Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome... to the Son of SDMB Musicals CABARET thread

Cafe Society
21

I hope you all don’t mind if I chime in because I lovelovelove the movie. I haven’t seen the stage shows so I can’t really comment on them but I think Minnelli is brilliant. IMO, the key to Sally in the movie is that she isn’t the world weary jaded chanteuse that she would like to be. She’s actually quite provincial yet pretentious. She’s attracted to Brian because he’s unobtainable. She lives in a world where she needs to be the center of attention, and she sees him as a challenge because he isn’t coming on to her. At the same time, my take is that Brian is attracted to her neediness and vulnerability. I always saw him as moving to Germany to try to escape his sexuality. IMO he would like nothing better than to actually fall for a woman, get married and have a “normal” life. He takes on the role of her caretaker. I don’t see heat between them; I see him caring for and about her, and her desperately needing to be cared for. I’m not sure about the stage versions but the movie clearly draws parallels between Fritz and Brian, who both move to Germany and establish themselves with false facades, Fritz as Christian and Brian as straight (although he admits to Sally that he doesn’t sleep with girls, he is all too eager to state that those were just the “wrong three girls”). In both cases, the conclusion of the movie requires that each acknowledge his “true self”. In Fritz’s case, that means he gains short-term happiness with the woman he loves but with the shadow of the Holocaust over him at the end of the film. Brian, OTOH, loses the girl in the short term, but as the narrator, he presumably goes on to some future success/happiness.

The crux of the story for me is Sally’s abortion. It is at the same time the most selfish and the most unselfish thing that she does. At that moment she suddenly becomes the mature one. While superficially it is a supremely selfish gesture, what Minnelli does brilliantly is to convey that there is more to the decision than she lets on and that it has everything to do with the fact that she sees how wrong it would be for Brian to settle down and marry her. She willingly shoulders all of the responsibility for her decision, even though it means presumably destroying the friendship in order to set Brian free.

Finally, I love the Greek chorus effect of the songs. Not having Brian sing fits with the way the movie is shot, since the songs are commentaries on his life. It’s not particularly subtle, but it’s not meant to be. There is meant to be a obvious juxtaposition between the raunchy lighthearted “Two Ladies” perfomed at the club, and the realities of emotional entanglement actually caused by a romantic triangle in the outside world, or the contrast between “Money” where being rich solves all one’s problems and Maximillion’s world where he doesn’t seem to know what he wants and is constantly searching for the next diversion.

22

I think partly it’s that he is uncomfortable, at least, with being gay/bi, and he really wants to get married, have kids, and be “normal”, or at least normal as defined in that time and place. Too, Sally pursues him relentlessly, makes it clear that she finds him extremely attractive, and perhaps he’s flattered by that. Sally has a lot of charisma, and perhaps he’s dazzled enough by it that he’s willing to give heterosexuality one last chance. His life is dismal, and she brings sparkle to it. She weaves a fantasy for him, and he’s willing to escape into it, at least for a time. Hell, I’d be tempted to have sex with her, and I’m completely straight. She makes life seem very exciting.

I’ve always thought “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” to seem like a very innocent song, if one didn’t know the background. The youth that starts singing it sure LOOKS like he’s on the side of the angels.

I’ve only ever seen the movie, and now some clips from the live performances. I’m going to have to dig my copy out again and watch it, it’s been too long. I first saw it when I was a teen, about 16 or 17, and I didn’t really understand it. I just loved the songs. When I learned more about the history, it’s become darker and darker to me.

23

My first exposure to Caberet–other than having heard and sung the title song in a million innocent contexts-- was when I saw Chicago on Broadway with Joel Grey as Mr. Cellophane, and my mother commented on how cool on the one hand, and how disappointing on the other, to see Joel Grey playing such a bland role in his “old” age. My parents recall having seen Caberet in the movie theater.

A few years later, during a burst of watching “old” Hollywood musicals, the three of us watched the movie together. I’m pretty sure my parents got most of their enjoyment out of nostalgia. Caberet wasn’t all that much to my taste either.

The discussion of good singer vs. bad singer–and of course how do you differentiate between a character who sings poorly and a performer who sings poorly–is interesting, not least because I recently saw “Meet me in St. Louis”–where a lot of the discussion in the Son of SDMB Musiclas thread revolved around the fact that Margaret O’Brien is a child actor who can’t sing, playing a child who does sing. Some like it because it makes her seem more realistic, other people, including myself, would have preferred to listen to a child who could sing. Many children I know DO sing much better than that character does–because the actress doesn’t sing well.

I didn’t much care for Cabaret when I saw it partly just because it was so DARK and sexualized, and partly because I didn’t really understand the plot.

24

Just watched all the clips and read the second half of Sampiro’s contribution, and I need to sort out my reactions – but I don’t want to forget to mention the recent documentary about Isherwood and his young boy-toy – who turned out to be way more than a fling.

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I’ve started watching the clips, and besides being annoyed that my laptop keeps turning the screensaver on, I’ve decided I was wrong about the song being familiar from a million innocent contexts. I think I was thinking of a different song about Life being a caberet.

Which isn’t to say I’d never heard before I saw the movie, just not as often as I first implied.

26

Thanks for that- I’m definitely Netflixing it. An interview with the producers and lots of pics.

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Yeah, one of the things I was thinking was that it would be interesting to track down the Isherwood and read the source material. speed dials public library page

28

What **psychobunny **said. A brilliant movie, cements Fosse permanently in the upper tier of American directors.

(One thing no one else has pointed out, in re: Sally’s “seduction” of Brian–yes, everything that **psychobunny **and **Lynn **suggest about her motivations is true. But also, I think it suggests that the only way she knows how to relate to someone is sexually; it’s the only kind of relationship she understands; anything else is confusing and frightening to her. Of course this suggests, further, and wholly without any textual corroboration–just my own armchair psychoanalysis–that her relationship with her father is more complicated, shall we say, than she lets on.)

29

I must sadly disagree with you, Samp. The only way the movie works for me is to accept the inevitable tragedy of Sally’s short, miserable life. It’s necessary to the story that she dies face down in a gutter, syphilitic and strung out on cheap heroin.

30

Maybe that’s why Daddy stood her up? She’s not a little girl any more, she’s an adult woman, and he doesn’t want her any more? This makes all kinds of sense to me now that I think about it. I’ve known a couple of kids who were regularly sexually abused, and yeah, the only way they knew how to express affection was sexually. On the one hand, I felt incredibly sorry for them. On the other hand, I was incredibly creeped out by them. I avoided them, because I didn’t know how to deal with them.

Sally tries to cope as best she can, but it isn’t good enough. She’s broken and can’t be fixed.

31

Well, can we at least make it a nice gutter?:wink:

I completely agree. It’s her most responsible act of the movie; she can see even when Brian can’t that a “special circumstances” fling can’t a marriage make, and like many of us she may not know exactly what she wants but she definitely knows what ain’t it, and being the stay at home wife of a gay professor and mother of a baby that may or may not be his in an English college town is pretty high on the list. She knows that the baby will ultimately make her miserable, make Brian miserable, and be miserable, and so she basically takes on the sin of others and absolves them by doing the deed herself (and sacrificing her coat [which in the play is ratty but here is a beautiful fur]). I thought it interesting she was the reasonable one and Brian the irrational emotional one.

Good call on Fritz and Brian both coming to Berlin to change identity. I hadn’t thought of that but it works.

Another favorite blip ‘just because’ is the M.C. sticking out his tongue at Sally just before going on stage. Don’t know why but I loved that- so silly, juvenile, prurient, but funny. I like how you never really have any idea what kind of relationship he and Sally have when they’re not on stage, because essentially he only exists onstage.

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The Godfather beat Cabaret for Picture and Screenplay Adaptation that year, while Fosse won Director (suggesting it was pretty close between the two).

Joel Grey, while brilliant, was probably assisted by the fact that 3 of his competitors (Pacino, Duvall, Caan) were from the Coppola film, resulting in a likely vote split.

There were only a couple other categories where the two films went head-to-head (Sound, Editing), and Cabaret won those, though interestingly, The Godfather’s groundbreaking cinematography was ignored that year, as it would have definitely given the Fosse film a run for its money. Also surprising is that Cabaret’s costumes weren’t nominated that year, and neither were any of the original songs eligible.

Cabaret has the distinction of winning the most Oscars in Academy history without winning Best Picture. It went 8 for 10 that year, while The Godfather went 3 for 10 (with the two films splitting the lead acting Oscars as well).

33

Why not?

34

Sampiro, thank you for your excellent analysis. Particularly with ‘TBTM’, you are spot on. I don’t know of a movie scene that gets a more emotional reaction out of me.

I do think Sally’s life has to end tragically for the story to have its full resonance.

35

Cabaret is such a great movie that I almost don’t know where to begin talking about it.

Part of what makes Cabaret so powerful is that the historic setting is more or less familiar to everyone, so there’s always a certain dramatic irony at work. We’re interested in the lives and problems of the characters we see, but we also know that much bigger forces are at play and that things are going to become worse than any of them could have imagined. Lesser filmmakers would have overdone things with a lot of broad “As we all know, the Nazis are evil!” signals to the audience, but that doesn’t happen in Cabaret. Sampiro has already provided a great analysis of the “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” sequence, which if not for the historic context would seem like a lovely, innocent little scene. But because the audience knows things that none of the characters realize, it’s downright chilling.

Someone upthread said Cabaret is a musical for people who don’t like musicals, but I’d say that’s only partially because it confines all the musical numbers (except “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”) to the stage of the cabaret. I think we’re all familiar with a certain stereotypical view of musicals as being about a bunch of happy, wholesome people singing and dancing for no reason and falling in love and having comic misunderstandings until it all works out in the end with a big musical number. Some musicals really are that way and some people love movies that fit that description, but many musical-haters would say “They’re all so sappy and unrealistic!”

Cabaret is a perfect counterexample. This was a game-changing musical, and I don’t think it could have been made even a few years before. There’s plenty of serious, adult stuff going on here involving sex, money, religion, and politics. (Is this the only musical in which the heroine has an abortion?) The same basic plot would probably work quite well as a non-musical drama, but the musical numbers never seem forced or extraneous. They’re an important part of the narrative, just like the non-musical scenes. I can imagine Cabaret with all the songs edited out, but I wouldn’t want to watch it.

Oh, twickster, I’m not sure if this really makes sense, but I always thought of Sally Bowles as being a bad singer within the context of the story. That is, she wasn’t “really” as good as Liza Minnelli, that was more the voice she wanted to have or imagined herself as having. I’d agree that she’s a somewhat different character if she’s really a good singer than if she’s really a mediocre one. It seems obvious enough that Sally will never be a real star, but to what extent is she deluded about her abilities, and to what extent are her own poor decisions holding her back?

36

Interesting take on Sally, Lamia – it makes sense. (And reminds me of the way Rob Marshall did Chicago, another Fosse show, with everything happening pretty much in Roxie’s imagination – with her being a much better performer/much bigger star in her head than she is in reality.)

37

Sampiro, that was great! Three quick personal stories:

I lived in Berlin when the film was still a huge hit (saw it 14 times) and it ran for a few years in a small theater in the center of West Berlin called “Smoky”, where you could still smoke in the theater…perfect for a film like Cabaret. One of my favorite audience moments during one of my many viewings there - two German women sitting behind me and when Liza appears on screen one German woman whispers to the other, “I hear her mother was famous too.”

I worked at a restaurant in Berlin and once had an American guy as a guest and he sort of hit on me and asked what I liked to do in Berlin. Trying to be polite, I simply said, “Well, I have seen Cabaret 14 times.” The guy brightened and said, “Recognize me?” I looked and said, “Uh, no.” He smiled and struck a pose, “I’m Elke!” Yes - it was Ricky Renee’ - the drag queen who played the role in the film - he was appearing at New Eden nightclub down the street. He hung around Berlin for years, milking that role for all it was worth - nice guy though, and he would come to the restaurant quite often and tell me stories about the film

I used to go to East Berlin quite often (poor ex-Pat that I was) and met quite a few Gay guys and hung out with them. One weekend, they organized a huge event with Gay men from all over East Germany to come to East Berlin to see the East German premiere of the film, Cabaret! (I was the only “Westerner” at this event.) Several events lead up to it - boat tour, party at a bar, train ride, etc. Then came the big event…I was sitting in an East Berlin movie theater, and here was a huge audience (mostly Gay men) eagerly awaiting their first viewing of a film they had only heard about in the news. All was going well - lots of applause and laughter and then…
To preface this little tidbit - there was one scene in the film Cabaret that was cut and not shown to West German audiences. The scene? When the boy stands at the beer garden and sings “Tomorrow Belongs To Me.” I heard the West German censors didn’t think anything even remotely “pro-Nazi” should be shown on a movie screen in Germany.
Back to the East German premiere…this scene was, surprisingly, NOT CUT from the East German version of the film. The boy stands up and sings Tomorrow Belongs To Me. Suddenly, in the theater, there was dead silence. I mean not another laugh, clap or anything for the entire rest of the film!
As fate would have it, guess where the event had been scheduled for the after film party?
Yep - a beer garden.
I went with my friend Wolfgang and he was silent and didn’t want to talk. Finally, we got to the beer garden and the mood of the Gay crowd was decidedly bleak. Finally, I got Wolfgang and one of his friends to talk and said, “What happened? Didn’t you like the film?”
He said, “Up until that scene with the boy singing.”
Innocently I asked, “What was wrong with that scene?”
Wolfgang said, “We were so carried away with the film, and how great Germany was back in those days and how great everything was - and then that song; it showed how easily we too could have gotten swept up into becoming Nazis.”
I had no idea that this was the first time these post-war, young German guys had ever seen that side of Nazi Germany; the average citizens gathered together for beer, united in nationalist fervor, oblivious to what was about to happen.

The event ended in dismal silence and everyone simply wandered off and went home.

38

I love Jane Horrocks (bk4 Little Voice or Absolutely Fabulous) and think she may be the best of the stage Sallys (at least on YouTube). She comes in at 2:35 in this clip.

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Those are great, thanks for sharing! You should write your own Berlin Stories if you haven’t already.

40

Thanks.
I also created my own Cabaret tour of Berlin for American friends when they came to visit - went to see where Isherwood lived when he wrote the book (near Nollendorf Platz) and also went to see where Cabaret was filmed on locations…I worked for awhile at a Gay bar five feet from where Liza screamed under the S-Bahn tracks, which is about 100 feet from where they filmed the scene with the newsstand getting knocked over.
A good friend of mine used to be Liza’s personal assistant, so also know quite a few other behind the scene stories.
I’ll get back to you and have you read that book I am writing.