MovieChat Forums > Cabaret (1972) Discussion > Car scene where they pass the dead body

Car scene where they pass the dead body

posted 14 years ago by glimmer246
5 replies | jump to latest

I don't see any mention of the scene where Maximillian, Sally and Brian are driving and they pass the dead body in the street and police and citizens are standing around it. All the people are immobile and look like wax dummies or frozen characters in a play. My thoughts are that it was meant to show that people were still ignoring the future that was beginning to show itself around them. Also it may have showed the indifference of the German police and Nazis to people as humans. Maximillians statement shows that there were so many people that couldn't wrap their heads around the seriousness of what was happening at the time. During the scene where the young brownshirt was singing also shows how everyone saw it as a rousing patriotic song and how so many citizens got sucked in to the movement. Interestingly, the only person not singing is an old man who you can think has lived long enough to know better. Anyone have a different idea about the street scene?

[–] gnolti 14 years ago

It is a chilling scene, not least because of the immobile figures you describe. I would add that it is significant that the episode is seen from the comfort of Maximilian's car, which underscores the detachment many Germans felt about the events of the 1930s -- i.e., that these were things happening to other people, not to themselves. Basically it's an illustration of what someone once said about living through that period (to paraphrase), "First they came for the Jews, and I didn't mind, then they came for the communists, and I didn't mind," etc.

There, daddy, do I get a gold star?

[–] vonziggy 12 years ago

I agree its quite chilling and consequently when they sing tomorrow belongs to me, michael york doubles back and says you still think you can control them?

You can live on fishes but you can't live on wishes

[–] jintanyarou 12 years ago

This is completely insignificant in comparison to the very interesting observations above, but does anyone know why Maximilian's car is right hand drive?

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] stevekaczynski 9 years ago

There is a chilling indifference to deaths in political street violence, although 1931, the year the film was set, was less violent than the following year would be and in 1933 the Nazis came to power.
It looked as though a Communist street demonstration had been attacked, probably by Nazis. There is still a banner with pictures of Lenin and the German Communist leader Ernst Thälmann strung across the road. The German policeman who looks down at the dead man actually seems contemptuous - the police and the Communist Party often clashed with each other. It also appears as though the dead man's shoes have been removed. During the Depression, shoes could be almost luxury items and perhaps someone decided the dead man did not need them any more.

Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."