According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Global Movie Day is the second Saturday in February – just as interest is building for the Academy Awards. To celebrate, cinephiles are encouraged to reminisce about their most memorable movie house, their most admired actor, or their favorite film. Here is one reader’s pick for best motion picture of all time.
I’ve always been partial to musicals – and I was practically raised on World War Two movies – so for a long time South Pacific was my favorite film. I gained a new appreciation for it 30 years later when I learned it was based on the stories by James Michener.
Nonetheless, South Pacific took a back seat after Cabaret was released in 1972. It has ballads and minstrels, marches and jazz, love and war, comedy and suspense.
And it has an assortment of literary devices from allegory to zoomorphism. Imagery and irony collaborate with foreshadowing and flashbacks. Metaphor and motifs merge with satire and symbolism.
Cabaret gives insight how the spread of an oppressive ideology (in this case, Nazism) crept into a society. And it normalizes the peculiarities and eccentricities of the Berlin night-club circuit of the 1930s. Although the film was released 50 years ago, analogies to today’s politics abound.
The audience (in the cabaret and in the theater) is instructed to “Leave your troubles outside.” And I learned I could leave job worries at work. I realized I could leave emotional baggage at home.
Sally Bowles runs to the train trestle with her reluctant lover and yells at the top of her lungs as the train passes overhead. Brian Roberts stands amazed at her primal scream; it is a release of frustration and fear, a celebration of exuberance and life. I identify with Sally; I harmonize with her howl.
This film gives a perspective of tyranny and serves as an assessment of indifference. Cabaret encourages me to embrace freedom, to be less judgmental, and to dance in the celebration of life.
Singer Liza Minnelli asks the question, “What good is sitting alone in your room?” Indeed, the time from cradle to tomb is not that long. I hope to always follow her suggestion to sample the wine, to hear the music, to live to the fullest.
“Life is a Cabaret!”
Photo: Pixabay
