Tuesday, 16 March 2010

All That Jazz
(1979)

80%

WEBSITE: All That Jazz...


Incredibly honest and self recycling autobiography that is funny about major and universal themes. A musical-comedy about death, dying and sex is unusual, as is its take on what we make of our own lives.

Despite the essential awfulness of the central character, he is very talented indeed and women do really, really like him - despite themselves. A much more personal film than his earlier Cabaret but none the worse for that. The style is very reminiscent of the later BBC tv series The Singing Detective - only better and more believable.

The dance numbers are impeccable and imaginative throughout - as one would expect from director and choreographer Bob FOSSE - while the performances and the cynical humor ring very true. It is a little too long and the pace sometimes sluggish, but these are relatively minor complaints amid all the technical brilliance on show here.


Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.