MUBI

By the early 1970s the movies had come a long way in rethinking musicals. They would always be grand and glorious entertainment, but not necessarily joyous. In the case of Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, the joy was distributed within the movie instead of outside toward the audience. The focus is on Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), a dancer at the glittery Kit Kat Club in Berlin. It is 1931 and the Nazis patrol the streets beating up those who dare speak out against them. For the terrified German citizens, the Kit Kat Club is a shelter from the harsh reality of the outside world. This time it is not the audience inhabiting a less than perfect world finding refuge in the idyllic world of many movie musicals. Rather, the audience is watching the audience in the film finding solace in the magic of the cabaret. In a way, then, Cabaret is more a drama about musicals than a traditional musical. All of the brilliant choreography is there (it’s directed by the great Bob Fosse, after all), as well as some dazzling music, but the emotions are more realistic and there is a grim reason for the song and dance.
But the brilliance of Cabaret goes beyond its success as a musical (or drama about musicals). Fosse’s meticulous direction and attention to detail brings a compelling sense of reality to the film. To capture the mood of the Weimar Republic, Fosse shot the film entirely on location around Germany. His recreation of the era is amazing from the art deco-style font in the opening credits to the decadent dark undertones. A creepy, disembodied laughter over the credits compliments this opening effectively.
Soon the glitter of the cabaret comes to life as it creates illusions for people trying to escape the troubles of the Weimar era. Central to this opening is the excellent Joel Grey as the Master of Ceremonies. Picked up from Broadway, Grey delivers a magical performance perfectly evoking the 1930s fancy for androgynous performers.
As we observe the carnivalesque performances of the cabaret dancers, not only can we see the influence that Cabaret had on movies like Moulin Rouge, but we also see revealing glimpses of a past culture. Particularly interesting is a garish mud wrestling match intercut with shots of people laughing. In this scene we see the first Nazi soldier when he wanders into the club, perhaps suggesting that an empty and shallow society gives rise to evil like the Nazis. This point will be enforced by a later scene which cross-cuts a cabaret act with shots of Nazis beating up the club owner, who had previously kicked the soldier out of the club. In another effective moment, Sally and her friend Brian (a Cambridge professor arriving in Germany to teach English) are playing a game involving screaming at an incoming train. We never actually hear them scream, however, as the film just cuts to another shot of the Nazis beating on the owner. The “scream” becomes the Nazis, and that is the very real horror.
After the iconic movie moment when Liza Minnelli sings “Mein Herr” in a bowler hat, vest, and stockings, the film settles for a moment on the story of these two expatriates: Sally the American and Brian Roberts (Michael York) the Englishman. As Sally Bowles, Minnelli gives a great performance throughout the film and her Oscar was much deserved. Sally is always looking for thrills, perhaps to fill a void. Her father, we learn, is a distant man and for this reason she keeps looking for new men in her life all the time.
Michael York plays Brian Roberts with great subtlety. Brian is intrigued by Sally, since she offers him a liberty he doesn’t normally have. Brian, however, may be a closeted homosexual or bisexual and Sally does not take his initial romantic rejection well. There is a good show of emotions from Sally during an English lesson scene, in which Brian is introduced to his new student, the beautiful Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson). Sally is flippant, jealous, and tries to embarrass Brian in front of his pupil. But is she playing Brian or does she really love him? She flirts with Baron Maximilian (Helmut Griem) because he may offer her a chance at her dream of making it into the movies and this upsets Brian. Sally eventually realizes that she cannot separate love from lust but does see how her habit of “pouncing” on prospective lovers can cause so much pain.
But the problems of Sally, Brian, and Maximilian are a microcosm of the larger ills of their world. The song “Money Makes the World Go Round” manifests the decadence of the era. Many people were poor then because of inflation in Germany and money did indeed cause a lot of troubles during this time period. Society itself was decaying into corruption. While people are shown shopping and watching sex shows at the Kit Kat Club, Nazis are committing atrocities and the few people who do take notice are fooled into thinking it is all for the good of the country (“Nazis are the only ones who will save us from the Communists,” one character says).
Maximilian’s house, for instance, is the epitome of extravagance. Even the sensible Brian starts to slip and fall under its influence, despite (or because of?) his jealousy of Sally and Max. The linkage between decaying values and the rise of evil is clearly stated during an idyllic country party. A teenage boy begins singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”, which at first sounds like a pretty folk song. Slowly, he is revealed to be a Nazi and the song takes on a disturbing new meaning. Other young people join him and this is one of the creepiest examples provided by a movie of how evil is started. Inserted in this sequence is a haunting shot of a sad old man watching the destruction of his country before his eyes. Tomorrow does not belong to him. Perfectly summarizing this scene is a quote from Brian: “Still think you can control them?”
Reality starts creeping in more and more toward the end of the movie, signaling the end of the dream. Here lies the key to the power of Cabaret. In the traditional sense of the word, it is not a musical at all. Instead it is an examination of the role that musicals have on a society desperate to escape a bleak reality. Unlike many musicals that create a shelter for its audience, Cabaret dares to pop that bubble.