Screen Queens: Sally Bowles

MattCanada here with another week of homo classics. Since I started writing this weekly column about a month ago, I have focused on films which have not been Oscar contenders and not featured the actresses which Nathaniel, me, and all the readers of this website respect (read: worship in a cult-like fashion). So on to Cabaret!

Liza Minnelli's Oscar winning role as Sally Bowles may well be the gayest Oscar win of all time. Now I am not a big Liza fan, actually I actively dislike her in anything else, but in Cabaret she gives one of the most amazing performances in the history of cinema in the greatest movie musical of all time. Not to be hyperbolic or anything, but Liza's Sally and Cabaret are earth shatteringly good. Liza is hardly the only reason to love Cabaret. You can get almost as much pleasure out of Joel Grey and Marisa Berenson's performances, as well as Michael York's Dietrich-esque bone structure. The Kander and Ebb songs are musical standards by which all other songs should be judged, and Bob Fosse's direction is flawless and endlessly inventive. The costume design, art direction, cinematography and editing are all incredible*. All of this make Cabaret one of those rare films where all of its components brilliantly fit together.

There are two recent Oscar wins that I want to compare to Cabaret and for different reasons. The first is the Best Picture win for Chicago. The film takes so much from Cabaret that it would be inconceivable visually without its superior precedent. The most blatant rip-off (or homage depending on how you see it) is "When You're Good to Mama" complete with the dancing behind the curtains from the end of Sally and The Host's performance of "Money Makes The World Go Round".

"Money Makes the World Good to Mama"

Both films are based on Kander and Ebb musicals, and therefore they have similarities which evince the auteurist credentials of the songwriter and lyricist. To a certain extent the seminal importance of Cabaret makes it unavoidable for Chicago to heavily reference it, but the visual similarities from Marshall's to Fosse's film are there. Chicago's Best Picture win, and its heralding of the return of the musical, can in many ways be seen as a celebration of Cabaret's brilliance.

The second recent Oscar win for which Cabaret provides a useful comparison is Jennifer Hudson's Best Supporting Actress win for Dreamgirls. Liza Minnelli's performance is musically flawless and provides two showstopping moments, the Torch Song "Maybe This Time" and the iconic closer "Cabaret". Jennifer Hudson's performance in Dreamgirls is musically astounding and her rendition of "And I Am Telling You (I Am Not Going)" is the highlight of the film. However, the difference lies in the performances which surround these musical moments. While Liza combines comedy, melodrama, and pathos in the service of conveying the the complex range of human emotions, Hudson can barely deliver her lines in character. Hudson deserved a Grammy, a performance like Liza's deserves the Oscar.

<--- 'beedle dee dee dee dee, Two Ladies': Michael York and Helmut Griem

Cabaret and Liza's Sally have become an ineluctable part of gay culture. Cabaret is the first critical and commercial success to deal with homosexuality in an understanding and mature fashion, making it a part of the texture of the film.

Its importance for the post-Liberation gay community of the Seventies I can only guess, but its continued reverence in gay culture would indicate that it was pretty important. Recently Kristin Chenowith performed "Maybe This Time" on Glee, showing the continued cultural cachet of Cabaret and its appeal to a gay audience (Glee + Chenowith + Cabaret is as camp as it gets).

"Maybe This Time" through the years. With Kristin Chenowith, Liza
Minnelli and Natasha Richardson

While most Oscar wins for Actors playing gay characters are solemn and maudlin enough to make a funeral or Senate Hearing seem enjoyable, Liza brings humour and gravitas to a performance which is a highlight of gay cinema and the pantheon of Best Actress winners.

Lady Lucky: Liza won the competitive Oscar that had always eluded
her legendary mother Judy Garland 'The World's Greatest Entertainer'

*Editors note: Cabaret holds the record of the most awarded movie to have ever lost Best Picture (the 1972 winner was The Godfather) winning an incredible eight Oscars, including three of the big six. Strangely, it was not nominated for costume design. Star Wars and A Place in the Sun are the runners up with six Oscars each.
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