Cabaret
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.99 You Save: $9.99 (67%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.40 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Cabaret
Movie Review: As Powerful As Ever!
Summary: 5 Stars
It can be a big mistake to rewatch your favorite films from the 1970s, assuming you saw them first run. A lot of the humor has faded as badly as the color, and a lot of the themes seem as dated as the hair-dos. That's NOT the case with Cabaret. It was a great film when I saw it first in 1972, it was better last night when I watched it again after 38 years, and I'm glad I bought it because I predict it will still be great when I play it for my grandchildren a few decades from now.
The main character of Cabaret isn't the young Englishman Brian, played so very sensitively by Michael York, or the self-hating starlet Sally Bowles, performed so effortlessly by Liza Minelli. No, the soul of this story is a Time and a Place --Berlin in 1931-- at the very moment when fanatical anti-semitic nationalism was poised to pounce on Europe just as Sally pounces on Brian, and as she advises Brian's fortune-hunting tutee to pounce on the virginal heiress on her own couch. The hatred, desperation, and violence that fostered Nazism in the late 1920's is portrayed almost subliminally, as fragments of a context the clients of the Kit Kat Club pretend not to note. But the fervor and triumphalism of the Nazi movement is revealed also, especially in the semi-plausible beer garden scene, in which an angel-faced German lad sings "Tomorrow belongs to me" and the entire crowd joins the chorus. That scene is the climax of the film, and it's a master stroke of irony, considering what "we" know retropectively about Germany's "tomorrow."
And there's Joel Grey, the "Master of Ceremonies" at the Kit Kat Club. He's the face and fanny of Berlin in 1931, all brilliant Kitsch and smirking decadence. Without Joel Grey, the film would be another romantic melodrama. With him, it's virtually a documentary of historical tragedy.
Much of the credit appropriately goes to director/choreographer Bob Fosse, Oscar winner in 1972, and to John van Druten, the playwright who made something profound from the slim material of Chistopker Isherwood's Berlin stories. And my gratitude appropriately goes to my "amazon friends" whose reviews stimlated me to rewatch this classic.
Movie Review: If life is a Cabaret then don't ever let me die!
Summary: 5 Stars
`Cabaret' is a wonderful treat of a film, a wonderful treat mostly because I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. Before `Chicago' and `Moulin Rouge' there was `Cabaret' which really isn't a musical in the lines of modern musicals such as the aforementioned. `Cabaret' plays out more like a drama with musical numbers thrown in for some spice, and what spice they do add.
The film, based on `The Berlin Stories' by Christopher Isherwood, revolves around Brian (Michael York) who moves to Berlin in hopes to start teaching. He meets Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) who works at the Kit Kat Klub and who offers him a room at her place of residence. They soon fall in love, or lust, whichever you call it, and their story grows from there. Taking place in the early 30's, the film centers around the rise of Nazi power in Berlin and the toll it takes on those who appose it. It also tests the boundaries of sexuality and delivers a well rounded film that breaches many subjects not considered in cinema at the time.
The performances by the entire cast, but most notably Minnelli, are astounding. Liza commands every second of the screen with her doe-eyed stare and confident while spunky personality. Her Oscar win was above and beyond deserved. Joel Grey also does a brilliant job with his Oscar winning roll as The Master of Ceremonies. Together with Liza they delivered some of the greatest and most memorable musical numbers in cinema today. And mention must be made of Bob Fosse who directs this film with such grace and maturity he draws you in with every frame.
Any lover of the musical will enjoy this film from start to finish, but seriously, you don't have to be a musical lover to enjoy it for the film, like I said, is just a drama with musical numbers. Unlike the recent `Phantom of the Opera' this entire film is NOT sung, just the numbers spread out throughout this gem of a film. Watch out, once you visit the cabaret you may never want to leave!
Movie Review: You're as substantial as an after dinner mint.
Summary: 5 Stars
I give 'Caberet' 5 stars based on both its entertainment value and insights. The primary characters are physically attractive but they are denizens of the moral cesspool that was the cabaret scene in Berlin shortly before Hitler's 1933 election. Let me see...Sally is a two bit tramp; Brian and his homosexual lover are also Sally's lovers and one character is a giggolo who falls wildly in love with a lovely woman, who is the only one who seems halfway genuine. Sally gets pregnant and she doesn't know who the father is. It could be one of her homosexual friends but, just as likely, it could be one of the numerous elderly lovers who will get her 'into the movies.'
Given the above, the Nazis in this film don't come away as all that bad. The scene where a blond boy with a lovely voice stands up at a beer drinking fest and sings a Nazi Party song, is remarkable. The camera pans down and we can see he is dressed as one of the Hitlersjugend. His song, although in English, is of Heimat und Volk. For a brief instant we can feel a little of what many Germans felt at the time...a powerful sense of community...a sense of REALLY belonging. One by one, with the exception of a couple of elderly skeptics, the crowd stands up to join into the song. Lovely young girls, with their jaws set and heads thrown back, sing of their love of the Vaterland. Potent stuff.
Of course we know how all this enthusiasm was channeled. Our heroes and heroine can't know and are caught in the maelstrom of cabaret decadence. Liza Minelli's last song, 'Cabaret', is absolutely wonderful in it's performance. She belts out a song of artificial happiness and joy mixed with the tragedy of wasted youth and an increasingly disordered nation. It's a terrific performance on the part of Minelli and her director.
Yep, Joel Grey was terrific, too.
Ron Braithwaite, author of novels, 'Skull Rack' and 'Hummingbird God', on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
Movie Review: first rate on many levels
Summary: 5 Stars
I have not seen this in 35 years, and I was utterly enthralled to see it again. There are so many ways to see this films that it has got to be one of the best I have ever seen. First, there is the historical reconstruction, a snapshot of a very difficult period in late Weimar, which would result in Hitler's regime. Even the images in the film reflected art from the period: you see images by Grosz and many others appearing in subtle glimpses.
Second, there is the drama of the two young lovers. I did not notice the first time that the York character is sexually ambiguous, and that his ambivalence towards a relationship with Sally may be due to his actual orientation. Of course, Sally Bowles is one of the great new character types created by the film: a loose woman who is actually extremely vulnerable and trying to be tough. She hold back from commitments yet needs them, openly uses her body to advance her career, and also sees her own limitations and hence chooses illegal abortion. At the time, this combination was psychological dynamite, really pioneering stuff, and I saw a lot more in them as a middle-aged man.
Third, there is the music. To say it is wonderful is an understatement. Minelli is one of the greatest talents that has ever come out of a Hollywood dynasty. The best. Interestingly, I heard an interview with Isherwood's long-time partner. He said that Bowles was an amateur in the original book, not the phenomenal talent that the film uses to traduce the character.
I got this because my daughter (13) loves musicals and is developing into a singer. As a parent, I feel a bit wary about the sophistication and bawdiness of the film, which is more explicit than I feel comfortable with, but then, she knows about these things. We will no doubt watch this so much together that we will memorize it.
Recommended with enthusiasm.
Movie Review: It's a jungle
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't like musicals. Luckily this isn't one: it is a film about stage performers and has some of the acts. Not a musical, but great entertainment.
Nearly 40 years after, a revisit, and guess what: this piece of show business hasn't aged at all. I had to talk my daughter into watching it with me. She gave in grudgingly and then she was delighted, mainly with Joel Grey as the MC in the sleezy cabaret club in Berlin 1931. Sarah didn't quite agree with the Oscar for Liza Minelli, because Liza's acting is not really on the level of her singing.
A young Englishman (it is based on Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Tales), who thinks that he is gay (which is possibly a travesty of the book, which I have not read yet, but plan to), comes to Berlin in the early 30s and meets this American cabaret singer, who teaches him to be more versatile in his tastes. These are the years of street battles between Nazis and Communists. Much of 'central Germany' is deluded and thinks the Nazis can be used to get rid of the Reds and then they can be controlled. We know that this did not work as planned. Berlin's cultural life was as wild then as it is now. Predictably the Nazis were going to put an iron heel on perversions like this delightful place.
Entirely pleasing, still, after all these years! There is only one 'false' scene, and that is the Landgasthaus scene where the Englishman (Michael York) and the German Baron (Helmut Griem), who has turned the couple into prostitutes before they understood what happened to them, watch a Nazi Liedershow, starting with a pretty young blond man singing a patriotic song and then the whole audience in the place coming up with a brillant fascist choir performance. That is at the same time 'wrong' in the sense of unrealistic, but also right, because it gives an eery forecast of things to come.