A warped mirror forms the ceiling of the ‘Cabaret’s Kit Kat Klub. The mirror is a reflection of pre-Nazi Germany’s desperate attempt to distort reality by insisting upon maintaining the halcyon days of the Weimar Republic’s excesses and hedonism, against the backdrop of encroaching National Socialism.
‘Cabaret’ (1972) is based on the same-titled 1966 broadway musical which originated from the semi-autobiographical account of novelist Christopher Isherwood’s time in Weimar Germany. The film is set in 1931 Berlin, and the seedy underworld of the Kit Kat Klub forms an immersive escape away from the Nazis’ rise to power. In ‘Willkommen’, the musical’s first song, the cabaret's Master of Ceremonies insists, ‘Leave your troubles outside!…In here, life is beautiful!’. Inside the doors of the club are fishnet-clad dancers, manic laughter, and the fostering of every kind of perversion. The Kit Kat Klub’s raucousness is emphasised by the arrival of Brian Roberts (Michael York) who has come from and was acclimatised to British traditionalism. Brian moves in across the corridor to Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), a carefree bohemian who venerates ‘divine decadence’. Both Brian and Sally are in turn seduced by the opulence and profligacy of the character Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem). There are frequent allusions to Germany’s failing economy throughout the film, most notably in the song ‘Money Makes the World Go Round’.
Nevertheless, the sheer lassitude of Germany sinking into Nazism is emphasised by Fosse as he intersperses nonchalant shots of the Kit Kat Klub and the main characters with vignettes of anti-Semitic beatings, vandalism, and Nazi pamphlets. It’s significant that the only number to take place outside of the walls of the peaceful haven that is the Kit Kat Klub is a nationalist anthem chillingly led by a young boy dressed in Hitler Youth uniform, showing the bleak ubiquity of Nazism. Whereas a Nazi was forcibly removed from the Kit Kat Klub towards the beginning of ‘Cabaret’, near the end a member sits comfortably in the audience, betraying the city’s laxening attitude to the political party. The closing song, ‘Life is a Cabaret’, is a decisive yet limp effort not to let this hateful ethos dominate the current German way of life.
With thanks to https://freelymagazine.com/ for the image.
Comments
Post a Comment