Bob Fosse’s 1979 movie “All That Jazz” is mirroring the character, Joe Gideon’s life to his own fascinating life as a director. The over all emotion had an overtly high stress level. In simplistic terms, it is about a man that is pushing his own personal limits to the point of a stroke and finally dead. As a viewer I picked up numerous metaphors. I singled out these main metaphors.
Jessica Lange played the “Angel” character that he would confess his truths or sins about his life. He would admit every personal or honest time he truly felt to this sexy veiled woman figure. In the movie she entered after bring up the woman he had an affair with in another city, which lead me to believe that she was also his idea of a perfect woman, an angel.
The comedian, Joe was editing is a reflection of self. He is always grasping for perfection and that is one thing that a lot of artist do have a problem with obsessions and perfectionism. Which is also apart of the character “Joe”, man domination and god-like mentality is made fun of by the comedian, which is how “Joe” saw himself. The comedian is also talk about the 5 moods one goes through to reach acceptance, specifically about death. He talks about dealing with God after death in a humorous light to make him seemingly taking nothing seriously about life.
The final musical finally of the operating room, death scene, no matter how many time I have seen this movie it always seems long and drown out. I have come to the conclusion that in movies “the death scene” is always dramatic. I think it is because there is so much to be said dying. I will explain my outtake, a creative man, like “Joe” has many images and ideas racing through his head more so than the norm. And they say that in the last moments when your brain is shutting down all these images and flashbacks of one’s history would race through your mind but to vividly grasp all these images, etc., it would take 20 to 30 minutes. Therefore a dramatic death scene singing “Bye, Bye Love” would be very fitting end the movie and his life.
The movies I would like to view this semester would be somewhat difficult because I am a movie nut an think I’ve seen just about all or most U.S. historically poniont films. But foreign film are some thing that I know about but still many I need to see and to get a global perspective of other countries influences and cultures. Also independent film with minimal marketing would be interesting from a low budget standpoint. I am interested is special effect movie but one’s I know I have seen and one’s I do not know I have not seen. It’s a vicious circle. You mentioned experimental film that could also work too but I have the mentality that I will watch anything because I always get something from it. One movie off hand would be “Kill Bill” by Quentin Tarentino influenced by the old Chinese martial arts films. You also mentioned about going to the movie theater to see current films which I would be very much up for that because right now in my life it is something that I do not always have time for. I guess I am not completely sure what to expect for this class, even though I read the class description on film image.
I am somewhat indifferent about a take-home exam or to do a paper on a movie and or introducing the movie and instigating a discussion after the movie. But I think a take-home exam would be more workable do to my busy schedule, other exams and projects. Also being a film major I just might take this class again, were I can suggest another option at that time.
Phillip D. Roeser 1/28/04 Copyright © 2007 PDRMediaHouse All Rights Reserved.