BEFORE: Again, probably posting late today, but for a different reason, I had a job interview and I don't want to jinx it so no details, but if this comes through I might have a summer job to replace my other job which tends to slow down over the summer. More updates as they become available, but since I won't know anything until after the July 4 holiday, I'm just going to file for partial unemployment next week, to be on the safe side. I still have a paycheck coming from working the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this month, and I put in a LOT of hours so I'm hoping for a deposit in my account that will make me happy.
Valerie Perrine carries over from "Valerie" - Bob Fosse directed the film "Lenny" which she got her Oscar nomination for, so it's only natural that they should appear in each other's documentaries.
THE PLOT: A story about the 8-time Tony Award-winning director, choreographer and cinematographer Bob Fosse which focuses on some of the gray areas of his life and his self-destructive side.
AFTER: I spotted this one on Amazon Prime and figured I just HAD to work it into the chain - bear in mind that the finalized chain can still be used as a framework, one which I can attach more films to, like the Christmas tree is never really done, you can always add one more ornament if you really want to. I'll still be on track for July 4 material and I'll still land that doc about the comedian right on the anniversary of his death, so I'm maybe going to have to circle the airport a bit, but we're still cleared for landing on schedule. I feel like I know who Bob Fosse was, but still I don't really know who Bob Fosse was - maybe I just feel like I should know more about Bob Fosse overall. Well, that's what documentaries are for, right?
Fosse won a Best Director Oscar for "Cabaret". Oh, yeah, sure, respect. That same year he won 2 Tonys and an Emmy, and nobody ever did all that in one year, not before Fosse or after. Like he was 3/4 of the way to an EGOT within one calendar year. He only directed five films, but those films were VERY notable - "Sweet Charity", "Cabaret", "Lenny", "All That Jazz" and "Star 80". SO much stage work as a choreographer, on "The Pajama Game", "Damn Yankees", "Bells are Ringing", "Pippin", "Chicago", "Sweet Charity" and "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", and many more. The doc really focuses on those films, though, because footage from them is relatively available, footage of the Broadway shows, not so much.
Where the hell did they get these scrubs to talk about Fosse's career? I've never heard of any of these people, Will Young seems to be the most notable, but he's got zero IMDB credits, so I still don't know who the hell he is. The ones who do have credits seem to have worked only as critics on BBC art shows, why couldn't they interview people who worked with Fosse, or knew Fosse, this felt like those horrible cable docs I watched last year about David Bowie and Elton John, all of the information comes across like hearsay, we don't know if these people are just repeating stories they read about Fosse in a book or something. Where is the research? Or did somebody just blow the budget on getting archive footage from "Star 80" and "Cabaret", leaving nothing to travel to NY and interview actual Broadway performers?
I'm glad they took the time to explain Fosse's style of choreography somewhat, like the finger-snapping, the turned-in knees, the shoulder rolls and what they call the "amoeba", that's the group of dancers that coalesces and kind of moves across the stage together. Yes, I know Robin Williams made fun of Fosse moves in "The Birdcage", but for the life of me I couldn't remember how he moved his body when he said, "You, you do Fosse Fosse Fosse!" However it's still a big NITPICK POINT for me that the sequences here of four dancers doing Fosse moves over and over and over is MUCH too long. In an hour-long documentary, 10 minutes of instructional dance is just overkill.
But Fosse invented jazz hands, maybe that's all you really need to know, and for a choreographer to coin a term like that and have it catch on all across musical theater and enter the vernacular language, that's a really big deal. Fosse liked using hats because he suffered from premature baldness (relatable) and he liked dancers in fishnets and tight clothing because he was a total perv. Well he grew up working in strip-clubs in his teens, so sure, that explains a lot.
Dancing since the age of 13, he also served in the U.S. Navy starting in 1945, stayed in the Pacific Theater until 1947, but performing in actual theaters as part of the Special Services that entertained the troops. After getting discharged he went straight to NYC to try to become the next Fred Astaire. Well, he danced like Astaire but that's where the resemblance ended, he couldn't act worth a damn, so he stuck to dancing and became a choreographer too. "Kiss Me Kate" in 1953 was one of the earliest films to have a Bob Fosse dance sequence. After that it was easier for him to find dance & choreography work in theater, but then there came a time when all those Broadway shows like "Damn Yankees" and "The Pajama Game" started being turned into movies, so he just followed the trend and worked on movies.
Becoming a film director was the next logical step - after all, what is a director but a choreographer for actors, if you think about it? I've never seen "Sweet Charity" but after seeing some scenes here I'd give it a whirl, it looks very trippy, also hippy-dippy. They're running "Lenny" on cable now so I should probably put that one on my list, too, you know how I love to be a completist. It took me a long time to watch "Cabaret", but I eventually got there - and I'd seen "All That Jazz" and "Star 80" when I was a teen, because nudity. I didn't stop to think back then how Roy Scheider playing a hard-working, burnt out, drug-addicted womanizing choreographer was really Bob Fosse putting his own experiences right there on film for everyone to see.
No judgments, come on, it was the 1970s and everybody was doing drugs and sleeping around and trying to make films like Fellini. But we know that Fosse was using amphetamines to work harder and longer and downers so he could sleep, and that's what's known as an (eventual) lethal combination. Fosse had a heart attack in September 1987, so really his lifestyle cut his career short after five films and only a zillion stage productions. I know they also made a mini-series about Fosse's life and relationship with Gwen Verdon, I've been meaning to check that out, but I've got a long list of TV shows that I haven't been getting to - if I get the new job that would become impossible for me. But it stars Sam Rockwell and I like him so I will try.
This doc also speculates that if Fosse had lived, he probably would have gotten around to directing a film version of "Chicago", and he wanted Madonna to star in it. Without Fosse the film version was mired in development hell for decades, though we finally got a film version in 2002 that won Best Picture. True Fosse fans will probably say his version would have been better, but what could be "better" than Best Picture?
Directed by Lucia Helenka
Also starring James Barton, David Benedict, Vanessa Fenton, Emma Harris, Merritt Moore, Geraldine Morris, Louise Redknapp, Jason Solomons, Kelsey Williams, Will Young,
with archive footage of Bob Fosse (also carrying over from "Valerie"), Dustin Hoffman (ditto), Sandahl Bergman (last seen in "The Singing Detective"), Sammy Davis Jr. (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Richard Gere (last seen in "The Benefactor"), Charles Grass, Joel Grey (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Mariel Hemingway (last seen in "The Mean Season"), Paula Kelly (last seen in "Soylent Green"), Jessica Lange (last seen in "Marlowe"), Jerry Lewis (last seen in "Famous Nathan"), Liza Minnelli (ditto), Shirley MacLaine (last seen in "American Dreamer"), Dean Martin (last seen in "Sid & Judy"), Joan McCracken, Mary Ann Niles, Ann Reinking (last seen in "All That Jazz"), Chita Rivera (last seen in "Bathtubs Over Broadway"), Eric Roberts (last seen in "Babylon"), Cliff Robertson (last seen in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Roy Scheider (last seen in "The Myth of Fingerprints"), Gwen Verdon (last seen in "Alice"), Ben Vereen (last seen in "Top Five"), Michael York (last seen in "The Taming of the Shrew"), Renee Zellweger (last seen in "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?")
RATING: 4 out of 10 moves that were stolen by Michael Jackson (yes, even the moonwalk)
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