creator of Chicago, Bob Fosse was one of the most important figures in modern American musical theatre and film, and also one of the most daring. What other filmmaker before or since has been so bold as to film their own life story, warts and all, the bad as well the good, and then cap it with a vision of their own death? That’s All That Jazz, a dazzling backstage musical that recounts the last chaotic months in the life of rogueish, womanising Broadway director and choreographer “Joe Gideon”
It’s exactly the same fate that was to claim Fosse himself just a few years after the film’s completion. But far from being a sad tale, this is an outrageous and joyful celebration of a life well-lived and enjoyed to the full.
