Cabaret surprised me with its evidence. It's very different from everything I ever saw – a well-directed and criticized movie, with a great cast, a picture of show business behind the growing Nazism, sensual outfits and beautiful songs.
At a main plot, we have Liza Minnelli’s character – Sally Bowles –, which is a cabaret’s singer, dancer and star wannabe. Brian Roberts’ character – Michael York – is a reserved British that’s moving into Sally’s building. Getting closer to friends/lovers, Brian meets Sally’s bohemian life in the last days of the German Weimar Republic. Mysterious and with a doubtful nature, Brian involves into a sensual game with Sally and the company of a third gentleman. That is Maximilian von Heune – Helmut Griem’s character –, a wealthy baron who takes Sally and Brian to his country house. The strangest point is when their involvement gets so intimate, that we don’t know where the seduction’s coming from. The narrator and the musical sequences presenter’s Joel Grey, a singer and dancer winner of lot of prizes. His character has an influence a little bit ironic in the role, besides participating with the construction of the film’s idea, his dialogues also works as politics criticizing. While following the movie, it’s indeed intriguing when you notice those influences from the increase of Nazi control – the German Jew passing as a Christian, the sequence with a blond boy singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” wearing a brown Hitler Youth uniform and the reflections by the characters about communism and politic control.
Another tool that Bob Fosse used is the German Expressionism; some of the musical sequences were shot mainly in low light.
Immeasurable is its music and picture, that Cabaret makes it with 8 Academy Awards.