At the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony, the biggest shock of the evening was a supposed Native American woman taking to the stage to accept the Best Actor for Marlon Brando in The Godfather and proceeding to deliver a scathing indictment of treatment of the indigenous people by the government of the United States. The second biggest shock of the evening was when the winner of the Best Picture award was announced and it was The Godfather.
In retrospect, of course, that hardly seems shocking. When looked at in the context of the moment, however, the perspective changes. Leading up to that announcement of the night’s top prize, The Godfather has collected only the award for Adapted Screenwriting to go along with Brando’s Best Actor trophy. That put The Godfather at two wins out of ten nominations leading to the final category. Cabaret, by contrast, had won eight out its nine nominations leading up to the Best Picture announcement, the only chink in what appeared poised to be clean sweep being in the screenwriting category.
Any gambler placing a last minute bet in the moments leading up to that announcement probably collected big time since The Godfather appeared to now be the kind of longshot you bet on just because the potential payoff makes it impossible not to bet on it. Today, of course, it seems beyond all reason that The Godfather could have been a longshot to win Best Picture just like it seems beyond belief that the legendary gangster flick only won three Oscars.
There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this: Cabaret is much better directed film than The Godfather, but The Godfather has a sense of gravitas. For this reason, the almost-operatic Mafia epic was deservedly named the best picture of the year while Cabaret picked up all those awards in categories that ultimately bear the mark of directorial influence.
While The Godfather has gravitas, Cabaret has a serious message to convey within its seeming more lightweight confines of the musical genre. If you want to understand why ultimately Fosse’s movie with the weirdly made-up little emcee and the provocative dancers in garter belts and stockings is actually a much more serious work of cinema than The Godfather, check out the proof that Fosse in no way was dependent upon his famously erotic choreography to transform a musical number into something almost impossibly emotional to bear.
Forget all the artsy, Fosse-esque stuff inside the cabaret. That’s all just Fosse being Fosse. If you want to see Fosse being a directorial genius, fast-forward to the near-documentary look and feel of two of the film’s main non-cabaret performer characters enjoying a pleasant afternoon eating at a typical German beer garden. Suddenly, an almost angelic looking boy with a genuinely angelic voice starts to sing softly and without the band behind him yet kicking in a song about warm sun over a beautiful meadow where a deer runs free and unafraid. Fosse frames his camera so that the composition of the young boy is nearly all impossibly youthful blond head.
A few quick cuts to other patrons who have cut short their various conversations and turn their attention to the voice of that angel. And then a cut back to that big blond head and as the camera unobtrusively moves down the body of the boy, he sings for the first time what will be a repetition of the song’s title: “Tomorrow belongs to me.” As the lyrics move away from the verdant forest and begin discussing the Rhine and gold and unseen glory lying in wait for the singer, we get to see what that spectacularly blonde boy who sings like an angel is wearing: a Nazi military uniform.
As the beer hall band finally starts to kick in, Fosse positions his camera at unusual height not often utilized in film. The camera is low, but either nothing is in the frame or what is there is close as to be blurred almost into obscurity. And then, without warning, a young girl almost launches out of her chair or two other man in Nazi uniforms pop up like a pair of crazed Jack-in-the-Box figures. When the camera cuts back yet again to the young boy now singing to half the patrons up on their feet and the other half seated and looking either scared or angry, there is just the slightest change in his demeanor. He’s still angelic looking and still singing with a perfect voice, but now there’s a slightly sinister bent to his neck and his smile has taken on just slight wolfish quality and light in his eyes has gone certifiably gone from angel to archangel
And, needless to say, he is no longer performing solo. His backup vocalists are half the people who literally just two minutes earlier were sharing the same geographic space, but might as well as been miles away from each other. Now, they are as one as they watch the young blond boy in a most unremarkable way cover that big blond with a cap using his left hand while his right arm shoots straight out and at a slight upward angle.
Few Nazi salutes in the movie history have ever succeeded in conveying the absolute horror behind that simple gesture. And that scene—more than any of the others containing Bob Fosse’s signature musical choreography—illuminates the extent to which Fosse’s direction allowed Cabaret to come within one trophy of sending the message that The Godfather sleeps with the fishes that night at the Oscar ceremony.
