Cabaret

[vaneramos]

Start by admitting from cradle to tomb,
It isn't that long a stay.

I can relate to Sally Bowles. She sounds like a decadent Annie Dillard, stripped down and relieved of a little religion.

These are our few live seasons.

I don't know how I managed to miss seeing Cabaret until now. Jon invited me over this evening to watch the video.

Now I know why my mother said she never warmed to this musical. It lacks the secure, family-oriented Rodgers and Hammerstein ending my family bought into, where duty and good behaviour win the day and make the children happy. Instead we have an artist asserting her individuality and independence, refusing to give up her idealistic dream for a cottage in Cambridge.

I was also amused to witness the quintessential "record scratch" epiphany. Only this afternoon, fabulist complained about this cliché in his declaration of the Seven sonic felonies. I wonder if Cabaret was the first movie to use the sound to that effect. It is a powerful moment that makes all others seem like parodies. I was titillated.

Comments

[grandiva1968.livejournal.com]

In as much as she was a character based on a woman Christopher Isherwood (the Michael York character, Clifford, who in reality was gay through and through) knew while he was in Berlin, yes.

Check into Alan Cumming's reading of Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin, or a print edition of Berlin Stories, both released to coincide with the (soon-to-end) revival of Cabaret on Broadway a few years ago.

Always go with the original source, I say.