All That Jazz

Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical biopic follows a self-destructive choreographer and director who slowly breaks down between Broadway rehearsals, film sets, pills, cigarettes and hospital stays. Reality, fantasy and a longing for death blur into an intoxicating, relentlessly honest swan song to artistic megalomania - and to a man who is incapable of sparing himself.

All That Jazz is a film that uses every single one of its means with absolute precision. The editing - rousing, rhythmic, almost musical - gives the film an energy that lasts from the first to the last minute. The production design is breathtakingly consistent: in a color film, black and white are celebrated in a way that gives the film a visual language that has never been seen before and will not soon be forgotten.

Roy Scheider, then best known as the lead actor in Jaws (1975), delivers one of the most courageous and complex performances of New Hollywood - restless, charismatic and deeply vulnerable. All That Jazz is great, painful cinema: a work that blurs the line between self-expression and self-destruction beyond recognition.