Cabaret (1972 film)
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Cabaret is a 1972 American musical drama film directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse from a screenplay by Jay Presson Allen. It is based on the 1966 stage musical by Joe Masteroff (book) and the duo Kander and Ebb (music),<ref name="Variety 1971" /> which in turn was based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten and the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.<ref name="Variety 1971" />Template:Sfn It stars Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Marisa Berenson, and Joel Grey. Multiple numbers from the stage score were used for the film, which also featured three other songs by Kander and Ebb, including two written for the adaptation.<ref name="Greenspun 1972"/><ref name="TCM Notes"/>
In the traditional manner of musical theater, most major characters in the stage version sing to express their emotions and advance the plot; in the film, however, the musical numbers are almost entirely diegetic and take place inside the club,<ref name="Greenspun 1972"/>Template:Sfn with the exception of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me", which is not performed in the club or by the club characters, but is still diegetic, a nationalistic song sung by a Nazi youth and the German crowd.<ref name="Benedict 2002"/>
Cabaret was released in the United States on February 13, 1972, by Allied Artists. The film received critical acclaim and eventually earned more than $42 million in the box office against a production budget of $4.6 million.<ref name="Variety 1971" /><ref name="Greenspun 1972" /><ref name="Box Office"/><ref name="Ebert 1972"/><ref name="Kael 1972"/> At the 45th Academy Awards, the film won in eight categories - including Best Director (Fosse), Best Actress (Minnelli), Best Supporting Actor (Grey), and Best Score - holding the record for most Oscars earned by a film not honored for Best Picture. In 1995, Cabaret was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref name="National Film Registry"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Plot
In 1931 Berlin, a young, openly promiscuous American, Sally Bowles, performs at the Kit Kat Klub. A new British arrival in the city, Brian Roberts, moves into the boarding house where Sally lives. A reserved academic and writer, Brian must give English lessons to earn a living while completing his doctorate. Sally tries to seduce Brian, but he tells her that on three previous occasions he has tried to have sexual relationships with women, all of which failed. They become friends, and Brian witnesses Sally's bohemian life in the last days of the Weimar Republic. When Brian consoles Sally after her father cancels his meeting with her, they become lovers, concluding that his previous failures with women were because they were "the wrong three girls".
Maximilian von Heune, a rich, married playboy and baron, befriends Sally and takes her and Brian to his country estate where they are both spoiled and courted. After a somewhat enigmatic experience with Brian, Max drops his pursuit of the pair in haste. During an argument, Sally tells Brian that she has been having sex with Max, and Brian reveals that he has as well. Brian and Sally later reconcile, and Sally reveals that Max left them 300 marks and mockingly compares the sum with what a professional prostitute earns.
Sally learns that she is pregnant but is unsure of the father. Brian offers to marry her and take her back to his university life in Cambridge. At first, they celebrate their resolution to start this new life together, but after a picnic between Sally and Brian, in which Brian acts distant and uninterested, Sally becomes disheartened by the vision of herself as a bored faculty wife washing dirty diapers. Ultimately, she has an abortion, without informing Brian in advance. When he confronts her, she shares her fears, and the two reach an understanding. Brian departs for England, and Sally continues her life in Berlin, embedding herself in the Kit Kat Klub.
Meanwhile, Fritz Wendel, a German Jew passing as a Protestant Christian, is in love with Natalia Landauer, a wealthy German Jewish heiress who holds him in contempt and suspects his motives. Through Brian, Sally advises him to be more aggressive, which eventually enables Fritz to win her love. However, to gain her parents' consent for their marriage, Fritz must reveal his Jewish background, which he does and the two are married by a rabbi.
The rise of Fascism in Europe is an ever-present undercurrent and is the overarching plot of the film. The progress of the primary characters can be tracked through their changing actions and attitudes towards the ever rising tide of German Nazism in the Weimar Republic. In the beginning of the film, a member of the Nazi Party is expelled from the Kit Kat Klub by the club manager, who suffers a subsequent beating.
The rise of the Nazis in the 1930s is also demonstrated towards the end of the film in a rural beer garden scene. There, a blond boy sings to an audience of all ages ("Tomorrow Belongs to Me") about the beauties of nature and youth. It is eventually revealed that the boy is wearing a Hitlerjugend uniform. The ballad then transforms into a militant Nazi anthem, and by the song's end, one by one nearly all of the adults and young people rise and join in the singing. "Do you still think you can control them?" Brian then asks Max. After the beer garden scene, Brian gets into a confrontation with a Nazi on a Berlin street, which leads to his receiving a beating.
In the final scene of the film in the Kit Kat Klub, it slowly becomes apparent in the hazy club that audience members wearing NSDAP uniforms are now sitting in the preferred front seats of the club.
Cast
Historical basis
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The 1972 film was based upon Christopher Isherwood's semi-autobiographical stories about Weimar-era Berlin during the Jazz Age.Template:R In 1929, Isherwood moved to Berlin in order to pursue life as an openly gay man and to enjoy the city's libertine nightlife.Template:R His expatriate social circle included W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Paul Bowles, and Jean Ross.Template:R While in Berlin, Isherwood shared lodgings with Ross, a British cabaret singer and aspiring film actress from a wealthy Anglo-Scottish family.Template:R
While rooming together at Nollendorfstrasse 17 in Schöneberg,Template:R Isherwood and Ross met John Blomshield, a wealthy playboy who inspired the film character of Baron Maximilian von Heune.Template:R Blomshield sexually pursued both Isherwood and Ross for a short while, and he invited them to accompany him on a trip abroad. He then abruptly disappeared without saying goodbye.<ref name="Blomshield">Template:Harvnb: "... the American thrilled them by inviting them to come with him to the States and then dashed their hopes by leaving Berlin abruptly, without saying goodbye."</ref>Template:R
Following Blomshield's disappearance, Ross became pregnant with the child of jazz pianist and later actor Peter van Eyck.Template:R After Eyck abandoned Ross, she underwent a near-fatal abortion facilitated by Isherwood, who pretended to have fathered her pregnancy.Template:R
While Ross recovered from the botched abortion procedure,Template:R the political situation rapidly deteriorated in Germany.Template:R As Berlin's daily scenes featured "poverty, unemployment, political demonstrations and street fighting between the forces of the extreme left and the extreme right,"Template:R Isherwood, Spender, and other British nationals realized that they must flee the country.Template:R "There was a sensation of doom to be felt in the Berlin streets," Spender recalled.Template:R
By the time Adolf Hitler implemented the Enabling Act of 1933 which cemented his dictatorship, Isherwood, Ross, Spender, and others had fled Germany and returned to England.<ref>Template:Harvnb: "Isherwood recognized that he could not remain in Berlin much longer and on April 5, the day measures were brought in to ban Jews from the teaching professions and the Civil Service, he arrived back in London, bringing with him many of his possessions."</ref>Template:R Many of the Berlin cabaret denizens befriended by Isherwood would later flee abroadTemplate:R or perish in concentration camps.Template:RTemplate:R These factual events served as the genesis for Isherwood's 1937 novella Sally Bowles, which was later adapted into the 1955 film I Am a Camera and the 1966 musical Cabaret.Template:R
Production
Pre-production
In July 1968, Cinerama made a verbal agreement to make a film version of the 1966 Broadway musical but pulled out in February 1969.<ref name="TCM Notes"/><ref name="Film Rights"/><ref name="AFI"/> In May 1969, Allied Artists paid a company record $1.5 million for the film rights and planned a company record budget.<ref name="TCM Notes"/><ref name="Film Rights"/><ref name="AFI"/> The cost of $4,570,000 was split evenly with ABC Pictures.<ref name="TCM Notes"/><ref name="AFI"/><ref name="Beaupre 1973"/> Template:CSS image crop
In 1971, Bob Fosse learned through Harold Prince, director of the original Broadway production, that Cy Feuer was producing a film adaptation of Cabaret through ABC Pictures and Allied Artists.<ref name="TCM Notes"/> This was the first film produced in the revival of Allied Artists. Determined to direct the film, Fosse begged Feuer to hire him.<ref name="TCM Notes"/> However, Fosse had previously directed the unsuccessful film adaptation of Sweet Charity, a box office failure which made chief executives Manny Wolf and Marty Baum reluctant to hire him.<ref name="TCM Notes"/> Wolf and Baum preferred a more renowned or established director such as Billy Wilder, Joseph L. Mankiewicz or Gene Kelly.<ref name="TCM Notes"/>Template:R
Eager to hire Fosse, Feuer appealed to the studio heads, citing Fosse's talent for staging and shooting musical numbers, adding that if inordinate attention was given to filming the book scenes at the expense of the musical numbers, the whole film could fail. Fosse ultimately was hired. Over the next months, Fosse met with previously hired screenwriter Jay Presson Allen to discuss the screenplay.Template:R
Screenplay revisions
As production neared, Fosse became increasingly dissatisfied with Allen's script which was based on Joe Masteroff's original book of the stage version. Fosse hired Hugh Wheeler to rewrite and revise Allen's work.Template:R Wheeler was referred to as a "research consultant," and Allen retained screenwriting credit. Wheeler, a friend of Christopher Isherwood,<ref name="Day 1974"/> knew that Isherwood had been critical of the stage musical due to its bowdlerizations of his material.<ref name="Day 1974"/> Wheeler went back to Isherwood's original stories in order to ensure a more faithful adaptation of the source material. In particular, Wheeler restored the subplot about the gigolo and the Jewish heiress. Wheeler also drew on gay author Christopher Isherwood's openness about his homosexuality to make the leading male character a bisexual man "rather than the heterosexual as he had been in the stage musical."Template:R
Fosse decided to increase the focus on the Kit Kat Klub, where Sally performs, as a metaphor for the decadence of Germany in the 1930s by eliminating all but one of the musical numbers performed outside the club. The only remaining outside number is "Tomorrow Belongs to Me",<ref name="Benedict 2002"/> a folk song rendered spontaneously by patrons at an open-air café.Template:Sfn In addition, the show's original songwriters Kander and Ebb wrote two new songs, "Mein Herr" and "Money", and incorporated "Maybe This Time", a song they composed in 1964 and first released by Kaye Ballard.<ref name="Schudel 2019"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Casting
Template:Multiple image Feuer had cast Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles and Joel Grey (reprising his stage role) long before Fosse was attached to the project. Fosse was given the choice of using Grey as Master of Ceremonies, at studio insistence, or walking away from the production.Template:R He ultimately backed down on his “It’s either me or Joel” threat, but relations between them were cool.<ref name="VF">Template:Cite news</ref>
Fosse hired Michael York as Sally Bowles's bisexual love interest, a casting choice which Minnelli initially believed was incorrect until she performed with him.Template:R Several smaller roles, as well as the remaining four dancers in the film, eventually were cast in West Germany.
Minnelli had auditioned to play Sally in the original Broadway production but was deemed too inexperienced at the time, even though she had won Broadway's Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. By the time Cabaret reached the screen, however, Minnelli was a film star having earned an Oscar nomination as the emotionally damaged college student in The Sterile Cuckoo (1969).
For her performance as Sally in the film, Minnelli reinterpreted the character and—at the explicit suggestion of her father, film and stage director Vincente Minnelli<ref name="Minnelli 2006"/>—she deliberately imitated film actress Louise Brooks, a flapper icon and sex symbol of the Jazz Age.<ref name="Minnelli 2006"/>Template:R Brooks, much like the character of Sally Bowles in the film, was an aspiring actress and American expat who temporarily moved to Weimar Berlin in search of international stardom.Template:R Minnelli later recalled:
In particular, Minnelli drew upon Brooks' "Lulu makeup and helmet-like coiffure."Template:R For the meeting between Sally Bowles and Brian Roberts, Minnelli modeled her movements and demeanor upon Brooks; in particular, the scene in Pandora's Box (1929) where Brooks' carefree character of Lulu is first introduced.<ref name="Garebian 2011"/> Ultimately, Minnelli would win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Sally Bowles.<ref name="Buck 1973"/>
Filming
Fosse and Feuer traveled to West Germany in order to finish assembling the film crew. During this time, Fosse highly recommended Robert L. Surtees for cinematographer, but Feuer and the top executives saw Surtees's work on Sweet Charity as one of the film's many artistic problems. Producers eventually chose British cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth.Template:R Designers Rolf Zehetbauer, Hans Jürgen Kiebach and Herbert Strabel served as production designers. Charlotte Flemming designed costumes.Template:R Dancers Kathryn Doby, Louise Quick and John Sharpe were brought on as Fosse's dance aides.
Rehearsals and filming took place entirely in West Germany. For reasons of economy, indoor scenes were shot at the Bavaria Film Studios in Grünwald,Template:R outside Munich.<ref name="TCM Notes"/>Template:R Prior to filming, Fosse would complain every afternoon on the set of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory because that film was overrunning and keeping him from starting work on the same stage.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Narrative and news reading
Although the songs throughout the film allude to and advance the narrative, every song except "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" is executed in the context of a Kit Kat Klub performance.<ref name="Russell 2002"/><ref name="Benedict 2002"/> The voice heard on the radio reading the news throughout the film in German was that of associate producer Harold Nebenzal, whose father Seymour Nebenzahl produced such notable Weimar films as M (1931), Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), and Threepenny Opera (1931).
Comparison to source materials
The film significantly differs from the Broadway musical. In the stage version, Sally is English (as she was in Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin). In the film adaptation, she is American.<ref name="Greenspun 1972"/> Cliff Bradshaw was renamed Brian Roberts and made British (as was Isherwood, upon whom the character was based), rather than American as in the stage version.<ref name="Greenspun 1972"/>Template:R The characters and plotlines involving Fritz, Natalia and Max were pulled from I Am a Camera and did not appear in the stage production of Cabaret (or in Goodbye to Berlin).<ref name="Day 1974"/>
The most significant change involves the excision of the two main characters: Fraulein Schneider, who runs a boarding house, and her love interest, Herr Schultz, a German grocer.Template:R Their doomed romance plot, and the consequences of a Gentile falling in love with a Jew during the rise of antisemitism, was cut. With the removals were "So What?" and "What Would You Do", sung by Schneider, the song "Meeskite", sung by Schultz,Template:R and their two duets "It Couldn't Please Me More (The Pineapple Song)" (cut) and "Married" (reset as a piano instrumental, and a phonograph record), as well as a short reprise of "Married", sung alone by Schultz.<ref name="Internet Broadway Database"/>Template:R
Kander and Ebb wrote several new songs and removed others.<ref name="Greenspun 1972"/><ref name="TCM Notes"/> "Don't Tell Mama" was replaced by "Mein Herr",Template:R and "The Money Song" (retained in an instrumental version as "Sitting Pretty") was replaced by "Money, Money."Template:R "Mein Herr" and "Money, Money", which were composed for the film, were integrated into the stage musical alongside the original numbers.Template:R The song "Maybe This Time", which Sally performs at the cabaret, predates the stage musical, recorded by Minnelli in 1964.Template:R<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Although "Don't Tell Mama" and "Married" were removed as featured musical numbers, both still appear in the film instrumentally: the bridge section of "Mama" is heard playing on Sally's gramophone; "Married" initially plays on the piano in Fraulein Schneider's parlor, and later heard on Sally's gramophone in a German translation ("Heiraten") sung by cabaret singer Greta Keller.Template:R Additionally, "If You Could See Her", performed by the MC, originally concluded with the line "She isn't a meeskite at all" onstage. The film changes this to "She wouldn't look Jewish at all," a return to Ebb's original lyrics.<ref name="2008 609–630">Template:Harvnb</ref>
Soundtrack
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Reception
Box office
The film opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on February 13, 1972, with a single performance benefit grossing $2,538.<ref name=1stwk/> It started regular showings at the Ziegfeld from February 14, grossing $8,684 in its opening day, and a house record $80,278 for the week.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name=1stwk>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It grossed another $165,038 from 6 other theatres in 6 key cities reported by Variety, placing it tenth at the US box office.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> After seven months of release, it had grossed $5.3 million in the New York metropolitan area. Variety estimated that this represented 30% of the film's total compared to the normal 15% for the market, one of the few big-budget films to perform much better in New York.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Based on this estimate, the film had grossed around $17 million. By year end, Variety reported that it had earned theatrical rentals of $10,885,000, making it the eighth most successful film of the year.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Following the film's success at the Academy Awards in March 1973, it reached number one at the US box office with a gross of $1,880,000 for the week, a record for Allied Artists.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It remained number one for a second week.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> By May 1973, the film had earned rentals of $16 million in the United States and Canada and $7 million in other countries and reported a profit of $4,904,000.<ref name="Beaupre 1973"/> By the end of 1973, Variety had updated the film's rentals in the United States and Canada to $18,175,000.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Critical reception
Contemporary reviews
Variety claimed the film received the most "sugary" reviews of the year.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Roger Ebert gave a positive review in January 1972, saying: "This is no ordinary musical. Part of its success comes because it doesn't fall for the old cliché that musicals have to make you happy. Instead of cheapening the movie version by lightening its load of despair, director Bob Fosse has gone right to the bleak heart of the material and stayed there well enough to win an Academy Award for Best Director."<ref name="Ebert 1972"/>
A.D. Murphy of Variety wrote "The film version of the 1966 John Kander-Fred Ebb Broadway musical Cabaret is most unusual: it is literate, bawdy, sophisticated, sensual, cynical, heart-warming, and disturbingly thought-provoking. Liza Minnelli heads a strong cast. Bob Fosse's generally excellent direction recreates the milieu of Germany some 40 years ago."<ref name="Variety 1971"/>
Roger Greenspun of The New York Times wrote in February 1972 that "Cabaret is one of those immensely gratifying imperfect works in which from beginning to end you can literally feel a movie coming to life."<ref name="Greenspun 1972"/> Likewise, Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote a review that same month in which she applauded the film: Template:Blockquote
Reaction of Isherwood and others
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Although Cabaret (1972) was well received by film critics upon its release,<ref name="Greenspun 1972"/><ref name="Ebert 1972"/><ref name="Variety 1971"/><ref name="Kael 1972"/> author Christopher Isherwood and other persons upon whom the film's characters were based were less receptive towards the cinematic adaptation.<ref name="Spender 1977"/>Template:R Isherwood himself was critical of the 1972 film due to what he perceived as its negative portrayal of homosexuality: Template:Blockquote
Similarly, Isherwood's friend Jean Ross—upon whom the character of Sally Bowles was basedTemplate:R—was ambivalent about the film.Template:R She felt the depiction of 1930s Berlin "was quite, quite different" from reality.Template:R Nevertheless, she conceded that the depiction of their social circle of British expatriates as pleasure-seeking libertines was accurate: "We were all utterly against the bourgeois standards of our parents' generation. That's what took us to [Weimar-era] Berlin. The climate was freer there."Template:R Such ambivalence towards Cabaret (1972) was not unique among Isherwood's circle.<ref name="Spender 1977"/>
The poet Stephen Spender lamented how Cabaret (1972) glossed over Weimar Berlin's crushing poverty: Template:Blockquote Both Spender and Ross contended that the 1972 film and 1966 Broadway musical deleteriously glamorized the harsh realities of the 1930s Weimar era.<ref name="Spender 1977"/>Template:R
Retrospective reviews
In 2002, Jamie Russell of the BBC wrote that the film was "the first musical ever to be given an X certificate, Bob Fosse's Cabaret launched Liza Minnelli into Hollywood superstardom and re-invented the musical for the Age of Aquarius."<ref name="Russell 2002"/> In 2013, film critic Peter Bradshaw listed Cabaret at number one on his list of "Top 10 Musicals", describing it as "satanically catchy, terrifyingly seductive...directed and choreographed with electric style by Bob Fosse...Cabaret is drenched in the sexiest kind of cynicism and decadent despair."<ref name="Bradshaw 2013"/> In 2024, Forbes ranked Cabaret as the best movie musical of all time <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Controversies
Although less explicit compared with other films made in the 1970s, Cabaret dealt explicitly with topics like corruption, sexual ambiguity, false dreams, and Nazism. Tim Dirks at Filmsite.org notes: "The sexually-charged, semi-controversial, kinky musical was the first one ever to be given an X rating (although later re-rated) with its numerous sexual flings and hedonistic club life. There was considerable sexual innuendo, profanity, casual sex talk (homosexual and heterosexual), some evidence of anti-Semitism, and even an abortion in the film."<ref name="Dirks 2013"/> It was also rated X in the UK and later re-rated as 15.<ref name="Russell 2002"/><ref name="BBFC"/>
On the topic of Nazism, there was little consensus among critics about the possibly fascist implications of the film and play. However, critic Steven Belletto wrote a critique of Cabaret in the Criticism journal, published by Wayne State University Press, in which he highlighted the anti-fascist themes in the film present both within and outside of the musical acts. According to Belletto, "despite the ways that the film has been understood by a variety of critics, [Cabaret] rejects the logic of fascist certainty by staging various numbers committed to irony and ambiguity."<ref name="2008 609–630"/>
The "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" scene was controversial, with Kander and Ebb, both of whom were Jewish, sometimes being wrongly accused of using a historical Nazi song.<ref name="Steyn 1997"/> According to an article in Variety in November 1976, the film was censored in West Berlin when it was first released there theatrically, with the sequence featuring the Hitler Youth singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" having been deleted.<ref name="TCM Notes"/> This elimination was made "because of the feeling that it might stir up resentments in the audience by showing the sympathizers for the Nazi movement during the '30s."<ref name="TCM Notes"/> The sequence was restored, however, when the film was shown on West German television on November 7, 1976.<ref name="TCM Notes"/>
Another topic of discussion was the song "If You Could See Her",Template:Sfn which closed with the line: "If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all." The point of the song was showing anti-Semitism as it begins to run rampant in Berlin, but there were a number of Jewish groups who interpreted the lyrics differently.Template:Sfn
Accolades
Cabaret earned a total of ten Academy Award nominations (winning eight of them) and holds the record for most Academy Awards for a film that did not also win Best Picture.<ref name="TCM Notes"/><ref name="Academy Awards"/>
Shortly before the Academy Awards, Bob Fosse won two Tony Awards for directing and choreographing Pippin, his biggest stage hit. Months later, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for choreographing and directing Liza Minnelli's television special Liza with a Z, thereby becoming the first director to win all three awards in one year.
American Film Institute recognition
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
- Cabaret – No. 18
- AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – No. 5
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 63 Template:ISBN missing
National Film Registry
Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1995 among a list of 25 Films that year.<ref name="National Film Registry"/>
Legacy
Cabaret has been cited by TV Guide as among the greatest films made<ref name="TV Guide"/> and in Movieline magazine as one of the "100 Best Movies Ever".<ref name="Movieline Magazine"/> It was included in Film4's "100 Greatest Films of All Time" at #78<ref name="Filmsite.org"/> and in The San Francisco ChronicleTemplate:'s "Hot 100 Films of the Past", being hailed as "the last great musical. Liza Minnelli plays Sally Bowles, an American adrift in pre-Nazi Berlin, in Bob Fosse's stylish, near-perfect film."<ref name="San Francisco Chronicle Film Critics"/>
David Benedict has written in The Guardian about CabaretTemplate:'s influence in musical films: "Back then, musicals were already low on film-goers' lists, so how come it was such a success? Simple: Cabaret is the musical for people who hate them. Given the vibrancy of its now iconic numbers – Liza Minnelli in bowler and black suspenders astride a bentwood chair belting out 'Mein Herr' or shimmying and shivering with pleasure over 'Money' with Joel Grey – it sounds strange to say it, but one of the chief reasons why Cabaret is so popular is that it's not shot like a musical."<ref name="Benedict 2002"/>
The film has been listed as one of the most important for queer cinema for its depictions of bisexuality,<ref name="Greenspun 1972"/> arguably transgressive at the time of its 1972 post-Code release and has been credited with turning Liza Minnelli into a gay icon. Film blogs have selected it as "the gayest winner in the history of the Academy."<ref name="Baines 2012"/><ref name="St. James 2017"/><ref name="Out.com"/> Filmmaker Bill Condon cited the film as a source of inspiration for his 2025 adaptation of Kander and Ebb's stage musical version of Kiss of the Spider Woman.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The February 2020 issue of New York Magazine lists Cabaret as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Home media
The film was first released to DVD in 1998. There have been releases in 2003, 2008, and 2012. The film's international ancillary distribution rights are owned by ABC (now part of The Walt Disney Company), Fremantle (UK), Warner Bros. (which acquired the film as part of its purchase of Lorimar Productions, which had acquired the film library of Allied Artists) has US domestic distribution rights.
In April 2012, Warner unveiled a new restoration of the film at the TCM Classic Film Festival.<ref name="McNary 2012"/><ref name="TCM Festival"/><ref name="Elber 2012"/> A DigiBook edition was later released on Blu-ray on February 5, 2013.<ref name="Reuben 2013"/> Before this restoration, Cabaret had been sold on a standard-definition DVD from Warner Bros., but the film was unavailable in high-definition or for digital projections in cinemas.<ref name="Elber 2012"/> The original camera negative is lost, and a surviving interpositive had a vertical scratch that ran through 1,000 feet, or 10 minutes, of one of its reels, as confirmed by Ned Price, vice president of mastering and restoration for Warner Bros.<ref name="Elber 2012"/> The damage ostensibly was inflicted by a grain of dirt that had rolled through the length of the reel, beginning with a scene in which Michael York's character confronts a pro-Nazi boarding house resident, and had cut into the emulsion.<ref name="Elber 2012"/> The marred frames were digitally restored, but "the difficult part was matching the grain structure so the fix was invisible." After automated digital repair attempts failed, the 1,000 feet of damaged film was hand painted using a computer stylus.<ref name="Elber 2012"/>
Warner Archive Collection reissued the Blu-ray on November 20, 2018, without the DigiBook.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
Notes
References
<references> <ref name="Academy Awards">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="AFI">Template:AFI film</ref>
<ref name="Baines 2012">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="BBFC">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="Beaupre 1973">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
<ref name="Benedict 2002">Template:Cite news</ref>
<ref name="Bletchly 2013">Template:Cite news</ref>
<ref name="Box Office">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="Bradshaw 2013">Template:Cite news</ref>
<ref name="Buck 1973">Template:Cite news</ref>
<ref name="Cabaret Soundtrack">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="Day 1974">Template:Cite episode</ref>
<ref name="Dirks 2013">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="Doyle 2013">Template:Cite news</ref>
<ref name="Ebert 1972">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="Elber 2012">Template:Cite news</ref>
<ref name="Farina 2013">Template:Cite book</ref>
<ref name="Filmsite.org">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="Frost 2013">Template:Cite newsFrost's article is more or less a summary of the Oxford National Biography article by Peter Parker.</ref>
<ref name="Fryer 1993">Template:Cite book</ref>
<ref name="Garebian 2011">Template:Cite book</ref>
<ref name="Greenspun 1972">Template:Cite news</ref>
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<ref name="Isherwood 1976">Template:Cite book</ref>
<ref name="Isherwood 2012">Template:Cite book</ref>
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<ref name="Russell 2002">Template:Cite news</ref>
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<ref name="Schudel 2019">Template:Cite news</ref>
<ref name="Spender 1966">Template:Cite book</ref>
<ref name="Spender 1977">Template:Cite news</ref>
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<ref name="TV Guide">Template:Cite web</ref>
<ref name="Film Rights">Template:Cite news</ref>
<ref name="Variety 1971">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
<ref name="2008 609–630"?Template:Cite journal</ref> </references>
Bibliography
Francesco Mismirigo, Cabaret, un film allemand, Université de Genève, 1984
External links
Template:Wikiquote Template:Commons category
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- Cabaret at AllMovie
- Template:Metacritic film
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- Cabaret essay by Stephen Tropiano on the National Film Registry website
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- Template:Rotten Tomatoes
Template:Cabaret Template:Isherwood Template:Bob Fosse Template:Liza Minnelli Template:Navboxes
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