Wilkommen (Cabaret (DVD))

Member Name: thehud

Product:	Cabaret (DVD)
Date:	28/08/02 (236 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great songs, Great mood, Very dark

Disadvantages: None

Liza Minnelli has rarely had a better movie opportunity to showcase her undoubted talents than Cabaret, the 1972 satirical dissection of the rise of Nazism in the early 1930's. The daughter of the tortured Julie Garland received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in her first starring role in The Sterile Cuckoo in 1969, and she also featured in the obscure 1970 film, Tell Me That You Love Me, Julie Moon, and appeared with Albert Finney in 1968's Charlie Bubbles, but it will always be as the vivid and vibrant performer Sally Bowles in the decadent Kit Kat club that she will be best remembered.

This is with good reason as the film allowed Minnelli to make the most of her singing and dancing abilities, but it also gave her tremendous rein as an actress, opposite Michael York, who also gave a sterling performance as the reserved young Englishman Brian.

The other key performance here was that of Joel Grey as the sleazy master of ceremonies in the club, and his spiteful and barbed torturing of the freak and the pervert who populated the club was at times almost frightening.

However, it was the wonderful Minnelli who was the living, breathing heart of the piece, and she well merited the Oscar she ran away with. The film won eight Oscars in total and was unlucky to be up against the even more masterful Godfather as Best Picture.

Cabaret is a stupendous piece of entertainment, operating effortlessly and effectively at a myriad of different levels, whether as a thrilling musical or a startling docudrama.

The soundtrack consisted of the following tracks.

1. Willkommen - Joel Grey
2. Mein Herr - Liza Minnelli
3. Two Ladies - Joel Grey
4. Maybe This Time - Liza Minnelli
5. Sitting Pretty (instrumental)
6. Tiller Girls (instrumental)
7. Money, Money - Joel Grey
8. Heiraten (Married)
9. If You Could See Her - Joel Grey
10. Tomorrow Belongs To Me
11. Cabaret - Liza Minnelli r>12. Finale - Joel Grey

These were taken almost exclusively from the performances in the night club, with Willkommen, Cabaret and Money, Money being the most memorable. Outside of the context of the film the songs don't make that much sense, but when woven into the plotline and considered as the framework for a Europe on the brink of tyranny and war constitute an astonishing piece of work, and that is how they should be enjoyed.

There are few better exposes of the terror and hatred of the rise of Nazism than Cabaret and the director Bob Fosse created a wonderful mood and atmosphere in the dark nights of Berlin.

At the same time, the strange obsession and love affair between York and Minnelli are well staged and explored and a useful sub plot, but Cabaret stands or falls on its depiction of the callousness and viciousness of the Nazi youth.

It's a truly memorable movie, one of the best of an outstanding decade for films and deserves to be remembered as such.