Skip to main content

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

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Manet and Degas

  Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special.  In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review
Post a Comment
Read more

Character list of Inherent Vice the novel

Fay "Shasta" Hepworth played by Katherine Waterston in the 2014 movie Larry "Doc" Sportello: Our hero, gumsandal.  Shasta Fay Hepworth: Former beautiful love interest. Mickey Wolfmann: Real estate tycoon, Shasta's sugar daddy, paying for apartment in Hancock Park. Mrs. Sloane Wolfmann: wife. Has her own side piece Mr. Riggs Warbling Deputy DA Penny Kimball: lawyer from district attorney office, who fooled around with Doc for a time. Works next to Rhus Frothingham (female book, male in movie).  Aunt Reet: Aunt in real estate. "Bigfoot" Christian Bjornsen: Hollywood detective and actor. Married to Chastity. Spoiler: His partner Vincent Indelicato is wacked by Adrian Prussia, but Puck did the actual job. Mrs. Chastity Bjornsen: Gets on the phone on page 260 of the paperback to defend Bigfoot's day off from work. Calls Doc Mr. Moral Turpitude, accuses him of running up Bigfoot's mental health bills.  Denis: friend who he goes and gets a pizza with...
Post a Comment
Read more

AOC

Dark Brandon meet Dark Alex. I see her advising the republicans to stick to their guns and never compromise. They don’t want to do anything, only obstruct. So they don’t actually need to be unified. Chaos isn’t organized. This is fine. Read all about it from Heather Cox Richardson , a historian who covers current events. "As their policies threatened to lose voters by concentrating wealth upward and hollowing out the middle class, Republicans increasingly warned that minority voters wanted socialism and were destroying the nation to get it. Trump rode that narrative to power, and now tearing down the current government is the idea that drives the Republican base." While we're at it, here's another funny photo from the Onion: And then: I listened to the Times podcast about George Santos . He basically lied about, I don't know, 80% of his resume, and has a mysterious $700k in his "corporation" which has no clients. So he's a Russian or Chinese plant, o...
Post a Comment
Read more