Hm. Wow. I hope you’re not jumping to any particular conclusions here. If you think it’s more “feminine” to expect your boyfriend to risk his multimillion-dollar movie to falsely massage your self-esteem, I’d call that pretty backward myself. Talk about your affirmative action. Hopefully, Reinking regarded winning the role of “Reinking”* as proof that she could cut the mustard in front of a camera, and not just in bed. I would hope that she would want to have earned the role honestly.
*Notice you put “Fosse” in quotes above, but not Reinking. With the quotes you acknowledge that “Fosse” is not quite *really *Fosse, but an actor playing a role *based *on Fosse. You should acknowledge as much for “Reinking.”
There was a Broadway show that was basically what you describe, called Fosse (which was, incidentally, co-directed and co-choreographed by the aforementioned Ann Reinking). I don’t think it was ever filmed, though.
Reread the sentence. “Fosse” refers to Joe Gideon, a character based on Fosse. Fosse refers to Fosse. Reinking refers to Reinking.
And hokey-doke on women agreeing. I was just struck by the fact that the first three answers were people who I know are guys – I don’t know the gender of everyone who has posted in the thread, though, and was curious to see if there was a gender line here or not. You’ll note I didn’t immediately default to screaming feminist tirade, but rather asked about it.
Female, loved the movie, of course she had to audition. Look at it this way: (1) otherwise she would just have gotten the part because she was Fosse’s g.f. and who wants that? (2) as Fosse’s g.f. surely she knew how he was, i.e., something of an asshole, and (3) anyway she got the part(!)
There was a (4) but I’ve forgotten what it was supposed to be.
As a matter of fact, it was shown on TV as part of PBS’ Great Performances series. It included filmed interviews with Anne Reinking. Oddly enough, I just watched my DVD of it the other day. I do not, however, have a copy of “All That Jazz”, which I agree was a great movie.
Look at it this way. Fosse had already auditioned himself for the role of Joe Gideon and rejected himself. He knew he wasn’t a good enough actor for the role (and Fosse had acted on film before). Furthermore, he had written a script in which a character based on himself was a total jerk. He had resisted the impulse to make the character nicer than he actually was. (Well, unless someone who knows more about Fosse than I do can tell us that there were deeper levels to Fosse’s jerkiness than are revealed in the film.)
Wow…I had no idea there was a permanent visual record! I have the soundtrack (and Sing, Sing, Sing! is on my walking CD(because nothing gets the hips going like swing)). I might have to look for this…
It is available on DVD. They shot the stage show for video. It has some great moments, but like to many modern video directors, there are many cuts and close-ups for a dance movie. They just should have put the camera in row five and let it ride. The last director who knew how to shoot dance was Fosse. (Reinking was the director/choreographer of the play, but she didn’t direct the vid.
On another note, Reinking while good on film, spent most of her professional life on stage in live theatre.
OF course Fosse had to audition her. When you see the film, there is a line from a pair of girls cut from his audition:
Girl 1: “Fuck him”
Girl 2: “I did fuck him and I still didn’t get the part.”
From what I’ve read, Fosse was a brilliant, brilliant choreographer who thought everything he touched turned to s—. He was as hard on himself as he was on his dancers. He also screwed, or tried to screw, every woman within sight, but that both Reinking and Gwen Verdon (his wife and also Lola in Damn Yankees) continued to work with him, and I assume remain fond of him, despite his affairs. (Verdon was with Fosse when he collapsed and died on a D.C. streetcorner, just prior to a revival of “Sweet Charity.”)
Two facts that amused me about Fosse:
“All That Jazz” has the “Air Erotica” dance segment (starring Sandhal Bergman) that was swiped damn near whole for Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted Snake” video. That alone should make it worth seeing the movie. (I loved the film, but the last production with Roy and Ben Vereen went on waaaay too long.)
And one of Fosse’s dancers was Bebe Neuwirth (Lilith on “Cheers”). She’s among several dancers in a picture of Fosse that’s on the back of the Fosse biography “Razzle Dazzle”This photo isn’t from the book, but from about that time she worked with him.
I’ve thought about opening a thread on that revue – I thought it was AWFUL!!!
There’s this saying (Debussy? John Gage? Miles Davis?) that music is the space between the notes. They left out all the spaces, in that show - it’s just one exclamation point after another.
Fosse was all about the tease, working it just along the edge.
Well I say I’m rather pleased that Fosse decided to be a hardass about auditioning ALL the players – the result was a quite enjoyable experience. I was not familiar with his work (or, heck, with “modern” B’way in general) when I first saw ATJ (somewhat over a year after it was 1st-run) but it hit a right note with me.
Yes. I saw it in highschool, when I was a “drama fag” (held the state record for shortest time to qualify for Thespians), and the experience of seeing *ATJ * was the beginning of turning me from the stage to the screen, obsession-wise.
For the uninitiated, here are the remarkable first 10 minutes of the film–which gives you a pretty good idea what the rest will be like (generally SFW though a few F-bombs turn up).
ATJ is equally driven by self-awareness and rampant egomania and makes for compelling viewing, even during the dry spells (mostly the whole editing of faux-Lenny). And Roy Scheider has never been better–a gutsy, fearless performance (especially during the final closing number, when the whole thing sits on a precipice). The same year as Apocalypse Now, it won twice as many Oscars as the Coppola and deserved every one (though K vs. K took the big prizes).
And since nobody’s mentioned it yet, it was modeled (loosely) on Fellini’s 8 1/2 (interestingly, Woody Allen’s S&L was also modeled off of a Fellini: La Strada)
