Cabaret

This was originally written for my cinema class in college.

In classical Hollywood musicals life is usually portrayed as beautiful and worth living. Things are colorful and light. Love is in the air for everyone to experience it and you have a happy ending no matter what you have experienced in between. On the other hand, in classical Hollywood war films there is a life completely different from the ones in bright, optimistic Hollywood musicals. One's purpose in life seems so meaningless in a Hollywood war film because no matter what one plans to do with her/his life there are very strong external factors that interfere with people's lives during war. Love leaves its place to violence. Bright colors become dark and life turns into death. However, in 1972 film Cabaret which was directed by Bob Fosse the musical is used for portraying war. The film is colorful but the colors are dark and the songs performed in the cabaret are supposed to be lively, funny and entertaining but instead; they are disturbing because of the editing.

We see lots of different colors in the film Cabaret; especially, during the cabaret scenes but they are usually dark tones of those colors and low-key lightning is used. This separates this musical film from other musicals where we see lots of bright colors. This also reflects that this movie is not like other optimistic musicals. It is going to be dark and portray a pessimistic world view like in a war film. The main characters in the movie seem like they are all trapped in their little world no matter what kinds of dreams they have for their future. Especially, the character Sally has her big dream of becoming a famous actress but no matter what she says neither we nor she believe that she is really going to be a famous, successful actress in her future. The film's dark atmosphere does not let us see this kind of a bright future for any of the film's characters, because under the surface Nazis are getting more and more powerful, and there is going to be a war. There is not going to be a bright future for anyone because of this war.

Since it is a musical the film also has lots of songs. The songs are actually fun to listen and with all the dancing in the cabaret they are supposed to be entertaining. However, they are far from entertainment because of the editing of the movie. The songs are about and go parallel with the events that are happening outside of the cabaret. While they are performed usually the scenes from the external world are put in between and those scenes are generally from the most terrible events of the film; like when a communist is beaten severely by the Nazis and Jewish Natalia's dog is killed brutally. This makes the song performances pretty disturbing rather than fun. They emphasize the terrible events of the film rather than giving us happy moments like a classical Hollywood musical supposed to do. Instead the film does what a classical war film supposed to do; alarming about the coming war and its disastrous dark world.

To sum up, in his 1972 film Cabaret Bob Fosse does something pretty interesting and combines a musical film, which is supposed to be optimistic according to the classical Hollywood musical films, with a war film, which is supposed to show a pessimistic world according to the classical Hollywood war films, that gives us a dark musical film as a result of this unlikely combination. There is not a direct representation of war but its darkness, violence and far from ideal world is indirectly emphasized everywhere throughout the musical and its songs. And I think, this gives Cabaret a very important and special place among the other Hollywood musicals and war films.