All That Jazz (1979)

HOLY SHIT
I'm still buzzing right now. Not just from that ending - probably one of the best, most audacious movie endings I've ever seen - but from the movie as a whole. I feel like I just witnessed a bolt of moviemaking lightning. I don't mean that I just watched a good, or even great movie, but that the filmmaking - the craft, care, and attention - was out of this world.
The movie starts at breakneck pace and doesn't let up for one second. It's frenetic, there's always a song playing, the editing is fast-paced and the script doesn't let up. You're whisked away on the very first frame and you have to play catch up the whole time.
But, if you're able to slow down and marvel at the screen, you appreciate every bit of craft as well. I've already mentioned the editing but good god is it top notch. And I don't just mean there's cool, quick cuts here and there. There is deliberate, intentioned editing throughout not just the dance numbers, not just the montages, but throughout the movie. Editing between storylines, between messages the movie has to offer. Everything's interconnected and flows for 2 hours to create a perfect, whole story.
The acting is great, the script is great, the lighting, camerawork, score, soundtrack, blocking, cinematography. I mean it's all there. It's really all there.
But what made me feel like I was just hit with a filmmaking prowess truck is the amount of effort this movie feels it took to make. First of all, the story. It somewhat uses the Holywood trope of an end-of-life retrospective to understand a person, but it subverts it by cutting in and out of that perspective. It uses the third person angel only sparingly in the beginning before focusing primarily on the first person perspective of the show's production, but then intercuts conversations with the angel to add a deeper understanding to the first person narrative. The story is relatively simple but is there a better template for a screenplay than the witnessing of a person's life from one peak to another. To watch the series of actions and choices that mold him into something new. It feels like it's THE story. Not just the holywood story but the human story; the one that, when done right, is the ultimate form of storytelling.
The musical numbers, every one of them, was world class. You felt the care, thought, and planning that went into them. You feel the effort on screen.
The last 45 minutes. A directors hallucinatory descent into his final days envisioned through the only model he knows: directing. The meta-perspective on his life, as directed by him. One that only works because you've at this point come to understand who this character is and the stories of his life. And, I'm not familiar at all with Bob Fosse, but as the director, writer and mastermind behind this movie, I'm sure is a commentary/exploration on his life as well.
It just feels like a massive achievement of a picture and one that has already and will forever stand the test of time. Unbelievable stuff - good god. I'm so happy I chose to watch this. Really makes you appreciate filmmaking and see it as a medium that no other art can match. I love movies.