Dual Dialectic in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz

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Just a quick write-up on the dialectic. Actually the dual dialectics.

It's Bob Fosse's semi-fictionalized autobiography, written and directed by the man himself, and told partially through musical dance numbers in the sexy upbeat style he was known for. One of the great films about an artist's life, told largely through his art. He was one of those tortured types, hard-driven to perform at a high level, and using drugs alcohol and sex (with an endless lineup of dancers) to push himself through it all. And, like so many others who burned so brightly, it burned him out.

I see 2 dialectics in this one. The main one, the one the movie is structured around, is realism vs dreamlike hallucination of a very specific sort. His hallucinations as he lay dying in a hospital bed take the form of musical numbers featuring his wife, daughter, mistress, and some of the lovely dancers he betrayed them with. Also Jessica Lange as a gorgeous and seductive angel of death, flirting with him throughout until the end when he belongs entirely to her. She's in a wedding gown and veil, his bride-to-be—the only woman he can be faithful to.

So the dialectic is between realistically portrayed moments of the life that shaped him, and increasingly hallucinatory dance numbers. It's definitely got the yin/yang balance, the pebble & string dynamic—sometimes he reels in the pebble toward gritty realism, sometimes he pays string out toward dreamlike fantasy numbers. And the closer he gets to death the more hallucinatory it becomes.

The second dialectic bears an inverse relationship to the first, and involves lies and truth. In the realistic scenes he's always putting on a show—charming and cavalier. Hiding the stress, the exhaustion and drugs, the infidelity etc. But as he gets closer to death the lies peel away and he becomes more honest.

Interesting double-dialectic.

In some ways it isn't a poetic film—it's all talk and singing and action and Hollywood editing etc—standard narrative stuff, but it is poetic in certain regards. The very fact that there are musical numbers gives it rhythm and repetition, lyricism, and certain other poetic elements. The dream/hallucination aspects also lend a strong poetic sensibility. I'd say it's at least pseudo-linear, but frequently broken up by flashbacks and hallucination sequences. And though the hallucinations are probably all occurring when he's in his hospital bed near the end, they're peppered throughout the film. Like Pulp Fiction, you have to work a bit to piece it together, but by the end the structuring strategy is clearly revealed.

The only thing approaching an arc for the main character is that he goes through the 5 stages of death, from denial to acceptance. And also from charming lies to the bare truth. Ok, maybe that is an arc now that I think about it. And the fact that he doesn't complete it until the moment of his death probably served as inspiration for Aronofsky's Black Swan. But that doesn't belong in this writeup.

I guess that covers it. Here, bonus video:

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2nd bonus video, a reward for the latecomers who haven't read this yet. I always spend a good hour or 2 editing and adding to these posts.
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