Cabaret

Cabaret may be to many the film that nearly beat the Godfather for best picture, after all the film won more Oscars overall including best director for Bob Fosse. This film though is not some simple musical adaptation from the stage as Fosse, who despite coming from the stage himself as a choreographer and director, strives to adapt the stage musical into a truly cinematic work. Well for this non-fan of musicals, I will say this is quite a success. Fosse cuts the flab, often a problem in the adaptation, by limiting songs to only where they make sense. Those scenes tend to have an even greater impact as the songs never feel there for the sake of it, but relate far more directly to themes also realized outside the club. There is only a single song we see outside of the club, where singing comes naturally in performances, and that is the anthem "Tomorrow Belongs to Me". That scene stands as one of the most single brilliant pieces of direction in the 70's as it leads into the song of seeming of just beauty and pride, to reveal it to be this fervent anthem for Nazism. The film excels in keeping that underlying current of dread as related to the Nazis even as it reveals purposefully in the excess of our main characters. What it carefully does though is never becomes caricature giving life to everyone even granting sympathy to Liza Minelli's Sally Bowles, partially because of her striking performance, but also because Fosse never demonizes the character despite her nature. He instead captures this sense of the people on the edge some hopeful, yet tragically so, in the pure relationship of the Jewish couple, then the more lustful examination of the writer, the count, and Sally who seem to shy away when any substance seems to be found in their relationships. It's a great film and it is interesting that a man who came from the stage knew so clearly that a dynamic adaptations needs liberties, and changes to become truly cinematic.
5/5