CABARET
US, 1972, 114 minutes, Colour.
Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Marisa Berenson, Fritz Wepper, Joel Grey.
Directed by Bob Fosse.
Cabaret was nominated for many awards in 1972 and deserved to win most of them. It is a brilliant and clever film that is admirable in its quality and frightening in its ultimate bleakness and depression.
The film 1s a musical version of John Van Druten's I am a Camera (filmed with Julie Harris, Shelley Winters, Laurence Harvey, Ron Randall and Anton Diffring by Henry Cornelius in 1955). This was in turn based on stories by Christopher Isherwood.
Former dancer, now choreographer (and director also of Sweet Charity), Bob Fosse, directs this film as a political musical, making every song and every dance routine mirror the world of Sally Bowles of Berlin 1931 on the eve of Nazi power. Editing and surprise shots continually focus our attention on the several levels at which the film is working.
Liza Minnelli is excellent and so is the supporting cast. But Joel Grey as the sinister M.C. is outstanding. Mature, excellent cinema.
1. What was the significance of the Cabaret as a microcosm of the German (and whole) world of 1931? How effective was it?
2. How did the structure of the film reinforce its impact and its significance - the dark of the credits to the distorted mirror and reflections and the M.C. back to the final words of the it, the swastikas in the distorted mirrors? The entering and leaving this world with Brian Roberts and his outside, English viewpoint? The significance of the songs, dances and the action of the plot?
3. The film has been described as a ‘political musical', What does this mean? Is it a good description of the film? Why?
4. How did the songs, relate to the plot both as regards technique and significance?
- Welcome to Cabaret
- Goodbye, Mein Herr
- Everybody Loves a Winner
- The kicking dance routine
- Money makes the world go round
- Two Ladies
- The goose-step dance routine
- If only you could see her through my eyes
- Cabaret
- The German song frequently played in the background for Sally and Brian
- The Nazi nationalist song?
5. What was the significance of the M.C.? His make-up? His attitude to the audience? His participation in the songs and dances? His knowing looks act the audience - e.g. during the Nazi song? Did you like him? Why? How satirical was he, his actions?
6. How was the world of 1931 re-created, the 'divine decadence’, the people at the club, what they were amused at, lady wrestlers, artificial, transvestite etc., Nazis, brutality, the apartments and inhabitants, Jews, the streets, homes, countryside, German films etc. ? What was the total impact of this world?
7. The characters were important, but only in this Berlin 1931 context, Sally, origins, ambitions, style, superficiality, sexuality, relation to father, to Brian, to Max, the Baby, abortion, hilarity, gaiety, 'femme fatale', the screaming sequence, the significance of the words of the song "Cabaret" in her regard, cabaret life versus Elsie being a happy corpse. Had her relationship with Brian changed her at all? How?
- Brian - English, academic, contrasting with Americana, Germans, strength, weaknesses of character, homosexuality, relation to Sally, the screaming sequence, relationship to Fritz and Natalya, to Max (Jealousy at first), his hurting Sally, the Nazi bashing, reconciliation, the baby and his proposal, his disappointment, departure. How had Berlin and his encounter with Max changed him?
- Max - as a character, as a 1931 German (attitude to Nazis and Communists, how decadent, hie home, family life, relationship with Sally and Brian, his leaving than?)
- Fritz - ambitious, as an SS German, relationship to Natalya, comedy, tragedy, contrast with Brian, his changing, honesty, as a Jew, the wedding - what future had they?
- Natalya - a lady, her emotional crisis, her confiding in Sally (and contrast with Sally) her relationship to Fritz, as a Jew?
8. How pessimistic was the film?
9. What relevance has this look at 1931 and. its social and political conditions for us?
10. The film is technically absorbing from the photography and colour to the use of the music and its editing into the action. What sequence or shots were especially effective? Critics mention the appearances of the M.C., the erotic decadence of the Kit-Kat? dancers (especially in "Goodbye, Mein Herr"), the threesome embracing at Max's house, the Hitler youth singing angelically, then his swastika revealed, the final singing of "Cabaret"?
