2. Cabaret (1972, 124m)

1931: The Rise of Nazism in Weimar Germany

This review comes a day later than I originally intended as I spent a few hours yesterday revising the list. It is, much as Tolkein famously said, "a tale that grew in the telling," and now sits around sixty films. Maybe two months would be a little more realistic?

Hopping back just a bit, we have Cabaret. Loosely based on the stage musical of the same name, Cabaret is a story of the burgeoning relationship between two foreigners amidst the decadence of Berlin near the end of the Weimar Republic. Brian Roberts (Michael York - does this guy ever age??) is a British academic pursuing a doctorate in philosophy. In order to make a living, he resolves to teach English to the native Germans. His neighbor, Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), an American performer at a local cabaret called the Kit Kat Klub, offers to let him use her spacious apartment for the lessons.

Sally instantly becomes infatuated by the reserved Brit and quickly lays siege to his virtue in the best screwball comedy tradition. However, things aren't as simple as all that; Sally longs for attention as a result of unresolved Daddy-issues and Brian struggles with his sexual identity - as he tells Sally, he'd previously been with three girls and it didn't go well. Eventually the two overcome these obstacles (at least for a time) and have an affair, concluding "those three girls were just the wrong three girls". My favorite moment comes when Sally tries to seduce him for the first time. She pauses in the middle of their make-out session (or whatever one called it in 1930s Germany), and adjourns to her room to retrieve her Victrola.

Meanwhile, Brian gives English lessons to a variety of people and ends up befriending a few, such as Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper), a man who falls in love with Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson), another of Brian's students. Fritz finally overcomes her prudish nature and she develops feelings for him in return, however she worries that her Jewish family would object to her dating a Christian. In the end, Fritz reveals that he's only pretending to be a Christian to escape persecution but fears that admitting his dishonestly would end the relationship.

In the interim, Brian and Sally have been swept away by Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem), a rich playboy that Sally hopes can get her into movies, to his country estate. Though reluctant at first (not to mention jealous), Brian soon also finds himself drawn to Max and the sexual tension grows between the three. Things come to a head shortly after Max departs for another country, leaving only an envelop of money behind for the two to share, when Sally discovers she's pregnant. "Screw Maximilian!" bellows Brian in a brilliant moment of passion. "I do," Sally retorts. "So do I," Brian admits into a lengthy silence, forcing the characters (and more importantly the audience) to reflect on their preconceptions.

Cabaret can be best described as a love story with Nazism nibbling around the edges. Through the film's many characters and diverse travels, a picture of Germany forms, that of a country desperate to regain its former glory. In fact, despite being a fictional narrative, this movie feels decidedly more authentic than the previous film I watched, Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003). There's a great line in the extended cut of Almost Famous (2000), one of my new favorite films, where rock critic Lester Bangs (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) asserts that the Box Tops said more in their song 'The Letter' in two minutes than Jethro Tull can say in two hours. I feel the same way here: there's an inspired scene a little more than halfway through the film that chillingly, yet somehow beautifully, encapsulates the whole rise of the Nazis/Hitler in three minutes. Brian and Maximilian stop off at a beer garden and begin a conversation but are interrupted by the captivating singing of a young boy. Through strategic camerawork, it's shortly revealed that the young man is an HJ. The song is one of national pride and the promise of the future, 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me". Person after person is swept up in the music, standing and singing along (with the exception of one resolute old man that clearly knows better). It's infectious - and effective. Indeed, this is everything that was missing from the previous movie, the terrible seductive power of the Nazis. It literally brought tears to my eyes the first time I watched it.

In a way, the whole film could be seen as an allegory for the rise of the Nazis: Sally is Germany, decadent and desperate for attention, and willing to sell herself to get it. She gets caught up with a charismatic guy (Max) and swept away by the lure of a better future. Meanwhile, Brian is the common man, skeptical and jaded by the past, who loves his country (Sally) but sees Hitler (Max) as a means to an end. And, indeed, everything's good for a while. Then, despite his reservations, the common man (Brian) starts to fall for him as well. He's wary but deluding himself about what he wants. Max tells Brian they tolerate the Nazis because they'll get rid of the communists. They'll deal with them later. Germany (Sally) thinks it's using Hitler (Max) when, in fact it's the other way around. Further, the common man (Brian) has Jewish friends (Fritz) but does nothing against the rising antisemitic sentiment in the country. In the end we find out that all the moral posturing is, in fact, irrelevant since everyone's already in bed with everyone else!

This film is, of course, a musical, which is interesting because there are only two on this list and they both take place during, relatively, the same period of time. Apparently one can sing during the rise of the Nazis but not during the war itself - even the fictional 'Springtime for Hitler' took place before the war. The film's story is framed by the cabaret itself where the incomparable Emcee (Joel Grey) cavorts before a live audience. Correspondingly, all of the film's musical numbers are diegetic (they are actually performed by the characters in the film and are not simply manifestations of the character's emotional states like in many other musicals). Michael York turns in a wonderful performance as the conflicted Brian, as does Minnelli, but Grey is the real show-stealer. The cabaret sequences provide valuable counterpoint to the rest of the film. For example, early on a Nazi is kicked out of the club for trying to raise funds. Shortly thereafter the man and his friends catch up to the ejector and assault him. This is intercut with the playful violence of one of the cabaret's musical numbers.

When the film begins, the Emcee instructs us to leave our troubles outside; "So - life is disappointing? Forget it! We have no troubles here! Here life is beautiful... The girls are beautiful... Even the orchestra is beautiful!" But, alas, we see that it's all artifice as we cut to the dancers putting on their wigs and makeup. When the film begins, there's only one Nazi in the whole place (and he gets kicked out). However, when the film ends, we see (through a warped mirror) that the audience is now primarily Nazis. Just because we ignore our problems doesn't mean they go away. Indeed, they usually get worse.

Overall, the film is a compelling, slightly-twisted, commentary on a period of time and the people in it, doing their best to cling to what they can in a world that's slowly going insane round them. They lie to themselves about what they want and, thus, have difficulty realizing it. The film is effective, the message is strong - both on the surface and sub-textually - and the execution is terrific. I rate this movie 3/5.