Though he only directed five feature films, Bob Fossemade a seismic impression on the world of film from which it has never recovered. The chain-smoking choreographer turned director remains one of the most respected and revered men in both fields, and his body of work on film—pitifully small though it may be—was enough to influence a generation, as well as generations to come.
Bob Fosse the man was also one of the most notoriously promiscuous in the entertainment industry. Certainly his off-stage antics would be enough to make him a pariah of the MeToo Movement—had he lived long enough to see it come to fruition—but his death long before such a time ensures his legacy remains mostly untarnished. That he was willing to call himself out for this in his own work points to him operating on a whole other level of either egotism or self-loathing, or more likely, a healthy mix of the two.
In case I didn't make it clear, Bob Fosse wasa man obsessed with sex. Consumed by it. It was his greatest weakness as a man and his greatest strength as an artist. To this day, his choreographyis synonymous with sex, and the work he created is among the most sexually charged in all of the arts. His film career started just as censorship started to relax in this country, creating a perfect storm: Bob Fosse was the right man at the right time, and he redefined what sexy is.
Bob Fosse was one of those men who, to borrow a rather piggish phrase, knew what women wanted. He knew that women got off on slow, precise movements that build slowly over the course of a number, often climaxing in an orgiastic explosion of limbs. It was the tease of it all, leading you on, luring you in, and then giving you the release. It's no coincidence that both Cabaret and All That Jazzare carefully constructed this way, and that both end with a celebration of music and an explosion of emotion that's immediately brought back down to earth by a chilling final shot.
By the time Fosse made his directorial debut with 1969's Sweet Charity, he was already a legend in the world of theatre. His legend on film, however, was just beginning...
Cabaret
Fosse pulled a major coup with his second feature film winning the Best Director Oscar over Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather. In fact, Cabaret won 8 Oscars in the same year The Godfather only won three. There was a point in the evening when it seemed it may even win the big prize of the night, but Coppola's crime saga prevailed.Film snobs love to write this film off for being the one that prevented Coppola from winning another Oscar, but those people have clearly never seen Cabaret.
Anyone who lays eyes on this film will know immediately why it was such an awards darling, and deservedly so. Fosse brings us back tothe waning days of the Weimar Republic in Germany for this musical where he places all of the numbers—save one chilling scene—inside the Kit Kat Klub. This seedy nightspot seems like a refuge from the encroaching Nazi threat, but little by little, that feeling of comfort erodes, especially as the musical numbers begin to comment on the drama unfolding in the non-musical sections of the film.
Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli both won Oscars for their work in this film, and though she has become something of a punchline over the last thirty years, Liza is jaw-droppingly good in the film. Minnelli shows us how sexy Fosse's minimal dance moves can be without taking off a stitch of clothing. With the twitch of her fingers, she can send shivers down your spine...
His composition is immaculate throughout the musical numbers like "Mein Herr," framing a sexy shot of Liza through the legs of another dancer, and always cutting on the beat...
Liza brings the house down in the film's finale with the number "Cabaret,"the thesis statement of her characterSally Bowles.The character has hit rock bottom in real life, butit isn't long before Fosse lets her cut loose with some rather overtly sexual choreography...
Though filmed during the early days of the MPAA ratings system that would've allowed Fosse to get dirty, he preferred to keep things as they were during that time period, when sexiness took many forms, none of them explicit. It may not be the all-out bacchanalia of All That Jazz, but it's sexy in a very different way. As British critic Peter Bradshaw said in his 2013 review of the film, "Cabaretis drenched in the sexiest kind of cynicism and decadent despair."
Lenny
For his first non-musical film, Fosse depicted the life of another controversial chain-smoking figure in the entertainment industry, comedian and social activist Lenny Bruce, played here brilliantly by Dustin Hoffman. Lenny was Fosse's first surrogate protagonist for a film, andthe filmmaker mines Bruce's struggles for maximum pathos. It's hard being a genius is a theme that will run throughout Fosse's final three films, and it almost pains me to admit that this is the easiest of the three on its main character.
Shot in stark black and white, the film turns into vintage erotica in its several nude scenes. Fourteen minutes in, we get the first of several sex scenes between Hoffman's Lenny and Valerie Perrine's Honey Bruce. There is a feeling throughout the film that Honey, being a former stripper, is willing to explore sexual avenues that other women might not.
Any tortured but brilliant Bob Fosse protagonisthas to havean insatiable libido, and Perrine's incredible performance gives able support to Hoffman until the very end. These are two lost soulsthat bond over their deepest needs:she can give him sexual satisfaction and in return, he can make her laugh...
Valerie Perrine's tongue operates in the way so many individual body parts do in Fosse's work, calling attention to themselves when everything around them is still. It's kind of unbearably sexy the way she flicks her tongue across her teeth here...
Fosse was the master of slow, steady, painfully sexy imagery, as demonstrated here by the threesome between Hoffman, Perrine, and Kathryn Witt...
Super hot, super erotic stuff in a film that's not overtly sexual in other regards. The film itself is much more interested in Bruce's countless battles with censors, authorities, and heroin addiction, with numerous long sequences spent with the comedian on stage. It's shocking to get sexual content this erotic in a film that's not solely devoted to it. Can you imagine if Fosse had lived long enough to direct a Red Shoe Diary? Not that he would have, but holy fuck.
Fosse mounted Chicago on Broadway at the same time he made this film. He suffered a heart attack for his efforts and rather than do the sane thing and take stock and buckle down a bit, he doubled down. His next film wasn't the work of a more restrained artist, it was a madman summoning demons and condemning himself for having done so.
All That Jazz
Fosse lays it all on the line in what I consider to be his masterpiece. All That Jazzfollows the life and loves of Joe Gideon—Roy Scheider, in the performance of his career—a demanding choreographer and director who is exhausted from simultaneously mounting a big Broadway production and directing a film about a controversial comedian. He spends his mornings popping pills and his nights hopping from bed to bed with a bevy of women, many of whom sleep with him for the promise of better roles in his productions.
Any of this ringing a bell? It's ballsy, to say the least, but for Fosse to pull it off as spectacularly as he does is nothing short of a miracle. He explores his relationship with Gwen Verdon via Leland Palmer's Audrey Paris, and even cast his real life mistress, Ann Reinking, to play essentially herself. It sounds masturbatory, but Fosse never takes any pains to make Gideon the good guy, very deliberately. He does, however, more or less excuse his terrible behavior by saying, "I'm not gonna change and it's gonna kill me eventually, and I'm okay with that."
Some of the film's nudity is almost an afterthought, with the focus staying on Gideon, even as a woman takes off her top in the frame. Poor, unsuspecting dancer Victoria (Deborah Geffner) catches Gideon's eye during an audition and he invites her over the night he casts her in his new show. This early nude scene demonstrates that Gideon is almost over sex at this point, but not to the point where he won't follow her upstairs...
Later in the film, he does seem to enjoy sex, just not at the most opportune moment. After his doctor gives him orders to rest and get better, we get a montage of him defying doctor's orders, culminating in him bedding nurse Sue Paul...
All That Jazz also features what may be the sexiest dance number ever put on film. As a "fuck you" to a corporate sponsorship of his new Broadway spectacular, Gideon re-choreographs an entire dance number set on an airplane into a treatise on anonymous sex in the late 70s...
It's an amazing collision of bodies that are the model of perfection—both male and female—that titillate and tantalize the viewer...
While appearing on Tom Snyder's show, the host told Fosse that this was sexier than any pornography he'd ever seen, and I'm almost inclined to agree with him. This is seriously steamy stuff, especially thanks to the no-holds-barred antics of the fantastically flexible Sandahl Bergman!
In the end, however, Gideon pays for his sins and though he gets a blow-out musical goodbye as he and Ben Vereen sing and dance their way through "Bye Bye Life"—a riff on The Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love." Despite that upbeat, bittersweet musical number, however, the film's final shot is a sucker punch. Gideon floats offstage toward Jessica Lange's angel of death, whom Gideon has been speaking with throughout the film, and then we cut suddenly to his corpse being zipped up in a body bag while Ethel Merman sings "There's No Business Like Show Business."
Certainly the film has its detractors, and every potential problem one could have with the film, its subject, and its creator is likely valid. I find the artistry on display to be above any such reservations I may have. Yes, it's borderline narcissism, but Fosse is his own harshest critic, which is something many narcissists don't deal well with, self reflection. The loathing is almost as strong as the loving, but I think Fosse successfully navigates this tightrope walk, leaving us with the definitive version of his own story, however fictional he may have insisted the film was.
Star 80
If you thought things were depressing before, this film starts where All That Jazz left you and it only gets worse. The phrase "the bloom was off the rose" applies to his view of the way men use sex for power in this tragic true story of Playboy Playmate of the Year for 1980, Dorothy Stratten. Played here by Mariel Hemingway—in what should have been a star-making turn—Fosse weaves a tale of a woman manipulated by many different, powerful men, all of whom fail to protect her from the real danger, her psychopathic ex-husband Paul Snider, played by Eric Roberts in what is arguably his finest performance.
The film is a condemnation of the people in Dorothy's life that failed to protect her from Paul's evil grasp, making her shocking death all the more unsettling. It's no wonder everyone close to the deceased Playmate disavowed the film. The whole thing had only happened two years prior to Fosse releasing the film in 1983, turning the dark film into a hot potato no one wanted to get caught holding.
Fosse casts his gaze on the three powerful men in Stratten's life: Snider, Hugh Hefner (Cliff Robertson), and Aram Nicholas (Roger Rees)—a surrogate for real-life director Peter Bogdanovich, who was in a relationship with Stratten at the time of her murder. While Fosse obviously saves his deepest loathing for Snider, his opinion of the other two isn't much higher. They are shown as manipulative, controlling, and ultimately apathetic to the real danger in which she found herself.
Fosse takes no pleasure in relating to Snider, which is likely why he loathes the character so much.Eric Robertsadmitted in interviews that Fosse encouraged him toplay Snider as Fosse had he not achieved success. Fosse admitted readily that he could have very easily become bitter and angry like Snider, thus making him an uncomfortably relatable character. Fosse exposes the misogynistic rage Snider carries around as hollow and Roberts plays it as an indictment of his own insecurities.
As for the sex and nudity in the film, it's almost all presented with a smearing of vaseline on Fosse's lens, softened to the point where they look like a Playboy pictorial from the era. There's plenty of Fosse's precise cutting to be found here, with the frame freezing as the sound of a camera shutter hits on the soundtrack...
Early in the film, before their relationship disintegrates, Snider takes Polaroids of Stratten, with a unique exposure happening on film to coincide with the flash bulbs on top of Snider's camera...
Fosse uses the sex and nudity to lure you into a false sense of eroticism, despite the framing device that informs you of Stratten's murder before the film proper even starts. It's a savvy move on Fosse's part to make the nudity sexy, as if that was the justification used by Snider, Hefner, and Bogdanovich: She gets a lot of guys off, who cares about the one or two that may take things too far?
It's a scathing condemnation of the entertainment industry in general, and that it's Fosse's final film makes it something of a thesis statement on his view of the industry he was a part of from the age of 13. It's no mistake that this was the last message he sent before his untimely death in 1987 at the age of 59. Men sure do love beautiful women, but they use those women to their own ends with little consideration of what will happen to them afterwards. It's bone chilling,eerily prescient, and socially progressive for a film made 35 years ago.
Like I said earlier, Fosse's career likely wouldn't have survived the MeToo Movement, but he was certainly one of the most vocal male supporters of the message behind the movement. Bob Fosse loved women, but he also respected them in a way so few of his male contemporaries did, including many men we've already covered in this series. Perhaps that's why no one, even his jilted lovers, ever had anything bad to say about him. He may have loved a great many women, but they damn sure loved him right back.
