"Cabaret" 1972

 

“Do you still think you can control them?”  Brian Roberts, on Maximilian’s assertion that the Nazis ‘are just a gang of stupid hooligans’, “Cabaret”

“Cabaret” is an entertaining, enormously influential drama, based on the hit Broadway musical that was inspired by the stories of Christopher Isherwood.  Set in Berlin in 1931, “Cabaret” is a demanding film, a musical that doesn’t feel like a Hollywood musical, a movie that works on multiple levels visually, narratively, and symbolically. 

You may come away from “Cabaret” feeling overwhelmed by its startling imagery, the energy of its music and staging, the urgency of its ideas, its colors and textures, its emotional punch.  This is a movie bursting with creative innovation, a true original, a film that looks like no other, one with artistry in almost every frame.  “Cabaret” is like a rich, multi-course meal.  You stagger away, full and needing time to digest it all; later, you realize you’ve developed a taste for it, and can’t wait to go back for more. “Cabaret” is so layered with detail, that after upwards of 50 viewings, I still see something new every time.

Beneath “Cabaret’s” parallel stories and brilliant stage numbers, like an eerie undercurrent, is an allegory of the rise of Nazism.  The film demonstrates, through music and subplot, how the Nazis infected German culture like a virus, slowly at first, but with building menace.  The film’s characters, in pursuit of love and fame and pleasure, ignore the signs, hide from the truth, or subscribe to baseless conspiracy theories to explain it away. 

Soon, the Nazis have infiltrated everything.  The violence, the oppression, the racism that seemed impossibly far away, take over like an epidemic of evil.  Although it cost years and many lives to eradicate Nazism, we are now threatened by a second wave, a new outbreak, as it were.

The end of WWII, and the liberation of the concentration camps, occurred in 1945, just 27 years before “Cabaret” was released.  The film’s message, about the dangers of Nazism in an ignorant and hedonistic society, seemed a bit obvious then, almost a moot point.  Today, the film's depiction of a sinister political ideology consuming a culture (in much the same way that a virus creates a pandemic), looks visionary.  As a cautionary tale, “Cabaret” is more urgent and chilling than ever. 

As “Cabaret” begins, Brian Roberts (Michael York), a naïve, bisexual Cambridge student, arrives in Berlin to study, and give English lessons to survive.   At his rooming house, he meets Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), a carefree, promiscuous American singer, who performs at the sleazy, sexually ambiguous, politically sinister cabaret called the Kit Kat Klub. 

Welcoming us (and Brian) to Berlin is the Emcee of the Klub (Joel Grey), who breaks the fourth wall, looking right at us, seducing us. He appears only on the stage of the club (or in hair-raising cutaways at significant moments); and communicates with us only through song and dance.  

Grey's Emcee is jovial and a little frightening, his death’s-head makeup is a disorted, mocking disguise. He draws us in to the Klub’s world of frivolity, then turns us into reluctant accomplices as the entertainment reflects the tragedy taking place outside.  The gaiety becomes more pointed, more desperate as the film goes along.

Brian and Sally form a friendship, and then an unlikely romance, while their friends Fritz and Natalia become involved in an uneasy affair of their own.  Fritz Wendl (Fritz Wepper), a gold-digging gigolo and one of Brian’s English students, falls hard for fellow student Natalia Landauer (Marissa Berenson), a beautiful, aloof heiress to a department store fortune.  Their relationship is complicated by awkward lust and impropriety, and by secrets that are kept due to rising anti-Semitism.

Into Brian and Sally’s midst comes Maximilian von Heune, an enormously rich baron, who feels it is his duty to corrupt them both.  He plays on Sally’s hunger for wealth, and Brian’s yearning for male companionship.  When Sally becomes pregnant, the uncertainty of their futures almost rips them apart. (Interestingly, Sally calls the baby “just about the most significant baby the world has ever known…since Jesus.”)

Bob Fosse directed this, his second feature film, after his less-than-successful debut with “Sweet Charity”.  Fosse took “Cabaret” and transformed it from a typical musical-comedy-drama into something grittier and more realistic, something brand new for movie musicals at the time.  

He eliminated some characters from the play, and drew on Isherwood’s original stories for new characters, lending authenticity to the prevailing malaise of German culture.  He dealt matter-of-factly with sexuality, especially bisexuality and homosexuality. He didn’t look away from violence that plagued the rising regime, nor from the alarming effects of anti-Semitism.  

Fosse eliminated some songs from the original, preserving them as instrumentals heard on Victrola record players, or as background music for some of the stage numbers. Known for his edgy choreography, Fosse has minimal dance sequences here, keeping them as authentic to the period as possible, but infusing them with his brand of slow, deliberate movement.  

The musical numbers occur mostly on the stage of the Kit Kat Klub, and are incorporated thematically into the story.  They are the the film's most exciting, startling sequences.   Only one song, a rousing anthem in a beer garden, takes place outside, occurring as a natural part of the scene. 

“Tomorrow Belongs to Me” is chilling and brilliant; “If You Could See Her” is a gut-punch.  The title tune, a show-stopper from Minnelli near the end, is incredibly sad in context.  And “Wilkommen” is the perfect opening, a lighthearted but tentative theme that plays throughout the film, getting slightly distorted each time until it is absolutely discordant at the end. 

Each number, whether it’s a frantic chorus line of storm-troopers, or a frenetic folk-dance intercut with some surprising violence outside the Klub, comments on the lives of the characters and on the transformation taking place in Germany.  With a steady hand, Fosse dazzles us, entertains us, and maintains a sense of dread throughout.

Fosse’s mastery of the film medium is evident in his staging, and the brilliant work he gets from his performers and crew. 

Geoffrey Unsworth lights each scene like a cinematic work of art.  His colors and moods have a primal effect.  David Bretherton had a gargantuan task of editing the film (in an era without electronic editing equipment).  He keeps the pace brisk, creating layers of meaning  through his use of inserts, fabulous intercutting, and a breathtaking variety of shots within many of the musical numbers.  

(As a 14-year-old aspiring filmmaker, learning to use my new, Super-8 film editing equipment, no movie ever had as much influence on me as “Cabaret”.)

This was Liza Minnelli’s finest hour.  She uses her antsy, sparkling personality to great effect in her portrayal of the vulnerable, likable, aggravating and uninhibited young woman, who has untapped talent and a huge capacity, and need, for love.  

Michael York is excellent and charming in a more conventional role as the practical, “very British” Brian.  York makes a terrific impression in what is actually the lead, acting as our surrogate, a subjective observer of the fun and danger around him, who gets momentarily caught up in the decadence, before coming to his senses and escaping it.  Without York’s skill, the film would not have worked as well.

Joel Grey reprises his Tony-winning role as the Emcee, a strange, mysterious little character, who acts as our host even as we recoil from his slimy advances.  Grey is a consummate performer, immersed in his role, the symbol of moral and sexual ambiguity, convincing us that our troubles have been forgotten, even as the cabaret has become the troubled world, and is no longer an escape from it.  Grey has almost no dialog, but uses his diminutive frame and leering expression to the hilt, dancing and singing in a strange hybrid accent, and chilling us to the bone.

“Cabaret” has the dubious honor of having won more Oscars—8 in total—than any other film that did not go on to win Best Picture.  Its impressive haul of Academy awards included those for Minnelli as Best Actress, Grey as Best Supporting Actor, Fosse (in a welcome upset) as Best Director, along with Cinematography, Adapted Musical Score, Art Direction, and Film Editing.  Unfortunately, it was the year of “The Godfather”, and no film, no matter how artful, could spoil that juggernaut.

It is amazing that “Cabaret”, made during the cinema renaissance of the 1970s, a film about the dangers of a growing political movement in 1930s Europe, has emerged today as an allegory for our time.  The insidiousness of fascism, like the intrusion of a deadly virus in the world, is a perfect parallel to what we face; and as the movie strongly implies, unless we pay attention, our lives could be changed forever.