I mostly enjoyed it (too much emphasis on closeups; not enough sense of the stage–and I would have liked fantasy to have encroached a bit on reality, not so much cut back and forth between two very distinct sets during a musical number) but almost every thing I liked should earn Fosse’s estate some dough: the dancing, the staging, the very tone and texture of the film was lifted whole from ‘Sweet Charity’ or ‘Cabaret.’
Not that this is a bad thing; the borrowing was so explicit that Marshall can be said to be celebrating Fosse rather than cribbing. But still . . .
Fosse did the original stage version and the current stage version is a straight re-do of that.
I think the film pretty much had to do a Fosse style dance or it would have never opened in NYC. When I saw it at the Ziegfield here in NYC I think the entire audience had seen at least one of the stage versions and a fair number of them had seen both versions. If the film failed on it’s limited release it would have never reached the rest of the country or gone on to be Miramax’s highest grossing film.
I’ve seen both the stage and screen versions of Chicago (and I’m going to see the stage play again in June), and I can tell you that Marshall’s choreography is very different from Fosse’s. To tell the truth, I’m amazed that Lissener sees any similarity in their styles at all.
For one thing, Fosse’s signature move is the isolation of body parts: hands or heads moving independently of the rest of the body, as in the “Rich Man’s Frug” number from Sweet Charity or “Mein Herr” from Cabaret. There’s none of that in the film version of Chicago. In the stage production, the “Cell Block Tango” is performed with chairs with the dancers moving in a circle during the chorus. Marshall staged the film version of that number like a series of Marseille Apache dances. The only number I can think of that has even remotely similar choreography is the “Hot Honey Rag” number at the end.
ajaye, Gwen Verdon was not the only holder of Bob Fosse’s legacy. Ann Reinking, Fosse’s long-time lover and muse (she played herself in All That Jazz), put together the recent show Fosse, which has toured extensively, using his numbers from various stage and screen productions.
I have read about Marshall choosing to “celebrate” Fosse’s choreography rather than “copying” it. Obviously, young Rob has never heard the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Forgot a thought- most of Fosse’s work has been preserved on film and/or tape, so it would be very easy indeed to teach it to generations of young dancers.