Fosse/Verdon - the (limited) series

scenicdesign71 · Sep 27, 2018, 09:47 AM

Fall 2019 on FX: Rockwell as Fosse, Williams as Verdon, LMM producing, Kail directing, Blankenbuehler choreographing.

www.variety.com/2018/tv/news/bob-fosse-limited-series-fx-sam-rockwell-michelle-williams-lin-manuel-miranda-1202883077/

scenicdesign71 · Jan 07, 2019, 04:14 PM

First teaser: "Again"

scenicdesign71 · Mar 03, 2019, 02:20 PM

Second teaser: "Bobby" (a version of which ran during the Oscars).

And then on Thursday they released a full trailer. It's almost as rapidly-cut as the teasers, but you at least get the sense that this will be pretty slick to look at.

Here's a guide to the cast; also be sure to check out the slideshow at the bottom of the page.

A few weeks ago at work, I and my scenic crew actually crossed paths with theirs (they were loading in the same day we wrapped out) at a filming location here in Manhattan: a hospital, by which I'm guessing they might have been there to recreate either Fosse's hospitalization after his 1974 heart attack; his light fictionalization thereof, in All That Jazz five years later; or both.

By the time Fosse/Verdon airs, I'll be on hiatus, with plenty of time to watch. But since I cut the cord entirely several years ago, and my mom's teeny-tiny stripped-down cable package doesn't include FX, we'll have to figure out where to stream it.

Chris L · Mar 04, 2019, 01:34 PM

Quote from: scenicdesign71 on Mar 03, 2019, 02:20 PMBy the time Fosse/Verdon airs, I'll be on hiatus, with plenty of time to watch. But since I cut the cord entirely several years ago, and my mom's teeny-tiny stripped-down cable package doesn't include FX, we'll have to figure out where to stream it.

Although I've heard rumors lately that there may eventually be a crackdown on people sharing cable log-ins, I've heard no reports, in the press or personally, that such a thing is actually happening. Find a friend who lives nearby so that log-ins won't be suspiciously distant from one another and borrow their cable password. That's all you''ll need to use the F/X app, on computer, mobile device, smart TV, or Roku equivalent.

But I suspect you'd already thought of that.

AmyG · Apr 08, 2019, 01:13 PM

I don't think I've been more excited for a TV show in a long time. The trailers look amazing. Though as Eric said on Facebook, even if it's bad I'll enjoy it.

scenicdesign71 · Apr 10, 2019, 07:33 AM

I really liked the premiere, but in this age of binge-watching it's gonna be tough having to wait a week between episodes! (Having just said, on another thread, that time-investment was at least a pseudo-obstacle to my watching American Crime Story, I'll go ahead and admit that I would binge Fosse/Verdon in a hot second, were the entire season available right now).

I'm particularly enjoying the jigsaw chronology; the morbid countdown chyrons ("18 years left," or, most arrestingly, "8 minutes left") in lieu of date-stamps; and the seamless, pointedly theatrical pan-and-glide segues into and out of flashbacks.

Michelle Williams is very good indeed and Sam Rockwell seems capable and well-cast, though in the groundwork-laying first episode, neither has yet had a chance to really dazzle. But I was quietly impressed by the low-key, lived-in quality of both the writing and the performances: compared to, say, Smash, these feel like human beings rather than showbiz exotics (why does Hollywood almost always get theatre people so spectacularly, bizarrely wrong?) or cartoonish archetypes.

This is slightly less consistent among the large, boldface supporting cast (whatcha gonna do to elevate 25-year-old Liza, in what so far amounts to little more than a glorified cameo, above showbiz-exotic-and-cartoon-archetype rolled into one?). But Paul Reiser makes a nicely harried Cy Feuer, and Evan Handler is an eerily plausible Hal Prince.

And for the most part (and most promisingly), Fosse/Verdon's show folk are never more compelling than when they're at work, which is precisely where most backstage stories tend to go wrong. I can't help admiring a teleplay that's not afraid to delve beyond the usual flimsy tokens of creative perfectionism and instead demand that we invest long moments of our attention in the proffering of elaborately detailed "character" backstories to bewildered chorines (not once, but twice in the first episode alone), or in debate over the twisty dramaturgy underpinning a "joke" costume and its rug-yanking punchline ("If You Could See Her [The Gorilla Song]"). These aren't just writerly showboating (look, Ma, I did research), or proudly-obscure catnip to a niche fandom. They're shrewdly-chosen keys to the particular genius of the titular partnership -- and I find it encouraging that we're being asked to care rather a lot, by biopic standards, not just that these people were geniuses, but how and why, and in relatively granular detail, as a condition of understanding them at all.

Plus, those sets and costumes: yum. When Williams finally unearthed the iconic gorilla mask, it obviously vindicated the duo's previous argument with Feuer beautifully. But, speaking of catnip-to-fans, it was also a spot-on replica of the real Cabaret mask (or maybe it even was the real thing, if it still exists?). It says something for Kail & co. that they made no vain attempt to "improve" upon reality for the sake of underlining a point.

AmyG · Apr 10, 2019, 03:04 PM

I can't your post until after tonight when Chris and I have seen it. Something was going on with FXNow at least for us so we watched the series finally on Crazy Ex Girlfriend last night. But I can just say I totally agree with this:

Quote from: scenicdesign71 on Apr 10, 2019, 07:33 AM...in this age of binge-watching it's gonna be tough having to wait a week between episodes! (Having just said, on another thread, that time-investment was at least a pseudo-obstacle to my watching American Crime Story, I'll go ahead and admit that I would binge Fosse/Verdon in a hot second, were the entire season available right now).

Chris L · Apr 10, 2019, 09:33 PM

So far I like it quite a bit, Dave, er, @scenicdesign71. Like you, I'm engaged by the way it emphasizes not time or age but years and minutes remaining until Fosse's death. It's a morbid conceit and though it's too early to say this definitively, would seem to suggest that this is a study of a man committing slow suicide.

Sam Rockwell's performance is almost laconic, but I like the contrast to the way Fosse directed Roy Scheider as his own stand-in. There's no sense of "It's showtime!" before he goes to work, that intensity that Scheider turned on like a lightbulb. And though it obviously shows him as someone of extreme talent and intelligence, he's also surprisingly inarticulate, needing Verdon to translate his thoughts both to actors and to Feuer. She's not just his muse; she's his interpreter. And so far Williams is superb.

The final scene was stunning, though some of that is because I remember reading about Fosse's death in the Washington Post the next day and knew exactly where they were. (Okay, I don't know the hotel, but I know they're heading down Pennsylvania Ave. toward the National Theater during those next eight minutes, a walk I've taken many times.) Seeing them older for just those few seconds was jarring yet at the same time knit the whole thing together, indicating that this did indeed turn out to be a lifetime partnership, with her literally at his side until the end, despite everything he did to destroy both his marriage and himself.

I also liked the way the show didn't talk down to theater people. Nobody explained who Hal Prince or "Steve" or "Neil" were. You either knew it or you didn't. And if you knew it you could feel just little bit smug. But just a little bit.

scenicdesign71 · Apr 10, 2019, 11:17 PM

Emily Nussbaum's review includes descriptions of various scenes and plot points, spanning the first five episodes, that might bother the spoiler-sensitive:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/15/what-does-it-take-to-be-a-female-genius

One detail that she gives away particularly intrigued me, from a structural point of view:

Spoiler: Show

Many of the reviews so far have been mixed -- even from critics who seem, on balance, to agree with Nussbaum that Fosse/Verdon is worthwhile viewing despite any flaws ("I'd watch it, even after reading this review," she cracks). But they've only seen five of the eight episodes, leaving ample time -- or so I'm hoping -- for some genius twist or subtle pivot whereby the series, considered as a whole, turns out to be not just an uber-classy geek wallow, but a bona fide paradigm-altering insta-classic.

Hey, I can dream. The first episode didn't do anything to squash that fantasy, even if it didn't dazzle me to pieces, either; early days yet. And in any case, as no one knew better than Fosse, dazzle has aways been overrated... absorbing seems to be the more appropriate term here, and I'll take the latter over the former most days.

And, after all, three whole episodes, as yet unseen by the reviewers, is almost 40% of the show.

AmyG · Apr 14, 2019, 06:01 PM

I feel I haven't seen enough to really form an opinion except to say that I'm enjoying it as I knew I would. I find the flashbacks to Fosse's youth are the least interesting part to me. This was done before in All that Jazz -- though I did like the one where he was reminiscing about performing for the wounded soldiers.

But let's flash back to Gwen's youth. Maybe that comes later. I have no feminist agenda as I think Emily Nussbaum does. I just like Gwen a lot and know far less about her than I do Bob Fosse.

I think Michelle Williams is charming and though she's not Gwen Verdon -- who could be -- she's exuding a similar appeal.

I wonder if the creators of the show thought, "If they know the backstories (references to How to Succeed, Company, etc.), we don't need to explain, and if they don't know them, they probably don't care". I care so if I don't know I look it up. And if I do know, like Chris says, I feel a bit smug. I actually watched it twice. The second time I caught a few more references.

I love the moments where they give the dancers motivation for the choreographer. It's nice to know it all means something. I'm sure I never realized why the ladies were draped over the banister as they were but it was effective and I think that's because there was a character reason for it. Contrary to Cy's complaint about Bobby, it wasn't all just style.

As Dave points out, the attention to detail is spot-on. The show runners are clearly kindred spirits.

mrssondheim · Apr 18, 2019, 11:14 AM

I am watching and really enjoy this. I have purchased it on Amazon so that I can stream the whole series later. I have become lazy in my ability to wait a week. Two episodes in and it still feels like All That Jazz to me. I am enjoying Michelle Williams, but am having a hard time buying Sam Rockwell. There is something about him that just screams "WRONG" to me. I just don't buy him as a dancer and get so sex appeal off of him at all. No Fosse charm.

scenicdesign71 · Apr 18, 2019, 11:24 AM

I find this interesting:

Some critics have complained, to varying degrees, that Rockwell's Fosse is a standard-issue brilliant/charismatic monster, overshadowing Williams's Verdon in the depressingly typical fashion of Great Man biopics since the year zero, or of antihero-centered prestige dramas more recently; that the series itself, in effect, recapitulates Verdon's "erasure" in life by weighting its focus too heavily in favor of Fosse.

...Whereas, conversely, others are bothered by the restraint of Rockwell's performance, apparently at a loss when confronted with a Fosse whose charisma and monstrosity both hover well below the surface. (I'm only about a quarter of the way through Wasson's book right now -- Fosse has just left Joan McCracken for Verdon -- but Rockwell's portrayal so far seems consistent with people's memories of him as outwardly boyish and almost pathologically unassuming).

More than one review I've read has haggled over the title itself: arguing on one hand that the decision to "split billing" between the two protagonists belies the show's supposed relegation of Verdon to the timeworn role of put-upon helpmeet; or, on the other, that its order (Fosse first, Verdon second) reflects the show's priorities all too well.

I share the general eagerness for more exploration of Verdon's own life and artistry, and it's my hope that future episodes -- including the final three that nobody's yet seen -- will move further in that direction. But so far, the complaints baffle me insofar as I think the show is doing a skillful job of portraying her eclipse without in any way abetting it. Granted, the critics have seen five episodes whereas I've only seen two; but as the more dynamic performance by far, Williams has dominated the first two episodes as far as I'm concerned -- though I think Rockwell does everyone a service, Fosse himself included, by calibrating his performance to believably human scale. If anything, the focus so far almost seems lopsided in Verdon's favor, but I actually think the series has set itself up nicely to focus, as per its title, less on either of the two leads individually than on the complicated, symbiotic relationship between them.

In general, I'm ambivalent about the Me Too/Time's Up lens through which most reviewers -- and even the show's creators, to some extent -- seem determined to view Fosse/Verdon. If, in the end, the series really is Verdon's story as much as (or even more than) Fosse's -- and if the show thereby succeeds in "un-erasing" her and restoring her rightful legacy, I'll be as delighted as anyone; if it fails on either count, the lost opportunity will be disappointing (though, based on what I've seen so far, I'd predict this show's overall worst-case scenario as a kind of honorable failure, rather than the frustratingly dumb capitulation of a Smash or a Glee).

But I also assume that the actual lives of both Verdon and Fosse must have been far more interesting, and thereby more worthy of remembering and studying and dramatizing, than any sloganeering use to which their biographies could possibly be put. So far, I'm encouraged by the extent to which the writers have (in my opinion) outpaced their critics by focusing on people rather than politics. (All credit, too, to their collaborators, very much including director Thomas Kail, and of course Williams and Rockwell, whose performances continue to impress). Just two episodes in, there's still plenty of time for the show to potentially lose its way, but so far I've yet to detect any major missteps.

scenicdesign71 · Apr 18, 2019, 11:33 AM

Quote from: mrssondheim on Apr 18, 2019, 11:14 AMI am watching and really enjoy this. I have purchased it on Amazon so that I can stream the whole series later. I have become lazy in my ability to wait a week.

Yeah, I bought it on iTunes for the same reason. So far, I've watched both of the first two episodes on the night they first aired, and will try to keep that up (though upcoming jobs may soon make that more difficult). But it's nice to have the backup, watchable without commercials -- and, even if I do manage to catch all the remaining episodes on a weeklyish basis over the next six weeks, I will likely go back at some point afterward and binge-watch the whole thing.

Quote from: mrssondheim on Apr 18, 2019, 11:14 AMI am enjoying Michelle Williams, but am having a hard time buying Sam Rockwell. There is something about him that just screams "WRONG" to me. I just don't buy him as a dancer and get so sex appeal off of him at all. No Fosse charm.

See, to me that all describes Roy Scheider. No offense to his performance or its admirers, but I always assumed that his Fosse-like character was supposed to be adored solely for his power and (presumed) talent, since he otherwise registered to me as a charisma-free asshole, "larger than life" in all the least-appealing ways.

But about Rockwell, I would concede that his chemistry with Williams isn't yet quite as electric as it perhaps should be. I suppose that ought to be a dealbreaker, especially after this week's focus on their tumultuous beginning as a couple. But for some reason it hasn't really bothered me, perhaps because I don't think their relationship is (or was) first and foremost about sex, or even romance. And as far as the "electricity" of creative collaboration -- the real basis of their partnership -- well, between the general difficulty of translating that kind of connection to film in general, and the actors not being professional (let alone Fosse- or Verdon-level) dancers, I'm willing to cut them some slack. Their mutual seduction, in this week's episode, over the invention of "Whatever Lola Wants" may not have been quite so transcendent as many of the reviewers claimed, but it wasn't half bad.

(P.S. I love your "signature", @mrssondheim !)

Chris L · Apr 18, 2019, 04:51 PM

I like the restraint of Rockwell's performance. I think the show may be leaning in, as they say, on Fosse's reported episodes of depression. I read an interview recently with his daughter Nicole, who's listed in the credits as a producer, and she talked about her childhood memory of visiting her father in a mental hospital where he was curled up in bed so severely depressed that he was unable to speak. I can certainly see Rockwell's Fosse in that state (and I suspect we will).

I'm also not picking up on the chemistry between Fosse and Verdon, so at this point I'm pretty much taking the script's word for it being there. (When she suddenly, passionately kissed him in the latest episode, I was actually a little surprised.) But maybe that will come out over the remaining episodes.

mrssondheim · Apr 29, 2019, 10:43 PM

Quote from: scenicdesign71 on Apr 18, 2019, 11:33 AMBut about Rockwell, I would concede that his chemistry with Williams isn't yet quite as electric as it perhaps should be. I suppose that ought to be a dealbreaker, especially after this week's focus on their tumultuous beginning as a couple. But for some reason it hasn't really bothered me, perhaps because I don't think their relationship is (or was) first and foremost about sex, or even romance. And as far as the "electricity" of creative collaboration -- the real basis of their partnership -- well, between the general difficulty of translating that kind of connection to film in general, and the actors not being professional (let alone Fosse- or Verdon-level) dancers, I'm willing to cut them some slack. Their mutual seduction, in this week's episode, over the invention of "Whatever Lola Wants" may not have been quite so transcendent as many of the reviewers claimed, but it wasn't half bad.

(P.S. I love your "signature", @mrssondheim !)

I see the lust more from her then from him. Which I can buy if he is looking for conquest and she is looking for romance. Typical. But I do agree that this was born out of the work, the common language, and their natural, almost preordained ability to work together and make each other better. That kind of thing is incredibly heady and HOT!! This rings true to me most from my own experiences. There is nothing sexier than two artists finding each other and speaking the same language. Good god, that fire has gotten me into a few scraps over the years. Lol.