CABARET EMCEE MOVIEThe movie ends as they part on a railway platform, but one can guess their experience together will have changed them both, as as far as he is concerned, was a definite coming of age. Michael York's sober performance looks a bit pale as opposed to histrionic Liza Minelli, but of course, that was necessary in order to stress the essential difference between those two strangers. She introduces him to all sorts of people, from riff-raff to aristocracy, including a gigolo, a Jewish heiress, and an ambiguous baron who dismisses them both after having "played" with the two of them. A serious upper class young man, he meets Liza Minelli out of blind chance, while looking for an apartment to share. He is allegedly the character played by Michael York. The script was based a story by British writer Christopher Isherwood, called "A Goodbye to Berlin", based on his own personal memories. As predicted in her song, she proves basically unable to engage in any serious relationship, despite her involvement with Michael York ( "And though I used to care, I need the open air, you'd every cause to doubt me Mein Herr"). While Minelli can't help being extravagant all the time, she turns out to be a fragile woman neglected by her father, and in demand of constant and renewed attention. Though, the real nature of her character is well studied as soon as she gets offstage. Indeed, a very typical stereotype of the interwar period, think of Marlene Dietrich in "the Blue Angel".Minelli's performance onstage with garter belts and a bowler hat still looks elegantly naughty today. She is the incarnation of the vamp, both heartless and ingenuous, the sort of lethal woman who drives men crazy and then gives them up like toys. Her persona is perfectly sketched in her song "Bye Bye Mein Herr". Liza Minelli's character is totally at home in such surroundings. The club is an essentially immoral place where anything is for sale, and it adapts shamelessly to the radical political changes coming up. To give an idea of what sort of den the club is, Michael York finds himself at one point standing next to a transvestite in a men's urinal.The cabaret performances get all the more provocative as the plot gets tense. The Kit Kat club reminds of a roman arena, where the public is out for anything insane (even women fights in the mud.). The girls appear in all possible contorted postures keeping deadpan faces. An outrageously grinning clown (Joel Grey) introduces every cabaret number. It is the exact reproduction of a famous painting by Otto Dix. During the credits, check out a woman in the public with short hair and glasses smoking a cigarette (something quite dodgy in 1931!). Only Bob Fosse could recreate with such consumed application the grotesque sleaze of Berlin's lowlife during the rise of Nazism, a context which served as inspiration for expressionist painters, and for Brecht's "Threepenny Opera". It is not surprising that a cabaret buff such as Bob Fosse took interest in the Weimar Republic period in Germany, when "divine decadence " was the name of the game. Of course, the depiction of Cabaret's "Kit Kat Club" deserves attention all by itself. They play about the same role as the Chorus in ancient Greek play. "Cabaret" is an exception because it has an interesting background and storyline, and the music-hall performances are cleverly used here to illustrate and emphasize the plot. In his other movies though, musical performances tend to steal the show almost entirely. He seems to have an obsession with the world of music-hall, which is felt in other movies like "Sweet Charity" and "All that Jazz". Director Bob Fosse hasn't achieved an immense degree of recognition, but his movies have a distinctive flavour.
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