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Bob Fosse, Cabaret, 1972 (still); image: courtesy United Archives GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo

Film

Cabaret

Saturday, Oct 21, 2017

2 p.m.

Selected by Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon

“Fosse won an Oscar for best director for his masterful handling of socio-sexual and political themes in the form of a musical, a genre previously reserved for lighter subject matter. Liza Minnelli provides an Oscar-winning performance as Sally Bowles, an émigré aspiring to stardom at the Kit Kat Club in late Weimar-era Berlin. The seedy, decadent atmosphere of the club, where escapism and denial are ever-present, provides an ominous backdrop to the encroaching threat of the Nazi party occurring in the world outside.”
— Harvard Film Archive

“The film gains a good deal from its willingness to isolate its musical stage — even to observe it from behind the heads of a shadowy audience in the foreground — so that every time we return to the girls and their leering master (by now, a superbly refined caricature) we return, as it were, to a sense of theater.”
— Roger Greenspun, The New York Times

“A great movie musical, made, miraculously, without compromise; taking its form from political cabaret, it’s a satire of temptations….With Joel Grey as our devil-doll host…and Liza Minnelli as exuberant, corruptible Sally Bowles, chasing after the life of a headliner no matter what.”
The New Yorker



Film Details

Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 1972
Running time: 124 min
Format: 35mm
Director: Bob Fosse
Screenwriter: Jay Presson Allen
Producer: Cy Feuer
Cinematographer: Geoffrey Unsworth

Editor: David Bretherton
Source: Swank


Films and schedules may be subject to change.

Modern Cinema’s Founding Supporters are Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein. Support is provided by Nion T. McEvoy and the Susan Wildberg Morgenstein Fund. This season of Modern Cinema is generously supported by James C. Hormel and Michael P. Nguyen.