About this episode
As the Film Listology season closes in on #100, Garret and Scott complete their "transgressive trilogy" of vintage New Hollywood films with Cabaret from 1972. Directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minelli and Michael York, Cabaret snuck in a win with the Academy Award for Best Director (among others) in the same year as Francis Ford Coppola's original The Godfather. The film situates its narrative at pre-wartime Germany. A love triangle evolves to capture the attention of a part-time singer-performer (Minelli) at a dingy burlesque nightclub, thrusting these uneasy relationships into chaos just as their world seemingly unravels as fascism comes into prominence in Nazi Germany. Recognizing the film's larger legacy as a Broadway musical of the same name, Garret wrestles with the cultural significance factor of Fosse's film despite its storied popularity and passionate defenders.
Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry
Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)
Recommended readings paired with our Film Listology season:
Thomas Elsaesser, Alexander Horwath, & Noel King (Eds.). The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004.
Geoff King. New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.
Rick Altman. Film/Genre. British Film Institute, 1999.
Jim Collins, Ada Preacher Collins, Hilary Radner (Eds.). Film Theory Goes to the Movies, 1st Edition. New York: Routledge, 1992.
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Garret's academic website is available at https://garretcastleberry.academia.edu/.
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