Review of Cabaret

Next on the list of AFI's movies is Cabaret, #63. It is a loose adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name, set in the last days of the Weimar Republic in Germany. Liza Minnelli is Sally Bowles, a performer at the Kit Kat Klub in Berlin, who gets entangled in a confused relationship with a visiting English teacher, Brian Roberts (Michael York). The two try to live their decadent lives under the growing shadow cast by the Nazis.

This movie, despite what you may think of it, has actually aged well. Unlike many movies made in the 70's on this list, historical pics included, there are no distracting hallmarks that date it: mainly, the weird hairstyles and sappy/raunchy 70's music. Regardless of the dating and lack thereof, I quite enjoyed it. It has a style all its own. It is a musical where the characters do not spontaneously burst into song. When a character's inner emotions need to be expressed, the scene usually cuts to a relevant musical number at the Kit Kat Klub.

One of the things I like best about this movie is the character of Brian. While Sally Bowles is a familiar character, the artsy, flakey, over-emotional performer who wants to be a real actress, Brian's reactions to her are original. Sally abuses their relationship in the way we would expect, but instead of being driven to violence, the standard Hollywood response, Brian responds with either understanding or his own abuses. He is never a victim and that's refreshing. I won't go into many details for fear of spoilers. Well okay, ***here's a vague SPOILER***: it's very rare that all points of fictional love triangles connect. ***end spoiler alert***

Cabaret contains a scene that is famous in movie history, the powerful "Tommorow Belongs to Me" scene, and I don't feel bad about describing it because it appears in many books on cinema and film school classes. Brian and Maximilian are chatting at an outdoor cafe when a young man stands and begins singing in a beautiful tenor. The cafe-goers are enchanted by the loveliness and earnestness of the song, and perhaps so is the film's viewer. That is until the camera pans downward and we see the young man is dressed in a Nazi uniform. As the cafe's attendees rise in rousing song and Brian and Max skedaddle, I felt the hairs on my back prickling in terror. This scene perfectly encapsulates the madness that led the Nazis to power and the world to war in 1939.

As a side note, this scene once again just goes to show that interpretation of art is all in the eyes of the audience. While the reaction I experienced to this scene was the one, I believe, that the filmmakers intended, it is not so with all audiences. "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" has been embraced as an anthem by White Pride groups. Some people, I tell you.

Cabaret is complicated and heartbreaking (for a musical). Once again, not for all tastes, but it certainly was for mine.
Beedle-dee dee dee dee! 4 1/2 Ladies out of 5, and I'm the only man

Review of Network

Number 64 on AFI's movie list is Network, directed by Sidney Lumet. It is the story of Howard Beale (Peter Finch) a TV news reporter who has a psychotic break with reality and finally begins to broadcast the truth about the world. Meanwhile, the struggling network who controls his contract battles to harness his madness for their own benefit. It is a satire of television in the 1970s, which then becomes a satire of capitalism, spouting truths that are still relevant today. If you have never heard of Network before, you have surely heard the movie's most famous quote, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" and its many derivatives.

This is certainly a complicated movie. It is more of an intellectual exercise in satire than a traditional story. The characters are icons rather than real people. Yes, they have depth, but it is character depth piled upon symbols. Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), for instance, bears this comparison: "You are television incarnate, Diana. Indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality." Max Schumacher (William Holden), who delivers this line, represents Journalism in the traditional sense. Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) is capitalism incarnate.

Did I like it? I suppose I did. I wasn't that crazy about the second of the story's two plots, in which Diana and Max conduct an illicit and age-mismatched affair. However, this story is essential to understanding the satire. I don't want to say more for fear of spoilers.

I should also say that this is not the ha-ha sort of satire. It is a black sort of satire that you know can't end well. Not once through this picture did I get a rosy-feeling.

Network is prescient. As with most things prophetic, the prophecy took longer to realize than the prophet predicted. But twenty-five years after Network satirized television, reality TV finally sank to the depths predicted by the movie (shudder). It also predicted FOX news pundits: rabid, delusional madmen ranting about Arabs and capitalism.

Network is, without a doubt, an important film. Enjoyable? Well, maybe. It depends on your interests. I liked it well enough.
$3 1/2 billion dollars out of $5 billion.