TSPDT

Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Drama, Musical Drama, Musical, Showbiz Drama, Biopic, Romance
Key Collaborators: Alan Heim (Editor), Ralph Burns (Composer)

"Although the five films Bob Fosse directed were mostly critically acclaimed and commercially successful, his reputation as a film director has not really survived, overshadowed by his credits as a choreographer on the Pajama Game (1957), Damn Yankees! (1958), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967) and, on the basis of his original stage production, Chicago (2002). Of course, he was identified with musicals; Sweet Charity (1969) and Cabaret (1972), his first films as director, were adapted from stage shows themselves, and built around lithe, exciting women such as Shirley MacLaine and Liza Minnelli executing the knee-flexes and finger-snaps that were Fosse's trademarks as a choreographer." - Kim Newman (501 Movie Directors, 2007)

"American dancer, choreographer for the musical stage and screen, writer, and director Bob Fosse was perhaps the most influential figure in the field of jazz dance in the twentieth century. Enormously creative, inspired, driven, strong-willed, tireless, and ruthless, Fosse forged an uncompromising modern style – characterized by finger-snapping, tilted bowler hats, net stockings, splayed gloved fingers, turned-in knees and toes, and shoulder rolls – that has frequently been called 'cynical.' The choreographer himself, rather cryptically, identified it as 'the amoeba.'" - Lucy E. Cross (Masterworks Broadway)

"Bob Fosse transposed his dynamic, athletic, and sometimes frenetic style to the screen with his first movie, an overbusy adaptation of the Broadway musical Sweet Charity (1969). His second film, a stunning, imaginative film version of the stage success Cabaret (1972), was a total triumph and arguably the greatest musical film of the seventies." - Ted Sennett (Great Movie Directors, 1986)

"Even though he is a massive figure within the Broadway pantheon, Fosse’s film career has gone mainly unnoticed over the years. While his contemporaries like Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg, John Cassavetes, Peter Bogdanovich, and Stanley Kubrick have been discussed and analyzed for years, Fosse rarely is mentioned with them. Since he died in 1987, Fosse’s theatre work and influence have greatly overshadowed his masterful work as a filmmaker… Even though Bob Fosse was praised while he was working, his films have rarely been in the conversation of the New Hollywood Era, outside of maybe Cabaret. But, his work is incredibly crafted, and honestly, one of the best filmographies of any director from that era. Dive headfirst into them, and hopefully, you will see." - Brandon Sparks (Medium, 2020)

"Fosse started his career as a dancer and choreographer on Broadway and divided his time almost equally between directing for the stage and for films… The directorial choices employed by Fosse stemmed, not surprisingly, from his style of dancing and choreography: a type of eccentric jazz that isolates and exaggerates human motion, breaking it up into small components. It has been noted that there appears to be little difference between the dance material for Fosse’s stage and film choreography. But the presentation of the dance is radically different. On the stage, only the performers could create the fragmentation of Fosse’s choreography. In film, the use of multiple camera set-ups and editing allowed an amplification of this fragmentation, essentially obliterating the dance material and the mise-en-scène." - Greg Faller (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 2000)

"Live like you'll die tomorrow, work like you don't need the money, and dance like nobody's watching." - Bob Fosse