Cabaret

Divine decadence, darling! Liza Minnelli bids us back to Berlin’s Kit Kat Club for 50th anniversary screenings of Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning musical spectacular.

Liza Minnelli’s incandescent Sally Bowles, an American dancer at Berlin’s Kit Kat Club (described as “a Weimar Holly Golightly” in a Hollywood Reporter review) has ambition, dreams and chutzpah enough for herself and her beau, Michael York’s less voluble Englishman, Brian Roberts; but their fledgling relationship is complicated by Brian’s sexual ambiguity (cue Helmut Griem’s aristocratic Maximilian von Heune). And then there’s the insidious rise of a certain far right nationalist party stealthily gathering momentum in the background while the good citizens of early ‘30s Berlin blithely go about their business.

With sensational songs by Kander & Ebb, and a screenplay based on British writer Christopher Isherwood’s 1937 novella Goodbye to Berlin, director/choreographer Bob Fosse’s second big screen outing after 1969’s Sweet Charity scooped the Oscars with eight awards including Best Director (for Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey, the Kit Kat Club’s impish MC) as well as awards for Cinematography, Art Direction, Editing, Music and Sound.

Showcasing a career-defining performance from Liza Minnelli and with show-stopping musical numbers and choreography that absolutely dazzle on the big screen, Bob Fosse's hit film influenced scores of filmmakers and remains a milestone of New Hollywood and Queer cinemas.

– Roberta Ciabarra; Curator, Film