In 1979, Bob Fosse directed and choreographed, All That Jazz, a semi-autobiographical musical film for which he won the Cannes Palme d’Or : Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) is a self-absorbed director working on a new musical, editing a film, and sleeping with several women as he neglects his beloved daughter and his own health. He obsessively works, smokes, drinks, and pops Dexedrine until one visit to the hospital reveals that he’s suffered a heart attack. There, the Angel of Death (Jessica Lange) waits for him and his life unfolds in one fantastical flashback. While things ultimately worked out in real life for Fosse, his alter ego doesn’t fair so well. In All That Jazz, Bob Fosse, portrays his death in one of the greatest, cathartic, musical-dance scenes in American movie history: Gideon ecstatically sings and dances to “Bye Bye Life” with MC O’Connor Flood (Ben Vereen) while voluptuous women covered in blue and red veins pulse like heart beats around him; some guests wear masks, and some are mannequins. At the end of the number, Gideon slides across a silver stage and into the audience. There he shakes hands, says good byes, and reconciles with lovers and foes.

Very few people go around telling one another a fantasy they’ve had about their death. For one, it’s a morbid topic, and for another, it seems, well - self-indulgent. Many critics at the time accused Fosse of this very thing. But who hasn’t, at least once in their life, fantasized about their death? Who would be at the funeral, who would cry the most, what would they say, would it rain, would there be lots of flowers, would there be music, would there be…all that jazz? And how many of us would win multiple awards and fans, and at the same time, revolutionize American dance with our vision?

(Picture: ALL THAT JAZZ, Roy Scheider, director Bob Fosse, 1979, TM & Copyright (c) 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved.)