First released with the tagline "A Divinely Decadent Experience" - Bob Fosse's film retains its power to shock forty years after its original release. Beautifully filmed, with a brilliant use of intercuts between the musical songs and scenes of sickening violence in the Berlin of the early 1930s, the film provides an object-lesson in how a musical in film should work, with the songs commenting on as well as advancing the plot. Liza Minnelli is quite simply the definitive Sally Bowles, combining boundless self-confidence with an innate vulnerability. She shows a mastery of tone and shade in her rendition of some of the tunes - in the title song, for instance, she recalls her mother at her best, whereas in the song "Maybe This Time," she reveals the character's inner yearning for a better life. Likewise Joel Grey is definitive as the Emcee - a vicious parodist who knows precisely what the songs mean in terms of satirizing Germany at the beginning of Nazi rule. Michael York's "Brian Roberts" (actually Christopher Isherwood) is both bemused yet appalled at what happens around him; he can never become actively involved either in the anti-Nazi movement or the decadent world of the Kit-Kat Club due to his respectable upbringing. He can escape from Nazi Germany; sadly neither Sally nor the Emcee have that privilege. This is the film's principal tragedy.
Review of Cabaret
