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Ann Reinking ALL THAT JAZZ-Incredible Ability
Ann Reinking ALL THAT JAZZ-Ann Reinking died Saturday at the age of seventy-one, and she had an incredible ability to make people happy. You could see her great heart in the eyes whenever she flashed her sparkling silly, wonderful smile—but I liked her best when she didn’t smirk.
Reigning was at her smoldering best when she pouted or kept her chiseled jaw still while her fantastic figure did all the work of conveying how much she enjoyed moving it for us. He sprung into life like an artist whose expression cannot be restrained, yet the beauty lay in the endeavor to control it.
When the weather was used to punish humans for being made of flesh, she was seductive as described in the Bible: Delilah, the snake in the Garden of Eden, and so on. As much as she had spirit and expertise, she was also the exhilarating outcome of someone trying to control the uncontrollable.
Whenever you think of Ann Reinking, you think of her legs. Black tights with a shimmering sheen. Heel-to-toe sexy. Legs that extend to a 6 o’clock position are easy to use.
These were the pillars on which she might stand when she dared to be bold. She was able to do her pelvic isolations with a silky groove and her precision with natural, teasing sensuality thanks to the power of her legs. When she was lying down, her legs told a narrative.
Bob Fosse directed the musical drama All That Jazz in 1979.
Based on aspects of Fosse’s own life and work as a dancer, choreographer, director, and producer, the screenplay by Robert Alan Aurthur and Fosse is a fantasy. However, there is much more to All That Jazz than the narrative of its creation.
Documentary style dancing, quick cuts, fantasies about an angel of death, and emotional events told through dance, stand-up acts, large-scale musical numbers, and Alka Seltzer, followed by Dexedrine. Kate Jagger, a fictionalized version of Reinking, made her cinematic debut in Fosse’s semi-autobiographical All That Jazz in 1979.
In 1982’s Annie, she reprised her role as Grace Farrell, a secretary, and in 1984’s Micki + Maude, she took on the role of Micki Salinger, a writer. Margaret Qualley played Reinking in the 2019 FX television drama Fosse/Verdon.
Ann Reinking All That Jazz is one of the most self-indulgent films ever created, but it’s a good kind of self-indulgence.
A choreographer and director, Joe Gideon is an unmasked Bob Fosse: he juggles ladies between the rehearsal hall and the editing room in his spare time.
Fosse’s wife Gwen Verdon is portrayed by Leland Palmer in All That Jazz, while Ann Reinking portrays Fosse’s former flame and current lover Ann Reinking in Kate Jagger.
During the same time as Joe is working on his controversial comedian biopic, a la Fosse’s Lenny, Joe is also working on an edgy Broadway showcase for Audrey, a la Fosse’s production of Chicago for Gwen Verdon. His promiscuity alienates Kate, disappoints daughter Michelle, pushes him into a heart attack and heart surgery like what Fosse went through in the mid-1970s.
This isn’t anything to look forward to. Bob Fosse and Robert Alan Aurthur bounce around Joe’s life, based on Fosse’s own experiences dancing in burlesque establishments and dealing with excessively facile composers and snobbish backers.
While critics questioned whether All That Jazz was self-aggrandizing when it came out, Joe Scheider’s portrayal of Joe can be viewed as an effort to justify. When the cast of Joe’s musical comedy is having a laugh-out-loud read-through in one of the film’s most pivotal scenes, Fosse cuts the sound, and Joe and Audrey lock eyes, unsmiling.
Fosse puts the audience inside Joe’s head, emphasizing that a man who may appear to be a cold crank is just a perfectionist who finds no creative benefit in being praised for his efforts.
Fosse’s use of cinema’s dynamic capabilities is demonstrated in the read-through scene, which finishes with Joe snapping his pencil and having a severe coronary.
There are two shows in “All That Jazz.” After 45 minutes of Joe’s final battle for his life, Fosse arranges one grandiose dream sequence/musical number after another, with the women in Joe’s life performing songs that criticize him for being such a crap.
More like a documentary, though, the opening hour or so of All That Jazz is an open call for dancers in which Joe watches hundreds of very identical men and women in leotards leap and whirl together and continues as he edits individual performances.
Joe is the only one who can tell them apart.
One of the best songs in All That Jazz is “Everything Old Is New Again,” which Kate and Michelle sing for Joe in his apartment. That All That Jazz does not portray Joe as a vicious beast, or an underappreciated genius contributes to its ability to disclose so much about Fosse as a person.
Kate and Michelle’s delightful little performance almost brought him to tears, and he has people who love him and can feel regret and genuine admiration.