Divine Decadence, Thoughts on Cabaret, Ole Chum

I watched Cabaret (1972), one of my all time favorite films, for the zillionth time yesterday. However this was my first viewing since having read Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories upon which the story is partly based. I love Isherwood's writing. Simple elegance. The "I am a camera" objective style.

Of course, Cabaret is only very loosely based on on Isherwood's stories. If you're terribly fussy about films replicating the books or events they're inspired by you'll be hugely disappointed. But cinematically it's nigh on impossible to create a better story. Isherwood's stories are a nice companion piece to appreciating the film even further and well worth reading for their own merits.

I was struck this viewing with the extent to which Cabaret foretells the rise of the Nazis. They start the story as minor players being bullied out of the Kit Kat club and before you know it they're beating up the proprietor and becoming a most visible presence. This is analogous to their presence throughout Berlin and Germany. It's amazing how, if anything, films have been quite accurate in their depiction of Nazis. They were plain and simple thugs who relied on brute force to gain and especially to hold power.

Cabaret also features the dramatic scene in a park where the Nazi youth starts singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" (surprisingly, it was not a real Nazi anthem but written for the film). I once saw Cabaret in Finland and aside from subtitles, of course, the only difference was the song being sung in German. Even without understanding the language, it made the scene even more powerful. The Nazis came into power without majority support, but one of the ways in which they quickly attained it was by playing on the citizenry's patriotism. They made great use of iconography as well. The scene in the park captures this.

Michael York plays Brian Roberts, a character who bears a resemblance to Isherwood. His sexuality is more ambiguous than the homosexual Isherwood and makes for one of the story's more dramatic elements. He of course becomes smitten with Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli in on Oscar winning performance) with whom he has his first successful heterosexual experience. Nonetheless he also has a dalliance with a man, a Baron who is also screwing Sally.

The frankness of the sex was relatively knew when the film came out and, while tame by today's standards, it serves the story quite well. The whole screw the baron, I have and so have I exchange is still powerful today. Indeed, Cabaret is a movie that holds up quite well and likely always will.

Among other things Cabaret is about a doomed relationship. Brian and Sally are meant to be the good friends they start out as, but marriage and children is not in the cards. This is not meant to surprise us. We've all been in relationships in which we pretend its going further then we know it possibly can. Like Brian and Sally's.

I don't generally care for musicals. I mean there's often a rather nice story being told and suddenly everyone bursts into a choreographed song accompanied by orchestration. Fine, perhaps, for you. Just not my cup of tea. That said, I love a good Astaire and Rogers movie, perhaps because its them doing the dancing. Also their numbers often are part of the story and not a separate reality. All the songs in Cabaret are in the night club and enhance the story telling process. Besides that they're all either very good or bloody wonderful numbers. Minelli and the title song have a lot to do with that but there can be no under estimating the performance of Joel Grey as the master of the ceremonies (he too won an Oscar).

He is truly one of the more...hmmm, let's say, interesting, characters in film. This despite the fact that every line he speaks is from the stage and is either part of a song or is spoken as part of his emcee duties. I have variously found him creepy (that tongue directed at Sally) charming, delightful, and menacing. He is a very broad character yet one we can draw our own conclusions about.

Cabaret is one of those films that, if you'll excuse the cliché, works on so many levels. It is a toe tapping musical, a love story, a history lesson, a vehicle for the incredible talents of Minelli and Grey. Bob Fosse directed and neither he nor Minelli nor Grey ever did anything to match Cabaret on film. That is, to turn a phrase on its head, criticizing them with faint damnation. You could certainly hang your hat on this film and call it one helluva career.

Here's a post I wrote about the film in 2009.

Even The Orchestra is Beautiful!

I'm one of those. You know the type. People who don't go in for conventionality. I accept "all kinds" and I'm all for a good time. Live and let live, I say.

Gay, straight, bi, whatever.

Fun? I'm in. In my younger days you couldn't keep me in the house. Too much to explore, too much to do. Too many people to meet.

Sex? Hell yes. Booze? Let's have it. I was a risk taker and for the most "got away with it."

A movie like Cabaret (1972) spoke to me. Loud and clear. You had the woman, Sally Bowles. "Divine decadence." Talented. Flamboyant and ready to party. Yeah party became totally a verb back then. Multiple lovers not a problem. Big dreams aplenty. And the truth? Not as important as what it could get you which was not always as much as exaggeration or outright fibs could get. All this and she could belt out a song too.

Then there was the English gent, Brian Roberts. A studious type from Cambridge. Well read, smart as hell. But not adverse to a drink or 12 and some sex or lots of sex and with whoever, gender not so much an issue. Not my thing, mind you, but I was totally cool with what other open minded souls wanted to do. The notion of an academic being a party animal was especially cool. Bohemian.

You know that sentiment expressed in the song, "life is a cabaret, ole chum...." I heard that. And not it wasn't any good sitting all alone in your room. "Come here the music play." And so I would.

There was a guy in the movie known simply as The Master of Ceremonies. Kind of fun, kind of creepy. One bodacious talent. Was he supposed to be symbolic? Like did he represent something, cause he never actually talked. He was just always on the stage or in the wings. He welcomed us at the beginning and said auf wiedersehen at the end. He was a leering, singing, fast talking whirl of activity. Sometimes just the mouth moving, sometimes just the tongue. Weird but so interesting. Really.

Course that whole deal with the Nazis was scary. So damn real. After all the story was set in Berlin in 1931 just a couple of years before the Nazis were running the whole show in Germany. So at first they're kind of lurking in the background, then they're beating people up and singing in the countryside. Gathering support, scaring, intimidating people. By the end of the movie there they are, swastikas and all, the center of the frame. That was heavy stuff.

In the middle of this wild wonderful movie there was the love story of the two Jews. Amazing how they could meld that in so effortlessly and not only not detract from the film but enhance it. Added to the humor. To the pathos. To the whole "coming of the Nazis" message.

Cabaret came out just about the time I was planning my big adventure to Europe. I even saw it again there. The sense of adventure spoke to me. As did the sense of danger. And the sense of fun. The whole free spirited business of it. Those amazing musical numbers. The whole show!

Many years later -- today -- I love it just as much. Even though, in the words of youngest daughter, I'm an old geezer. Happy to stay at home and settle in on the sofa with a book or a movie. But about Cabaret, funny thing, I understand it more. I know the stories upon which it was based. Know more about Germany and the rise of the Nazis, like that kind of music in the movie even more.

Kind of metaphor for life, isn't it? We can really feel it when we're younger, we can go experience it. Older we "get it" you know, understand it. That experience counts for a lot. I've got a lot of "been there, done that" to my credit. Lot more yet to do and learn, mind you, but I think I'm finally starting to understand stuff.

When I was a lad Cabaret was telling me to go out and do. And by God I went out and did. Joie de vivre. Today it recalls those days and entertains every bit as much. No, maybe more.

I now know that life is in fact a Cabaret. We need to hear the music play and there's no good to sitting all alone in our rooms. What a gas to have that perspective; to not just know something is right, or fun or cool but to know why.

Cabaret, a movie so good its spoken to me at totally different part of my life. Ya know what its told me? That its a great movie, that's what.

(Cabaret was directed by Bob Fosse and starred Liza Minelli as Sally Bowles, Michael York as Brain Roberts and Joel Grey as The Master of Ceremonies. Minelli, Grey and Fosse all won Oscars and the movie won eight in all. It lost the Best Picture Oscar to The Godfather (1972), one of only six American films that I actually like better than Cabaret.)