This article first appeared in the DeepFocus column "Scandal! Controversy! Cannes has such a past"
If you dare to hypothesize and make rash proofs: The controversy of Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz" winning Best Picture at Cannes in 1980 is that the director's self-analysis can be recognized at the artistic level The second controversy seems to be a subjective factor: the chairman of the Cannes jury was the American Kirk Douglas, and the jury awarded the Palme d'Or to Jazz Spring and Autumn because of the subjective factors of the judges. , after all, Douglas was a Broadway dancer.
"Jazz Spring and Autumn" is a semi-autobiographical film by Bob Fosse that carries the code of highly personal spiritual and psychological self-analysis, and incorporates the program of his lifelong singing and dancing to achieve the peak. Some people even call it "Musical Film" "Eight and a Half" in the label. Joe Gideon, played by Roy Scheider, is a Broadway mainstay, and he is so talented in dancing, choreography, and directing that he spends almost all his energy and time on it. Work comes first, and the work time is immersed in the dancer's body; the relative private life is bad, wandering in the female body. A deadly heart problem lurks in the deep water, and Gideon cannot escape the bomb until it erupts. The node of the body's fall and demise is also the peak of Gideon's artistic achievements. He belongs to the stage, although the stage is also Gideon's most ideal cemetery.
Gideon and Fox are very similar. The former is a mirror image of the latter. Fox is the only one who has won a Tony Award, an Emmy Award, and an Academy Award for Best Director ("Carbaret"). , 1972), who died of a heart attack in 1987 at the age of 60. The Palme d'Or, known as the "Palace of Art Films", actually fell on Fox's head.
Judging from the controversy of the year, "Time Out London" magazine believes that Fox spent a lot of space to show Gideon's heart is obscure rather than artistic, and the contrived image expression even choreographed the perfect song and dance in the film. Buried; "Variety" magazine believes that what is supporting Gideon's creation other than self, the film does not give a reasonable explanation. But it is almost universally recognized that the song and dance arrangement of "Jazz Spring and Autumn" is difficult to surpass. Even if the public in today's context is easily moved by "La La Land", however, "Jazz Spring and Autumn" takes pain as the main body and in an obscure form. " has always been the milestone of musical and dance movies, Stanley Kubrick bluntly said that this is the best movie he has ever seen. Fox brought the camera into the process of choreography without hesitation: under the extremely harsh command of Gideon (Fox), the actors' dancing bodies were like musical symbols on a staff, and Fox also brought the movement of the camera to the scene. It matches perfectly. If Robert Marshall's film version of "Chicago" is only a small hole to glimpse into the world of Fox, "Jazz Spring and Autumn" has entered the level of invisible beauty.
Perhaps behind Fox, Broadway has been difficult to raise new stars, and "Jazz Spring and Autumn", as Fox's mirror, shows Broadway's fragmented golden age to the public. The form in which the inner scene and the real scene are interlaced, and even the director extending from the actor to the off-screen is metaphysical. "Jazz Spring and Autumn" itself is an echo of the continuous pain, surpassing the form of musicals.
View more about All That Jazz reviews
