Cabaret
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Movie Reviews of Cabaret
Movie Review: A musical treasure that more than matches the test of time.
Summary: 5 Stars
The time is 1931, and the setting is decadent Berlin. At the Kit Kat Club, a dark, underground, rather subversive cabaret, where sassy drag is de rigor, a heavily made-up omniscient master of ceremonies (Joel Grey) introduces Sally Bowles, (an energetic Liza Minnelli in her greatest role), a struggling American singer. The crowd watches, cheering, laughing and drinking merrily, as Sally belts out her songs. But just underneath the surface of this joviality lies evil. Surreptitious glimpses are snatched of a swastika in the dark corners of the club, as the young boys of Hitler youth move through the audience malevolently watching and waiting. It's a shocking portent of what is to come and signals the eventual doom of all the good times.
It's a pleasure to revisit this film after so many years, and while some of plot points may seem a little dated, the message of the movie remains just as relevant as ever. The musical numbers effortlessly flow in and out of the story, and dutifully mirror the action as Joel Grey performs the crucial role of keeping the cabaret going. His impish grin at the end of the German anthem where Nazis dominate the patriotic singing captures the coming evil and is unforgettable.
The story focuses on Sally and her dreams of movie stardom. Sally is a flighty figure complete with big cow eyes, lipstick, and green fingernail polish. She's pretty uninterested in politics and the world around her, merely desperate to get a screen test. She'll sleep with anyone who she thinks can advance her agenda. Suddenly Brian Roberts (Michael York) arrives in her world of late night decadence. Brian is a mannered, well-educated Englishman who has come to Berlin to teach English and is looking for a room to rent at Sally's boarding house. Sally quickly befriends him and convinces him to split the rent to her large apartment, but their friendship soon blossoms into romance.
Brian is also bisexual and he soon becomes involved with Maximilian (Helmut Griem), a wealthy German who showers both Brian and Sally with expensive presents. Running parallel to this story is the relationship between the financially strapped Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper), who falls in love with Natalia Landauer (a gorgeous Marisa Berenson). Natalia is the daughter of wealthy Jewish businessman, and is at first wary of Fritz, but soon she admits it is just too dangerous for them to be together in the anti-Jewish Germany of the 1930's.
While the lives of the main protagonists unfold the rise of the Nazi's are cleverly hinted at by distorted, ugly images that sweep through the narrative. Swastika flags adorn streets, a patron of the club who opposes the regime is savagely beaten outside, and street violence begins to escalate. The setting is dark and somber with both the interiors and exteriors of much of the film bathed in shades of brown and grey. The Kit Kat Club is shadowy and dark, with a kind of menacing claustrophobia that gives the whole movie a heightened reality. Director, Bob Fosse creates a tight film full of metaphor and meaning bringing the decadent fun of the nightlife to life with imaginative framing shots between legs, tables, and patrons.
One of the most chilling and unforgettable scenes comes bathed in beautiful sunlight as a young blue-eyed, blond Aryan tenor begins Tomorrow Belongs to Me with most of the crowd joining in the rousing chorus about the Fatherland. Meanwhile, as the Nazi thugs beat up people who oppose them, Sally continues to belt out Life is a Cabaret and Money. Inside the cabaret the troubles are gone and the shows continue, but one gets the sense that the good times are coming to an end. Mike Leonard December 04.
Movie Review: This Cabaret is the best kind of life...
Summary: 5 Stars
`Cabaret' is one of my all time favorite movies and is my favorite musical every recorded to film. It is, with all due respect, a perfect film. It's witty and charming, much like you'd expect from a film in this genre. The music is entertaining and wild, much in the vein of the recent `Chicago'. The acting is top notch and to a degree downright iconic (Liza Minnelli gives one of my favorite female performances ever here). What sets `Cabaret' apart from the rest though is that it is far more than just a good time musical for it breaches deeper and darker subjects like racism, loneliness, unwanted pregnancy and some `taboos' as well. It manages to deal with these concerns beautifully and delicately.
The film is based on `The Berlin Stories' by Christopher Isherwood and revolves around a young man named Brian who moves to Berlin in the early 30's. He rents a room across from the eccentric and spirited Sally Bowles. Sally works at the Kit Kat Klub, a local Cabaret theater. Sally is aggressive and desiring and soon Brian falls in love with her. The film presents many tests to their relationship including a Baron who falls in love with not only Sally but Brian as well. As Nazi power rises in Berlin trouble arises as well for not only our two main stars but their close associates as well.
The Cabaret, a free spirited form of expression, is used throughout the film to address the current feelings or mood the film is attempting to get across. There are musical numbers poking fun at the Nazi regime, numbers addressing the destructive power of greed as well as the love triangle. As you watch you will see how the events taking place outside the Klub coincide with the musical numbers taking place within.
The acting is astounding here. Liza Minnelli is of course the HUGE standout but fellow Oscar winner Joel Grey is electrifying as The Master of Ceremonies. They play off one another brilliantly and serve up one of the greatest on-screen teams of all time. As they prance around the stage in perfect unison singing songs like `Money' the audience is deadlocked on their every move and even apart they are astounding. Joel Grey parades about the stage in numbers like `Two Ladies' with such comedic grace that he comes off like a singing Charlie Chaplin and Liza Minnelli is so musically talented that when she belts out her final song you are dying to hear some more. Michael York does a fine job with his role but he has no chance when sharing the screen with Minnelli of standing out, she is far too magnetic.
In the end all I can say is that `Cabaret' is orgasmically good. Bob Fosse directed a pure masterpiece here that in any other year would have won the top prize (as much as I LOVE this film I can't deny that `The Godfather' is the better film). If you haven't seen this film yet (and you may not have, it took me a long time to get around to it) please see it immediately. If you are a fan of recent musicals like `Moulin Rouge!' or `Chicago' then you will adore this film for it far surpasses those very films we've come to know and love.
Movie Review: "Devinely Decadent" (and a Classic Film of the '70s)
Summary: 5 Stars
What can you say about a movie classic? The winner of 8 Academy Awards,"Cabaret" is one of the great movies of the 1970's. It came out of a short golden period of film making, which brought about movie classics such as "American Graffiti", "The Godfather", "Jaws", "Annie Hall", "All the President's Men"", "Star Wars" and many more. To boot, it was a great musical, which came out in a decade, where the movie musical was considered all but dead. The film (based on Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Stories") takes place in early 1930's, Berlin. We meet newly arrived, Brian Roberts (Michael York), a young British academic from Cambridge, who is going to get by giving English lessons to Germans. He meets his boarding house neighbor, a young, vivacious, American woman named, Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli). She's a singer/dancer/entertainer and party girl, who works at the "devinely, dacadent", Cabaret known as the Kit-Kat Club. We follow these two expatriates as they start out as friends and eventually become lovers. We meet their various friends and acquaintances. This includes a wealthy Baron, who seems to take a very close (and sexual) interest in the couple. We also follow the story of a poor, German businesman, who falls in love with a wealthy Jewish heiress. These soap operish plotlines, all takes place against the backdrop of European history as we watch the rise of Germany's Nazi Party and the German population's political/social turn towards fascism. The characters drink, party and partake in their sexual indescetions to try and blot out the terrible events, that are happening all around. This is episodically punctuated by surrealistic, ribald, musical numbers (that act as commentary or a Greek chourus) put on by the Kit-Kat Club's clownish, 'Master of Ceromonies' (Joel Grey) and his cast of performers. Every once in awhile a film comes along, where everything just comes together perfectly. This is one of those films. All the performers, artists and technicians are at the very top of their career game. This includes the brilliant direction from Bob Fosse. The powerhouse acting, singing and dancing from performers Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey. The wonderful performances from actors Michael York, Helmut Griem, Fritz Wepper and Marisa Bereson. Also there are the marvelous, classic tunes ("Cabaret","Maybe This Time","Money Money" ETC.) from the songwriting team of John Kander & Fred Ebb, which will stick in your head forever. The sets, costume design, make-up, cinematography just work so well in transporting the viewer into another world. The DVD itself leaves alot to be desired. The sound is O.K., but the film's picture remastering is pretty bad. In the 'Extras department you get an interesting but short, 'Making-Of' documentary and both current and archival interviews with the film's paticipants. This is one movie that is ready for the 'Deluxe' DVD box treatment. "Cabaret" is a wonderful classic film and work of cinematic art, which will both entertain and move most movie fans! Highly recommended!Movie Review: Oh, wie wunderbar...
Summary: 5 Stars
Unlike 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' and 'Tommy', Fosse's 1970's homage to everything 1930's is that rare thing - a celebrated cult (and mainstream) musical that even now, almost 30 years after its initial release, still hasn't lost its sparkle.'Cabaret' deals with the story of a penniless writer (Michael York), who, upon arriving in pre-Hitler Berlin, meets and falls in love with a lounge singer named Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli). His life is turned upside-down by social and sexual revolution, played out against the backdrop of a city broken by depression and crying out for change.
It's the depth of emotion in this movie that gives it the edge over its contemporaries. The Jewish Vs. Christian love story provides a metaphor for the pre-Nazi turmoil experienced by 1930's Berliners, and Marisa Berenson gives one of her best performances as the Landauer heiress plagued by uncomfortable emotion and anti-semitic feeling. Similarly, Helmut Greim's performance as the wealthy, if somewhat sleazy, playboy Maximillian von Heune, provides us with an insight into cloak-and-dagger attitudes toward wealth and sexuality, prevalant at the time.
York's performance as the hapless Brian Roberts is very good indeed, but York has almost always played this sort of character - weedy Englishman with hidden depths. He does it well, however, and we truly believe that he is enthralled by the exotic Sally. But it's all Minnelli's show anyway, and her once-in-a-lifetime performance as Sally is the true heart of this picture. She is reckless yet innocent, another metaphor for pre-Nazi Germany. Crying out for love, yet deliberately eschewing it when it does eventually come her way, we too are sucked into her web of wide-eyed innocence and ultra-feminine sexuality.
Fosse's stark direction and sleazy, obvious choreography of the Kit-Kat Club, coupled with his detached, almost-bored perspectives on a depression-era city provide a grim and realistic backdrop for these stories. His complete lack of Hollywood-style glamour stands the test of time - why should a sleazy burlesque house in an impoverished city look like a Busby Berkley staircase, anyway? It's in this gritty portrayal of realistic poverty and living on the edge that Cabaret shines, with ugly, overweight dancing girls and a malevolent, amoral Emcee (the excellent Joel Gray) fuelling the fire of a doomed train on a one-way track.
The DVD extras are also rather good, interviews abound and there's some interesting comments to be had from the production team.
All in all, 'Cabaret' still shines as a cinematic masterpiece; a cautionary tale of love and infatuation. It's not a feel-good musical, but then again, very few of those are as worthwhile as this. Highly recommended.
Movie Review: Eternally Fabulous
Summary: 5 Stars
"Divine decadence, darling," is what is served up abundantly in *Cabaret*. I was in junior high school when Liza won Best Actress for her tour de force as Sally Bowles - I was furious because I felt that Diana Ross got robbed. I knew, with my consummate adolescent insight, that Liza was merely playing herself in *Cabaret*, but that Diana was acting her little heart out in *Lady Sings The Blues*. Time has told a different tale, however, with *Lady Sings The Blues* being resigned to ignominy and *Cabaret* remaining as a sparkling achievement in moviemaking. Winning 8 Academy Awards in a very tight race against such blockbusters as *The Godfather*, *Deliverance*, and *Sounder*, it is Liza Minelli's tour de force, a role of a lifetime. Even her mother, Judy Garland, never had a role like this, so exquisitely tailored to her talents, that even Liza herself had a tough time topping this performance. In fact, she never did, starring in some truly dismal choices such as *Lucky Lady* and *New York, New York*. In *Cabaret*, Minelli plays Sally Bowles, a plucky little trollop who sings at the Kit Kat club in Berlin, during the time of the Weimar Republic. Sally tries very hard to be "an international woman of mystery," but lives in a dream world in which her non-existant worldly and dashing father will soon swoop down and rescue her. She falls in love with Brian (York), a charming and bi-sexual scholar earning his living as a translator. They are both romanced by a wealthy and handsome suitor (Griem), who after stirring their dreams and passions, leaves them flat. The subplots of Brian's students, their fellow boarders at the rooming house, and Sally's various schemes provide an opportunity for wonderful music and staging. Most of the numbers happen onstage at the Kit Kat club. We have addressed the issue of performances within performances before - and the usual question is "Who would pay money to see this?" But in *Cabaret*, the staged musical numbers are spectacular and you would definitely pay good money to see a nightclub performances like those. "Money" and "Mien Herr" are incredible, and Bob Fosse's outre choreography is stunning. The costuming and makeup add to the heightened surrealism, and the Nazi threat adds an element of danger and desperation to a movie that would be hard to classify as a musical, drama, comedy, satire or war movie. The Nazi violence, with a few exceptions, is shown by implication and suggestion. The "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" number is roundly described as stunning and chilling, and after almost 30 years, remains so. The concept of the story itself is enduring, engendering a recent Broadway revival directed by *American Beauty*'s Sam Mendez.