Can Biopics See Beyond Male Genius?

Toward the end of the first episode of , the dancer Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams) has finally flown to Munich at the beseeching of her husband, the choreographer and director Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell). Fosse is directing the film adaptation of , starring Liza Minnelli as a nightclub entertainer in Weimar Berlin, but things are going awry: The shoot is behind schedule, the costumes are all wrong, and Fosse is locked in a battle of wills with the movie’s producer, Cy Feuer (Paul Reiser), over their divergent ideas about what should be. But then Verdon arrives. She dresses Minnelli in a backless black brassiere from her own closet; she melts crayons to apply black wax to dancers’ arachnid eyelashes and calms them by whispering character backstories in ASMR-tingly tones. Verdon also translates Fosse’s dark, corrupted vision for into words Feuer can understand. “Boy, I wish you’d