We are collecting the little bits of film that make induce joyfulness. When we have fifty, they will be melted down and injected into Michael Haneke, in an effort to cheer him up.
Today’s volunteer from the audience, his “consciousness violently shaped by war,” profers a slice of Cinema Euphoria that is STRONG MEAT:
“Tomorrow Belongs to Me”
So many moments of CABARET are talked of, repeatedly shown, revered. We think of the compere, Liza’s rendering of “Money, Money, Money,” the dancers using the chairs as props, the seedy life of some, the occasional splendour — but let’s not forget the oft-forgotten scene of the Hitler Youth choir singing in the bier-garten: memorable, hypnotic, seduction of another form. Would you have signed up? I might have. Fortunately, tomorrow belonged to me — not them.
Emotions can be disturbing.
Circa 1939
Who is this masked man, lurking behind the mask of anonymity like Hugo Weaving in a tall hat, answering only to the nom-de-plume of “Circa 1939”?
It’s my Dad, and that’s the year of his birth.
When he mentioned, after a very satisfying dinner, that this would be his nomination, I have to admit that eyebrows were raised to stratospheric heights where the chilly conditions threatened to wither them at the roots.
“Is that euphoric?” queried Fiona, dubiously.
“It’s a toe-tapper,” I admitted.
The power of this sequence is the exquisite balance of seduction and repulsion, letting us see how empowering it would be to join that song, how hard and frightening to resist, while trusting our knowledge of history to let us make the right choice. It’s an amazing piece of MONTAGE, drawing it’s power from the assembly of little bits of film of faces, connected to a stirring tune to create an extraordinary emotive crescendo.
Leni Riefenstahl’s extraordinary Nuremberg rallies material from TRIUMPH OF THE WILL quickly became an icon of easy horror, but this sequence freshens the imagery and makes it potent and alarming again.
(I love the stories about various filmmakers sitting down to a screening of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL to see what America’s propaganda response should be. René Clair was horrified: “This must never be shown!” Frank Capra wrote later was that his initial reaction was that immediate surrender was the only sane response in the face of such mass unity of will. Only Chaplin sat laughing until the tears ran down his face. He’d had an idea for a film.
Later, Capra claims to have conceived the idea of turning this weapon back on the Nazis, using it show the horror of mass conformity, threat of fascism and the need to resist. Luis Bunuel seems to have had the job of cutting Riefenstahl’s epic down to size so that it could be deployed in this way.)
CABARET was turned down by at least ten top directors, including Gene Kelly, who must have been terrified of it,* and Billy Wilder, who had lived through this time and place and felt too close to it. (I always think of the stubborn old guy in the Bier-Garten as Wilder.)
So Bob Fosse got the gig, despite SWEET CHARITY, his only other film, having rolled over and died at the box office. An incredible piece of luck, for us and for him (he pipped Coppola to the Oscar). I am SO impressed with the shot of the Joel Grey’s compére at the end there, dropping in out of the blue like the images of demonic Linda Blair in THE EXORCIST, and doing a camp variation of The Crazy Kubrick Stare. Chilling and oddly exhilarating.
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Speaking of the volk, we are halfway through watching Lang’s NIEBELUNGEN, so expect more thoughts on mythic structure when we’re done with Part II: KRIEMHILD’S REVENGE.
*See Comments for Aunt Suzy’s correction, re Gene Kelly’s role in CABARET’s gestation.
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