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

[wonderboynj.livejournal.com]

Cabaret is a phenomenal movie, but I highly recommend seeing the stage version if you ever get the chance.

It's so different, I tell people it's like seeing a whole different story with the same characters.

And the ending completely blows you away.

[grandiva1968.livejournal.com]

I feel differently about Cabaret as a film depending on the direction of the wind.  In my opinion, the truer Sally Bowles (as Isherwood wrote her) is Julie Harris in the adaptation of I am a Camera.

I can't really say, though, since I wasn't in Berlin at the time to know who she actually was.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I suspect I did see it as a child at the Windsor Light Opera, but it probably didn't mean very much to me. I hope I get a chance to see it again.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Was she a real historical figure?

[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.

[grandiva1968.livejournal.com]

To explain:

In the beginning, there was Berlin Stories, semi-autobiographical accounts of Christopher Isherwood's youthful years in pre-war Berlin.

John van Druten adapted the stories into the play I Am A Camera in the 1950s (it opened on Broadway in late November 1951).

Subsequently (some ten to fifteen years later), Joe Masteroff adapted the van Druten play into a musical, collaborating with the Kander/Ebb tandem, yielding the stage version of Cabaret, which originally opened in late November 1966.

The film version, using many of Kander and Ebb's songs, but bypassing portions of van Druten and Masteroff in favor of hewing a bit closer to the original Isherwood novellas, was constructed by Bob Fosse working with Jay Allen, originally released in 1972.

Slap me if I'm turning back into Mr. Obnoxious Know-It-All.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

No, it's fascinating!

[grandiva1968.livejournal.com]

*HUGS*