Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Bye Bye Love


Throughout All That Jazz (1979), director Bob Fosse's fictive stand-in   -- the weak-hearted pill-popping philandering workaholic Joe Gideon   -- converses with Angelique, whose name speaks for itself. Angelique is typically constructed: she is always there and awaits him at the end.

Anyone who has seen the film knows the amazing song-and-dance finale (a comp on "Bye Bye Love"), the spectacular death of the artist who appears on-stage in a hospital bed surrounded by staff and loved ones as his able-bodied self spins and twirls and kisses his audience goodbye.

His final passage is comforting, with Gideon moving along a cat walk high above the stage. A visually and sonically perfect shot-reverse-shot sequence. At the end of his "walk": Angelique.

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