Cabaret
by Bob Fosse
List Price:
Our Price: $6.98
You Save: $8.00 (53%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.99 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Fritz Wepper, Helmut Griem, Joel Grey, Liza Minnelli, Michael YorkDirector: Bob Fosse
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Geoffrey Unsworth
Producer: Cy Feuer
Producer: Harold Nebenzal
Writer: Christopher Isherwood
Writer: Jay Presson Allen
Writer: Joe Masteroff
Writer: John Van Druten
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; German (Original Language); Hebrew (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 124 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-08-19
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Cabaret
Movie Review: Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome...
Summary: 5 Stars
Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972)
I watched Bob Fosse's Cabaret for the first time in almost thirty years last night, and what jumped out at me was the state of education in America today. Which doesn't make sense when you're talking about a film set in 1931 Germany, I grant you. But the first time I saw it, back in late 1980, I was in seventh grade, and it was shown in music class. Yes, a class of seventh-graders sat, quietly, spellbound, for two hours, watching Cabaret. Imagine if the movie were shown in music class in 2009. How many parents would be up in arms, trying to get the teacher fired, or jailed, for showing students a movie that contained profanity, homosexuality, risqué costumes, Nazis, and a protagonist who sleeps with more than one man and isn't married to any of them? Forget being jailed. They'd call for the teacher's head on a pole outside the school. Back in 1980, did anyone raise a stink? Of course not. And we seventh-graders didn't get most of that anyway. We were too busy paying attention to the music, the spectacle, the glamour of the thing. (I didn't even remember how seedy the Kit Kat Club was; when you're twelve, and you've got Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli marketing it to you as the pinnacle of culture in Berlin, you tend to believe them.) And are we really any better for it? Again, of course not. I'm of a mind to say we're worse. I hope I'm not alone. As for Cabaret itself, well, it's as understated as Fosse's later All That Jazz is ebullient.
Germany in 1931 was the height of between-the-wars decadence; the Nazis had not yet come to power, and expatriates from all over the globe flocked to Berlin, where the cost of living was cheap, and so was life. Sally Bowles (Minnelli) is one of those expatriates, an American singer working at the rundown Kit Kat Club, along with a host of others headed up by the mysterious Master of Ceremonies (Grey). By day she rents a room from Fraulein Schneider (Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel from Town Without Pity). One day, Brian Roberts (Michael York) wanders into the place looking for a cheap room; he ends up across from Sally, and the two of them become fast friends. All goes well, with Sally singing at the cabaret and Brian teaching English for a living (the film's most enchanting subplot, as well as the main device allowing the gradual Nazi takeover of Germany to creep in on the sidelines, is a budding romance between two of Brian's pupils), until Maximilan von Heune (The Plot to Kill Hitler's Helmut Griem) appears on the scene, stirring the very small pot with his wealth, extravagance, and flirtatious nature.
Love triangles can be a touchy subject on film, but John van Druten's play (based loosely on Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories) gets everything right, and Fosse's adaptation just expands on the source material; the three personalities involved here are perfectly tuned to play against one another in the most entertaining possible ways, and they never fail to do so. The three main characters, once that stage is set, snipe, pick, and fight at one another (against the backdrop of Brian's two students, who have entirely different relationship problems), and we can just sit back and chuckle, albeit a bit uncomfortably. Life is a cabaret, old chum, indeed.
But even now, thirty years after first seeing it, the scenes that really resonate with me--and I'm a person who, as a rule, is not at all fond of musicals--are the stage performances. A lot of them, for obvious reasons, make a lot more sense now that I'm in my forties and have a better sense of history. (The punch line of Joel Grey's number with the ape? Priceless. And then Fosse cuts to the Nazi officer sitting in the shadows...) Joel Grey is absolute magic in this role (well, duh, he did win Best Supporting Actor), as he is almost every time he graces a movie screen. He and Minnelli play off each other in an entirely different, but just as interesting, way as she plays off York (who comes across here as less assured, and more appealing, than in any other movie in which I've seen him). The dark, smoky atmosphere, the routines that tread the line of burlesque, the pointed political criticism, it's all Broadway sorcery that works in a way only Bob Fosse has ever, in my experience, been able to translate correctly to a movie screen. I'm not talking about musicals in general here, but the almost surreal qualities that Fosse's movies tend to (viz, the surgery routine in All That Jazz or the aforementioned ape routine here). Amazing stuff, and well worth your time. A classic for a reason. **** ½
Summary of Cabaret
CABARET - DVD MovieSimilar DVD Movies
Cats: The Musical (Commemorative Edition)Universal Studios; Release date: 2005-07-05; DVD
Best price: $12.69
Price in other shops:
Hello, Dolly! Widescreen EditionTCFHE; Release date: 2003-08-19; DVD
Best price: $7.19
Price in other shops:
Chicago (Widescreen Edition)BUENA VISTA HOME VIDEO; Release date: 2003-08-19; DVD
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
GypsyWOOD,NATALIE; Release date: 2000-05-02; DVD
Best price: $6.89
Price in other shops:
Sweet CharityUniversal Studios; Release date: 2003-03-04; DVD
Best price: $8.43
Price in other shops:
Funny GirlSony; Release date: 2001-10-23; DVD
Best price: $3.95
Price in other shops:
EvitaBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 1998-03-25; Published: 1998-03-01; DVD
Best price: $4.11
Price in other shops:
FosseImage Entertainment; Release date: 2002-02-05; DVD
Best price: $9.29
Price in other shops:
Fred Ebb - Cabaret: Original Soundtrack Recording (1972 Film)Release date: 1996-11-19; Music CD
Best price: $4.49
Price in other shops:
A Chorus LineSony; Release date: 2003-04-15; DVD
Best price: $5.67
Price in other shops: