The Big Picture
Roy Scheider’s best performance in
All That Jazz
showcases a completely different side compared to his usual roles in grittier crime dramas.
Joe Gideon, Scheider’s character, is a tense director and choreographer dealing with personal and professional struggles in the film.
All That Jazz
explores deep themes of mortality and grief, showcasing Scheider’s versatility and handling of complex emotions.
One of the most recurring images in cinematic pop culture history is the famous dolly-zoom on Sheriff Brody in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Roy Scheider, who portrays Brody, is the face of this moment. He gave an iconic performance in one of the most recognizable and beloved movies of all time. Scheider was also a frequent player in many grittier cop dramas throughout the 1970s, portraying detectives in films such as The French Connection and The Seven-Ups. But these badge-toting crime stoppers, while great, are not Scheider’s best work.
Scheider’s best performance is also his most atypical, stepping into the role of a passionate director and choreographer in Bob Fosse’s 1979 film, All That Jazz. The film follows Scheider as Joe Gideon, a worn-out, difficult, but extremely talented and respected director of screen and stage work who is juggling a film in post-production and an upcoming Broadway musical while internally obsessing over his own mortality. Gideon is a showy, brash character who charms in his own way but ditches the warm affectation people love in Scheider’s Jaws performance. The film, which was largely based on Fosse’s own life, gave Scheider a chance to make a massive impression in a completely new light. All That Jazz garnered Scheider an Academy Award nomination and remains one of his most acclaimed performances. The variety and depth of emotions offered by the character of Joe Gideon are handled masterfully by Scheider, who is digging into the psyche of Fosse himself to mine this excellent performance.
All That Jazz
Director/choreographer Bob Fosse tells his own life story as he details the sordid career of Joe Gideon, a womanizing, drug-using dancer.
Release Date December 20, 1979
Runtime 123 mins
Studio 20th Century Fox
‘All That Jazz’ Showed a Different Side of Roy Scheider
Scheider’s other most well-known performances are all as detectives or police officers. Even Jaws, which is certainly not a crime film, still features him as the sheriff, although in more of a small-town Andy Griffith kind of way. Scheider carried a badge well, and his performances in films like The French Connection communicated a lot of grit, while Jaws sees his fatherly charm radiate off the screen in quieter moments. All That Jazz is comparatively lower stakes. There are no murderers or killer sharks, but the film still puts Scheider against the ropes. Gideon is a character who is internally struggling to manage his personal and professional life while maintaining his health. From the opening moments, which give us the now-iconic “It’s showtime, folks!” refrain that has been referenced even as recently as Better Call Saul, Gideon is tension personified.
Scheider’s other notable on-screen performances are much more measured characters. In Jaws, he is the trusty and reliable figure who keeps his head clear. His everyman qualities make him capable of being the one to rise up to extraordinary feats, like surviving the bout with a deadly great white, in a fairly grounded and relatable fashion. Scheider as Joe Gideon is anything but measured. This is an extremely nervous performance. At any given moment, it feels like there are a million things bouncing around in Gideon’s head, and he is not quite able to handle just one at a time.
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The musicality and performance qualities of Gideon’s character, who is himself a dancer, shows a side of Scheider that is certainly absent from any of the grittier police dramas he has appeared in. The film’s existential themes position Scheider to explore a wide range of emotions relating to grief and death, all of which are handled masterfully. All That Jazz is not only a standout because of the distinctive qualities that set it apart from Scheider’s body of work, but because it is genuinely a great performance that deserves as much, if not more, credit than the handful of films that may be more widely known.
Roy Scheider in ‘All That Jazz’ Offers a Morbid Peek Into Bob Fosse’s Inner Psyche
All That Jazz is a movie so informed by the director’s own experience that it is impossible to ignore the autobiographical elements. Fosse, a legendary figure in the entertainment world, was a dancer, choreographer, actor, and director who dazzled on both the screen and the stage. To give you an idea of how busy Fosse was, he won both a Tony and an Oscar for directing in 1973, for Pippin and Cabaret respectively. The popular movie podcast, Blank Check with Griffin and David covered the film along with Fosse’s other directorial features, and All That Jazz’s episode guest, Lin-Manuel Miranda, who played Scheider in the Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams-led Fosse/Verdon series, which partially dramatized the making of this film. Miranda brought with him a copy of the original script which was revealed to have not even changed the names of the characters from the real-life people Fosse based them on. Gideon is referred to as Fosse and Audrey is referred to as Verdon, among others. However, All That Jazz is far from a vanity project.
The film, which is a rather incisive portrait of Fosse’s personal vices, doesn’t exactly paint Gideon as a hero. He feels disconnected from the world around him, and obsessively devoted to his artistry at the expense of his health, social life, and happiness. Gideon’s work schedule, and the events of the film are directly referential to Fosse’s experiences trying to stage Chicago while editing his 1974 biographical film, Lenny, starring Dustin Hoffman. Fosse suffered a severe heart attack while working on these projects, and had to undergo open-heart surgery to address his condition. The near-death experience birthed an interest in Fosse exploring his own mortality on screen.
Roy Scheiders Larger-Than-Life Interpretation Remains One of His Best Roles
While the first half of the film largely plays out as a straightforward story about the manic, artistic process of a Fosse-like character, Scheider’s Joe Gideon experiences dreams where he flirts with an angelic presence portrayed by Jessica Lange. Halfway through the film, Gideon suffers a heart attack and spends the rest of the time hospitalized, having visions of his own death and imagining himself reckoning with his past relationships and his artistic legacy. Scheider encompasses all sides of Gideon’s larger-than-life existence.
Seeing an artist grapple with their own death is always morbidly fascinating. Fosse is one of many who have explored the end of their own life in their art. David Bowie’s final record, released days before his death, directly addressed his own passing and came to terms with the temporary nature of life. In the theater world, Jonathan Larson’s work felt prescient of his own untimely passing, and per that same Blank Check episode, Lin-Manuel Miranda was even directly influenced by All That Jazz in his feature adaptation of Larson’s Tick, Tick… Boom!
In the film world, Fosse’s may be the most directly biographical, and certainly took on an even heavier tone when he passed away from another heart attack at the age of 60, only nine years after All That Jazz was released. Scheider may not have been playing Fosse directly in this film, but his performance delves into everything that made Fosse tick in his final years, and the movie simply wouldn’t work without a fraction of the charm or intensity that he brought to Joe Gideon.
All That Jazz is currently not available to stream in the U.S.