Cabaret

Cabaret changed everything audiences knew to be true about musicals in 1972. Set in the Weimar Republic of 1930s Berlin, a period soon overshadowed by fascism, the film contrasts its grim backdrop with a darkly playful style. The dynamic was fostered by director Bob Fosse, who indulges in sexual liberation, garish camp, and historical irony above all. Tinged by obscene buoyancy and the acrid scent of the atrocities to come, the film alternates between realistic scenes with the romantically entangled characters and the rise of Nazism. Both are reflected by stage performances inside the seedy Kit Kat Klub, a Berlin nightspot specializing in tawdry songs and delightfully tasteless humor, where the diabolical Master of Ceremonies encourages his spectators to revel in its sleazy pleasures. The licentiousness and excess inside supply distraction and feed denial, producing a cautionary tale about how self-gratification can distract from the malicious forces attempting to manipulate those impulses to suit their depraved agenda. The film resolves that, whether living inside the performative joy of a cabaret or forcing change through political violence, both represent twisted illusions and self-denial on a disturbing scale. These were radical ideas for a movie musical. 

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