Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles in Cabaret
Best Actress at the 45th Annual Oscars (1972)
Notable Quote:
“Doesn’t my body drive you wild with desire?”
Synopsis:
Brian, a bookish translator, moves to Berlin, where he meets Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) a drama kid with daddy issues. The two proceed to have tons of adventures and learn the true meaning of friendship. Okay, fine … they couple up, fight, have threesomes (well, kinda?), and ultimately break up, all while the Nazis rise to power in the background.
The character:
Here’s the thing about Sally Bowles … she’s a complete monster. She asks Brian questions and interrupts before he can answer so that she can talk more about herself. When his pupil comes over for English lessons, she can’t staaaand to not be the center of attention, so she says provocative shit until everyone looks at her. She and Brian are going to have a baby and move to England, until she gets an abortion in the middle of the night and blames it on “one of her whims,” oh my God, I support a woman’s right to choose, but that’s wild!
So, this woman is clearly the villain of the story, right? Well … not exactly. First of all, she’s very charming: you understand how Brian gets seduced because she’s a lot of fun, and she’s charismatic. Sally is one of the more quotable characters who will show up in this column: my faves are below.
“I’m eating between meals.”
“I just told him I’ve got the teensiest touch of syphilis.”
“That's me, darling. Unusual places, unusual love affairs. I am a most strange and extraordinary person.”
That first quote, about eating between meals, is actually quite revealing of Sally’s character. She’s a woman of huge appetites: for food, sex, money, fame. She openly asks for exactly what she wants, whether it’s caviar (“That’s for me, what are you having?”) or affection (“Hug me.”). It’s selfish and often embarrassingly vulnerable, and yet, there’s also something incredibly admirable about it. Sally is not a woman who allows herself to be content with crumbs. It’s what makes her decision to get an abortion and return to the cabaret so complicated. Yes, she’s very callous, and remaining in Berlin as the Nazis take over can’t end well. But at the same time, she’s not wrong that she might not be built to live in a cottage and raise a kid.
I’ve also got to quickly talk about Sally’s aesthetic. She’s always in garish mascara, mile-long lashes, and her bangs somehow come to a point at the bridge of her nose (???). She wears what appears to be a beekeeper’s helmet at one point, and her massive fur coat is oddly plot-relevant. Like Sally herself, her look is a nightmare, but it’s also incredibly distinctive and compelling.
The performance:
Confession time: I’m a big time homo, but Liza Minnelli has never had a place in my cold gay heart. I’m not a theater gay, so the jazz handsy, razzmatazz thing doesn’t do a lot for me. With that being said, Minnelli’s performance as Sally is good! She brings a genuine charm to the character, which helps to balance Sally’s less savory qualities. And of course, Minnelli is a great singer and performer in the cabaret scenes.
My main issue is this: is Liza Minnelli just playing Liza Minnelli? I’m not convinced that Liza and Sally are that different: both fame-seeking, dramatic jazz performers. That doesn’t necessarily invalidate her award: casting can make or break a movie. But it’s less exciting than someone inhabiting a new or unexpected persona. It’s why I have so much to say about Sally, but not much to say about Minnelli’s performance.
The movie:
I loved this movie! It’s fucking weird: it’s (sort of) a musical about Nazis and polyamory, and bisexuality, and abortion. It’s really shaggy: there are subplots that seem to trail off, we see weird flashbacks to earlier scenes that I didn’t know what to make of. But the meandering strangeness really worked for me. I also loved Brian: what a cutie, and really fun to watch him get sucked in by Sally. I particularly appreciated their simultaneous disclosures that they’d both been cheating on the other with rich hottie Max. And obviously, Joel Grey is great as the Master of Ceremonies, but he’ll get his own entry in this column …
Was the Oscar deserved?
Yep. Even though Minnelli is playing herself, she still has a ton of star power, and she’s an iconic Hollywood figure.