All That Jazz

Introduction by Annie Baker

“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 specter of his own mortality. Reportedly called “[the] best film that I think I have ever seen” by Stanley Kubrick at the time of its release, the Palme d’Or- and Oscar-winning tour de force remained the last live-action musical to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture until 2002’s Moulin Rouge!