‘Cabaret’ on Netflix: Bob Fosse’s Immense Talent Is On Full Display In This 1973 Oscar-Winning Film

The work of legendary choreographer and director Bob Fosse is timeless. He developed a singular personal style of dance that was both immediately recognizable as his own and so popular it defined an entire era on stage and in film. His personal story, that of an immensely talented artist but careless and self-destructive person, has been expertly told in the recent, multiple Emmy-nominated FX miniseries Fosse/Verdon — but to truly appreciate Fosse, go to the work itself. His 1972 film adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret is now available for streaming on Netflix.

Set in Berlin during the ascendancy of the Nazi party, the film drips with an air of decadent menace, of a world sliding out of control. At the center, the sleazy Kit Kat Klub offers a raucous party every night, led by Joel Grey’s leering, darkly gleeful Master of Ceremonies, and centered on a sultry American chanteuse, Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli). Sally’s young and free, living a Bohemian life seemingly without a care or concern. “Unusual places, unusual love affairs. I am a most strange and extraordinary person,” she explains herself to Brian Roberts (Michael York), an uptight, literary man who’s just arrived at her boarding house from Britain. He’s initially resistant to Sally’s seductions, but she persists with raw enthusiasm and sexual energy, despite their agreement to simply be friends. “Friends are harder to find than lovers,” Sally resolves.

This personal drama is the micro-scale story of the film, but the macro-scale story is obvious to all but the characters. A lone Nazi soldier is seen being expelled from the club in one scene; several scenes later, a brief interlude between Sally and Michael’s scenes shows the club’s manager being beaten by a group of soldiers. Fosse doesn’t have to spell out what’s happening in Berlin; he simply cuts it in roughly, abruptly, shocks of violent energy that disappear as quickly as they arrive. Something terrible is happening, but no one’s paying attention.

Despite the film’s origins in a successful 1966 Broadway musical — one that won eight Tony Awards — Fosse wasn’t afraid to chop things up, rearrange them, and tell the story in his own way. Songs were cut, and new ones written to fit the structure of a story that seems as though it could’ve originated on the screen. For a movie musical, it’s grounded in realism — the musical numbers are constrained to the world of the club. No one’s breaking into song in a real-world scenario where you wouldn’t expect them to. It’s expertly directed, showing Fosse’s skill as far more than a song-and-dance man; the film earned him the Academy Award for Best Director, beating out Francis Ford Coppola’s work on the Godfather and capping a stretch in which he became the only person to win an Emmy, Oscar and Tony in the same year.

A director’s nothing without a star, and Minnelli radiates like a supernova here — wounded and insecure in one scene, bringing down the house with a repurposed version of her hit “Maybe This Time” in the next. Perhaps at no other time in her career did she so closely resemble the tragic figure of her mother, Judy Garland, both in voice and in volatile stage presence. You feel deeply for Sally as she yearns for stardom and for love, while at the same time wish she could wake up to the world around her.

The menace grows steadily throughout the movie, in background banners and costumes, in passing scenes of violence ignored as daily banalities. It’s a slight change in the atmosphere, certainly nothing for everyday people to be concerned about. “The Nazis are just a gang of stupid hooligans, but they do serve a purpose,” opines Maximillian, a wealthy love interest for both Sally and Brian, “let them get rid of the Communists, and later we’ll be able to control them.” The characters aren’t wholly unaware, but they’re adapting in the way a frog might adapt to water slowly boiling — the change is so steady and gradual that they refuse to fully appreciate the true gravity of the situation.

Perhaps it was Bob Fosse’s personal nature that left him so perfectly suited to capture this story and this moment in time — as recounted in the FX series, his immense talent was contrasted by his frequent personal immolation, through drugs, alcohol and numerous affairs. He knew what it was like to fiddle while his own version of Rome burned, to be preoccupied with small problems while ignoring the ones that might actually kill him — and this energy is fully evident on the screen in Cabaret.

Few musical properties have been revived and adapted as much as Cabaret has — the half-century since the original production has seen frequent and long-running productions on Broadway, in London and elsewhere, each adding and removing parts as the times, casts and directors saw fit. For it to truly stand the test of time, though — for the 1972 version of a 1930s story to feel utterly of the zeitgeist in 2019 — it would take a remarkable talent doing some of his finest work.

Scott Hines is an architect, blogger and internet user who lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife, two young children, and a small, loud dog.

Where to stream Cabaret