The 70s Musical Innovations of 'Cabaret' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar'

The musical had long been a staple of Hollywood productions, from the iconic beginnings of The Jazz Singer to Fred Astaire, to the awards acclaim Singing in the Rain, West Side Story and Oliver, and the double-60s whammy of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins, to name a few of the resounding earlier successes in the genre. The 70s though brought in an advent of altogether unique musicals, of varying styles and quality but a common consistency in innovation and daring. There were more traditional sorts of adaptations like Fiddler on the Roof and absolutely bonkers ones like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Phantom of the Paradise and Tommy, teenage pop hits like Grease and Hair, and the rise of Barbara Streisand. Of this lot, I want to discuss my two favourites released between the years 1972 and 1973, two very distinct and different musicals which nevertheless took on the format of the musical in a self-aware fashion that only served to amplify the source material: Cabaret, directed by one-of-a-kind dance choreographer Bob Fosse which won a whopping 8 Oscars in the year The Godfather was released, and Jesus Christ Superstar which was the first of many Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals and I'd argue the very best of them (unless the upcoming Cats snatches away that honour!)

The recent miniseries Fosse/Verdon starring Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams gives some pretty interesting backdrop to the conception of Cabaret from a performative perspective, but here's the gist of what it's about: loosely adapted from both Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin and the 1966 Broadway musical, the film is set in 1931 Berlin with the Kit Kat cabaret club establishment at its centre where we're introduced to American burlesque dancer Sally Bowles (Lizza Minnelli) and British tourist Brian (Michael York). A love story of sorts ostensibly occurs but La La Land this aint, as you throw in a charismatic German count (Helmut Griem), a secret love affair between two German Jews, and the Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey) who presides omnisciently over the narrative as a sort of commentator on the personal drama unfolding in the Cabaret club and the precarious state of Germany at this time in history.

From the opening number of 'Wilkommen' it's quite obvious the approach Fosse and Co. are going for with this musical: surreal, offbeat yet very much grounded in reality. Each musical number bar one takes place within the Kit Kat club, and the emphasis on the 'performative' aspects of each musical number is very strong. What's impressive is that it never feels overly 'stagy', it feels just right for the silver screen, and so much credit must go to the dance choreography for making everything onscreen just sizzle in terms of every dance move, but also the composition in front of the camera, the use of costumes and colours, everything really. It's not hard to see why this dominated the 1972 Oscars technical categories as it's just an impeccably composed films; even if you're not a fan, you can't deny that every single frame is composed to perfection where the music matches the imagery and pacing perfectly. What's just as impressive is the film never loses sight of the smaller more intimate human elements of its non-musical sections, you get a clear sense of the other stories going on outside of the club and the unassuming rise of Nazism in Berlin.

And it has to be said that the Oscar-winning turns by Minnelli, the daughter of Judy Garland herself, and Joel Grey are brilliant, with 'Money Money' being a particular highlight of both their performances. Minnelli herself gets the iconic 'Mein Herr' number which is every bit as deserving of its reputation, and honestly watching the dance moves she and her fellow dancers pull off is just wunderbar; while Grey's performance is particularly interesting as you see how the emcee of the Kit Kat club gradually change and 'tone' himself down in his insults at the burgeoning Nazi party as they become less of a distant joke and more of a grim reality in the making.

Which leads me to my favourite musical number, the one set outside of the Kit Kat club, 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me', a truly chilling scene which opens with an angelic-faced youth singing a lovely inspirational song about seizing the day...before the Swastika on his uniform is revealed and the crowds begin to join in a passionate ode to Nazism. Its a brilliant use of the cinematic form to the musical as it uses such subtle yet effective direction to initially misdirect and create such a big impact with the reveal.

The steamrolling awards success of Cabaret paved way for other ambitious musicals, and Norman Jewison who if you look at his career always seemed to like expanding his range, after the enjoyable adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof decided to take on altogether very different subject matter: a rock musical retelling of the story of Christ. The film is very much a product of its time with its hippy influences extending to its framing device of a dance troupe travelling to a desert to perform the Passion of Christ - as you do I suppose -, which is a way of creating a certain otherworldliness and ambiguity to the narrative. There's a willingness to embrace the oddities of its source material: a number including a particularly weird and off-putting King Herod is extremely entertaining yet I can't imagine would be kept in nowadays (think of the excisions to some of the more 'offbeat' numbers in Les Miserables for example). The sheer daring and weirdness of film possibly resulted in its more scant success on the awards circuit, but in my opinion it is perhaps the greatest film musical ever made for so many reasons.

Musicals are an easy medium to mess things up from a directorial perspective by just focusing too much on the performances and not enough on the ensemble staging. Jewison's direction grants such a vibrancy to each musical number, with the daring approach to make 'Superstar' as BIG as it is, while letting the quieter moments shine,  and the overall grungy desert aesthetic really does wonder in making the story's tone feel very true to both its musical and biblical roots.

It's easy to dismiss acting in musicals - just singing well does the job, one might presume, but there's so much more to mine out of it than just that. The performers in Jesus Christ Superstar don't just sing, they bring so much emotion, character and power to each of their numbers that evokes the power of the story. You have Bob Bingham and Kurt Yaghijian doing a particularly great example of the imposing heavy/snivelling weasel routine with their high-low pitched voice routine that's as menacing as it is entertaining. You have a particularly angelic Mary Magdalene in Yvonne Elliman with perhaps one of the most popular songs from the film, 'I Don't Know How to Love Him' being quite the lovely number - which is later sung by another character in a rather brilliant creative choice; and a unique take on Pontius Pilate in Barry Dennen whose delivery of 'Pilate's Dream' is quite remarkable.

The highlight though is definitely the central duo of Jesus, played by the incomparable Ted Neeley, and Judas played by the incomparable Carl Anderson. The two performers are on entirely different wavelengths in terms of their voices, acting style, and delivery which is absolutely perfect for the two figures who never quite see eye to eye in their goals for their people, and yet have the exact same good intentions. Neeley's Jesus is just a curious odd figure in many ways, unassuming and with a very offbeat voice that is brilliantly used in the iconic number 'Gethsemane', and Anderson gives an absolutely devastating unique take on Judas as not so much a villain as a man driven to committing some particularly exacting betrayals by sincere motivations for the greater good. It's an amazing vocal performance for sure, particularly in his big number of 'Heaven on Their Minds', but also so much more than that.

I love music and I love film but I don't always love musical films - it's sometimes very hard to capture what exactly makes the singing, dancing routines of the stage click on camera. It can very easily come across as pointless posturing or 'why not just save up for the actual musical'. The above two are in my view great examples of how to make a musical film truly click by going beyond just fancy musical numbers and great voices. In Cabaret by embracing the stage roots in its focus on the peformative aspects