All That Jazz (1979)

The Criterion edition confirms the film as a brilliant musical X-ray of showbiz excess and self-destruction. The transfer preserves the seamy, gritty, furious poetry of Fosse's direction and choreography.

The film is an uproarious display of brilliance, nerve, dance, maudlin confessions, inside jokes and ego, essentially a funny movie that operates on too many levels at once but gives the customers their money's worth. Some of it makes you wince, but a lot of it is great fun, with big beautiful steamy Fosse production numbers and the figure of a man who deserves the attention he affords himself.

The critic calls it a fascinating, imaginative and intimate biographical musical drama, a startlingly candid testament from Bob Fosse featuring sensational dancing and eye-popping production numbers. It is praised as an unmistakable classic that stands alongside Cabaret as one of the best musicals of its era.

The critic describes the film as a tricky masterpiece and a wrenching autobiographical work, noting its uncommonly heterosexual perspective on a philandering showman in a gay-dominated milieu while praising its matter-of-fact treatment of identity and personal neuroses.

Fosse warped the movie musical to his purposes in a way that could never quite be repeated; it is a bravura feat of narcissism and an obsessive biopic that exerts a morbid fascination rather than seeking audience approval, reaching a black-comic peak in the final musical number.

It is a self-important, egomaniacal, wonderfully choreographed, often compelling film portraying the energetic life and preoccupation with death of a director-choreographer who suffers a heart attack; Roy Scheider gives a superb performance, but the major flaw is its lack of real explanation of what beyond ego motivates the character.

The critic finds the film wretched and self-indulgent, with crass jokes, unfun dance routines assembled in editing, pretentious Fellini-esque moments, and ineffective surreal elements involving open-heart surgery and the Angel of Death.

The critic calls All That Jazz a masterpiece that blends musical, dark comedy, biopic and fantasy elements into a self-portrait of its director. He praises its hypnotic musical numbers, visceral style, and profound rumination on life and death.

The critic calls the film a stunning work of art and one of the 1970s’ last masterpieces of cynicism, singling out its manic energy, self-examination of show business sleaze, masterful editing, and unique embrace of death and fatalism.