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Cabaret


Minnelli told The Advocate editor-in-chief Judy Wieder in September 1996 "I married Peter, and he didn't tell me he was gay. Everyone knew but me. And I found out ... well, let me put it this way: I'll never surprise anybody coming home as long as I live. I call first!" (Wikipedia) She also had quite a substance abuse problem like her mother. 

Watched a bunch of Cabaret videos, then this video comparing versions. Thinking about Babylon Berlin. I'd like to read Goodbye to Berlin by Isherwood. I think with the rise of fascism, this story and it's many versions, is more fascinating. It game me an interest in Liza Minnelli, who is perhaps the star of the main movie and was 26 in 1971 when she shot this. Supposedly it's not a musical movie because they took out a lot of the songs, and there's some good dancing in it.  

I'm embarrassed but I really liked the version of a song in Schitt's Creek, and that got me looking at it today.

The central character is based on Jean Ross. She's a pretty interesting real life person. Sally is a British flapper who moonlights as a chanteuse during the twilight of the Jazz Age. She's the original manic pixie dream girl. Some find that term offensive, inaccurate and other things. She's not on the list of those, so she's not an archetype. And in the movie Liza pretends she's Clara Bow. She was the first it girl. 

Part of the rise of fascism is to see art as decadent and subversive, unethical and dangerously lax in discipline. Fascism is a the harshest critic of art, it destroys things it fears. 

It's set in Berlin 1931. "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" isn't inherently Nazi, but Nazi's singing it reminds me of Casablanca, and other scenes where you realize they're on the brink of doing something horrible.

A theme I really like is, you can't not pay attention to politics. 


Links:

Spotify Cabaret (1972)

Cabaret 1993 - Mendes Production, featuring Alan Cumming (Full show). It does have a lot of different twists than the movie.

American Musical Theatre of San Jose's 2008 production YouTube

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