Roy Scheider plays a chain-smoking, pill-popping, womanizing, workaholic choreographer and director. Fosse was inspired by his own manic effort to edit his movie Lenny about Lenny Bruce while staging his musical Pippin at the same time.
It was written by Robert Alan Arthur and Fosse, and directed by Fosse. Besides Scheider, it starred Ann Reinking, Cliff Gorman and Ben Vereen (Fosse's star in Pippin), and featured Jessica Lange in a small role.
An odd tribute to show biz, sex and death, All That Jazz was nominated for several Oscars, winning Art direction, stage direction, best costume, editing and original score.
The film won the 1980 Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the Cannes Film Festival.
In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.