On the nature of musicals

David Benedict argues that Cabaret is the musical for people who hate them:

The antipathy to non-naturalism explains the success of Cabaret, the musical for people who hate them. Director Bob Fosse ducks the fantasy issue, coming up instead with a dazzling apology. He avoids the vexed question of people bursting into song by ensuring that everyone sings within solidly naturalistic circumstances. Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey play performers who sing onstage. Even the chilling Aryan salute, “Tomorrow Belongs To Me,” is started by a Nazi party member singing outside a Bavarian Gasthaus with a dramatically appropriate (unseen) oompah folk band. The film won a remarkable eight Oscars but it is a contraction of the musical’s possibilities, not an expansion.

At its finest, Cabaret creates the dramatic intensity that musicals purvey better than any other cinematic genre. At root, it takes longer to sing something than to speak it, so if the sentiment expressed has true communicative power, music allows it, literally, to resonate. A great performance of a song, no matter how embedded in the screenplay, affords the singer the opportunity to grab us by the scruff of the neck and lift us into a dimension of pure emotion. When aimed directly at the viewer, the connection is absolute.