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rinueI few days ago, I realized that thanks to the magic of the internet, it's very easy to watch the opening sequences of A Chorus Line and All That Jazz back to back. (Links go to 5-minute-ish clips on YouTube.) They're both montages of huge cattle-call dance auditions for Broadway productions. All That Jazz came out in 1979, and was directed by Bob Fosse. A Chorus Line came out in 1985, and was directed by Richard Attenborough.
To my eye, the critical difference between the two sequences is that one is directed by a professional dancer (Fosse, All That Jazz) and the other is not. Through Attenborough's lens, the dancers are incredible creatures to be wondered at; he revels at their physical marvel when they do things he could not himself do. The sequence is wry about the people being cut for insufficient skill even though we, the viewers, understand all of them are better than us. When we identify with them, we identify with them as symbols - as beautiful, special individuals ground down by the uncaring and rapacious machine of society, as we are ourselves. They don't need to be dancers. They happen to be dancers because it's fun to watch dancers go. They could be race car drivers.
For Bob Fosse, who has been on both sides of dance auditions constantly for 20 years, the audition is not symbolic or particularly notable; it's a workplace document. It's flashes of dance interspersed with sitting around. There are moments when people's attention wanders. There's beauty, but there's no one amazed with their body and having a breakthrough about it. They've done this before, and will again. There's a moment where the choreographer touches the arm of a dancer who he's sending home and shares a compliment, which is the thing the dancer would remember and talk about that evening or next month.
I like both sequences, although I'm conflicted about Attenborough's in a way that I'm not with Fosse's, because Attenborough's is much more manipulative. It's flashy and gets me excited, but it also wags its finger at me for my predatory point of view - which is in reality its predatory point of view - in the same way I'm meant to revel in the excesses of a gangster movie but then feel morally superior to the villains. Fosse keeps it more honest, which is easier because of his smaller scale: this is his experience of this process. It's similar to my experience (not as a dancer, but as a performer and as a director of dancers).
My preference is maybe a foregone conclusion; no disrespect to Attenborough, who among other things is making the later movie, and wouldn't want to merely copy what had already been done. But as a filmmaker I'm more influenced by Fosse. I'm amazed by how well he can present bodies without turning them into objects. It shouldn't be hard to show a human and have me think "that there is a human," and yet the history of fine art suggests otherwise.
To my eye, the critical difference between the two sequences is that one is directed by a professional dancer (Fosse, All That Jazz) and the other is not. Through Attenborough's lens, the dancers are incredible creatures to be wondered at; he revels at their physical marvel when they do things he could not himself do. The sequence is wry about the people being cut for insufficient skill even though we, the viewers, understand all of them are better than us. When we identify with them, we identify with them as symbols - as beautiful, special individuals ground down by the uncaring and rapacious machine of society, as we are ourselves. They don't need to be dancers. They happen to be dancers because it's fun to watch dancers go. They could be race car drivers.
For Bob Fosse, who has been on both sides of dance auditions constantly for 20 years, the audition is not symbolic or particularly notable; it's a workplace document. It's flashes of dance interspersed with sitting around. There are moments when people's attention wanders. There's beauty, but there's no one amazed with their body and having a breakthrough about it. They've done this before, and will again. There's a moment where the choreographer touches the arm of a dancer who he's sending home and shares a compliment, which is the thing the dancer would remember and talk about that evening or next month.
I like both sequences, although I'm conflicted about Attenborough's in a way that I'm not with Fosse's, because Attenborough's is much more manipulative. It's flashy and gets me excited, but it also wags its finger at me for my predatory point of view - which is in reality its predatory point of view - in the same way I'm meant to revel in the excesses of a gangster movie but then feel morally superior to the villains. Fosse keeps it more honest, which is easier because of his smaller scale: this is his experience of this process. It's similar to my experience (not as a dancer, but as a performer and as a director of dancers).
My preference is maybe a foregone conclusion; no disrespect to Attenborough, who among other things is making the later movie, and wouldn't want to merely copy what had already been done. But as a filmmaker I'm more influenced by Fosse. I'm amazed by how well he can present bodies without turning them into objects. It shouldn't be hard to show a human and have me think "that there is a human," and yet the history of fine art suggests otherwise.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-07 09:00 pm (UTC)I've never seen the film of A Chorus Line. I was taken to see a stage production as a small child and I was desperately unhappy about one of the characters not making the cut at the end and my grandmother—who had been a professional actress—made me feel better by meta-pointing out that, yes, she had, because I'd just seen her in the show. I think that's always stuck with me.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-07 09:22 pm (UTC)Part of the reason I was interested in looking at just the opening number of the movie is because it's emphatically in the medium of film, and would be a sequence very much in the control of the director rather than the screenwriter - a visual thesis of how the movie is going to present dance images, rather than how it's going to handle plot.
It's cool that you got to see it as a kid with your grandmother. I know that my mom (also a performer) loved/loves the stage version. The actress who doesn't get cast but did clearly get cast is so metatextual.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-07 09:54 pm (UTC)Absolutely. I have bounced with extreme prejudice from movie musicals based on their filming of dance numbers.
A Chorus Line strikes me as much more theatrical in its presentation, but also much more impersonal. You don't get a great sense from the sequence what anyone on the production side is looking for in terms of physicality, style, etc. I am not a dancer, but the equivalent sequence in All That Jazz really does feel like it can be read in terms of what works, what doesn't, what Scheider's not-Fosse is interested in and what he's trying to draw out of the dancers auditioning for him. None of the people who are onstage even for quick-cut one-offs feel like they could be changed with anyone else. That goes with what you were saying about the documentary quality, the ordinariness of dance as work.
It's cool that you got to see it as a kid with your grandmother.
My grandparents took me to a lot of theater. I was fortunate in them.
I know that my mom (also a performer) loved/loves the stage version.
Nice! Apologies if I've asked before: what is your mother's field?
The actress who doesn't get cast but did clearly get cast is so metatextual.
As soon as I got old enough to think about it properly, I really appreciated it.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-08 02:37 am (UTC)She's pretty jack-of-all-trades, so it's hard to nail down, but mostly a singer and costumer when we're talking about a theatrical context.