As part of my musicals themed week in honour of the BFI’s big season, today is Bob Fosse day. The restoration of Sweet Charity (1969), Fosse’s first directorial effort and an undeserved box office flop, graced the London Film Festival as the harbinger for their season, and several of his other musicals are screening. His most famous work is of course 1972’s Cabaret, which I only saw for the first time last year.
Having contrived never to have seen this, a vintage 35mm Technicolor print screened at Il Cinema Ritrovato seemed as good a way as any to experience it, and it didn’t disappoint, certainly not on the level of the glorious colours and look of the film. The staccato editing, frequently used to counterpoint a song performed in the Kit Kat Club cabaret of the title, and some other event — for example, in the opening scene, the arrival of the Eddie Redmayne of the 1970s (Michael York, not the most compelling actor), the murder by the Nazis of an over-officious bouncer who had bullied a young Nazi out of the cabaret, et al. — is only one striking method the film uses to differentiate itself from the stage musical.
Needless to say, they can’t have found a better person than Liza Minnelli to play Sally Bowles, and she really does hold the whole project together, along with Joel Grey’s lissome and gender-crossing performance as the MC. The background story of the rise of the Nazis is handled with delicacy as well — it is rarely the centre of attention (except in one Aryan youth’s rendition of a song in a picturesque countryside tavern, and the subplot involving Marisa Berenson’s Jewish heiress), but small hints of the Swastika in the background provide a constant reminder of the future that awaits the city and its characters.
CREDITS
Director Bob Fosse; Writer Jay Allen (based on the musical by Joe Masteroff, John Kander and Fred Ebb, itself based on the play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten and the novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood); Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth; Starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Joel Grey, Helmut Griem, Marisa Berenson; Length 124 minutes.
Seen at Cinema Arlecchino, Bologna, Saturday 30 June 2018.
filmcentric 