歌厅

Source

Economic instability and social unrest following World War I gave way to a culture of escapism and decadence in Weimar Berlin. Though previously Berlin had not made much of a name for itself on the global stage, the Golden Twenties turned Berlin into the third largest city in the world, with a population of over 4 million. The 20s were a time of rich culture and sophisticated developments in art, architecture, music, fashion, and particularly film and live entertainment. Popular personas of the time included Marlene Dietrich and Lotte Lenya. The city became a haven for many writers and artists, thrill seekers who were drawn to the magnetic, taboo atmosphere— particularly of Berlin’s nightlife.

Many artists interacted and blended with the underground culture, nightlife and cabarets. Described in Voluptuous Panic: the Erotic World of Weimar Berlin as the “International sex-tourist Mecca of the Twenties and early Thirties,” Berlin was known for its sexual perversity and moral degeneracy. The nightlife scenes were famous for their erotic performances and abundance of cocaine and alcohol. As a result, many right-wing individuals viewed the culture of the time as socially disruptive and profane. One American writer of the time, Ben Hecht, described Berlin as the “prime breeding ground for evil.”

Despite the culture of decadence in the newly cosmopolitan Berlin, most of the population still faced poverty and unemployment in the aftermath of WWI. Prostitution rose as a means of survival for both women and men. In the 20s, this was normalized to a point where the German army granted approval to it soldiers to attend certain brothels, and even rationed coupon books for sexual services at establishments that had been inspected and cleared of sexually transmitted infections like syphilis and gonorrhea. Drug trafficking and the black market played a huge role in Berlin’s underground economy. Cocaine, heroin, and tranquilizers were easily accessible at the time.

Nightlife venues were abundant and diverse. They included girlculture venues, homosexual venues, lesbian venues, nudist venues, sex museums, transvestite venues, underworld venues, and Weimar Nazi venues.

Berlin Cabarets

Berlin Cabarets of the 1920’s were of a different variety than the ones that would later arise in the early 1930’s in response to the Depression, growing Nazi influence and social unrest. The twenties featured kick-lines of beautiful women who were shining with exuberance and personality: “Their faces were made up with an optimism that nipped all resistance to economic development in the bud, and the little cries of pleasure, issued in a precisely calculated rhythm, gave ever renewed praise to the splendors of existence in just such circumstances story ... exploiting with unflagging zeal the very boom they themselves were representing.” (Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg, The Weimar Republic Source Book)

After the Great Depression struck, the tone of Cabarets shifted significantly. Despite their well rehearsed smiles, performers began to represent deterioration and frenzy as opposed to blasé luxury: “Their smiles are those of a mark; their confidence a leftover from better days; their precision a mockery of the difficulties in which the very powers they call to mind now find themselves. Though they might continue to snake and wave as if nothing happened--the crisis to which so many factories have fallen victim has also silently liquidated this machinery of girls.” (ibid.) The dancers became more brash and provocative. Large theatres were censored by Nazis for content (both immoral and libelous), whereas nightclub stages and small cabarets maintained their erotic and subversive atmosphere and slid under the radar for a slightly longer period of time. (Lisa Appignanesi, The Cabaret)

Queer Culture

Berlin has a long and substantial history of queer culture. It was considered, from 1920s until the rise of the Nazi party, to be the gay capital of the European continent. Berlin’s status as a site of prominent cultural production was at odds with formal law; homosexuality was illegal in Germany from 1871 all the way until 1994 under the Strafgesetzbuch, or German penal code. The provision Paragraph 175 outlawed homosexual acts between men (as well as prostitution, bestiality, and underage sexual abuse). It was made more draconian during Hitler’s rein.

The burgeoning gay scene was the result of relatively tolerant policing policy that began in the late 19th century. Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hullessem, Berlin’s police commissioner in the 1880s, identified that the law was functionally unenforceable. The only way to convict someone was if they confessed, if it was a reported act of nonconsensual sexual violence, or if there was a witness who could testify in court. Rather than prioritize convictions, the police shifted their strategy to surveilling suspected individuals. The police tolerated a variety of gay public spaces—bars, cafés, and even gender non-conforming balls. Because Berliners were not penalized for frequenting these spaces a large and fairly open community emerged, one that did not exist in other European cities.

Gay culture in 1920s and early 1930s Berlin is most often, and fairly, associated with cabaret culture. A number of cabaret queens, both from Germany and abroad, were gay. One example is Claire Waldoff. Waldoff was not from Berlin, but moved there before World War I and earned a reputation as a review singer. She recorded the song “There’s Only One Berlin” in 1932, and it was banned by the Nazi Party in 1933 for its political content. However, it was so well known at the time that most people who lived in the city that year would have been familiar with it. Waldoff was a well-known lesbian; she lived with her partner, and owned a gay-lesbian salon. Although she socialized with many straight club owners and cabaret performers as well, her relationship with another woman was known and accepted.

The liberal attitudes in Berlin were partially the result of advocacy pioneered by Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld was a German physician who advocated for gay and transgender rights decades before the timeline of Cabaret, and his work and revolutionized German thought about homosexuality. The Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, or WhK (“The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee”) was founded by Hirschfeld in 1897. The mission of the WhK was to advocate for the decriminalization and social recognition of gay and transgender people. At its height, the WhK had roughly 500 members and branches in 25 cities across three countries. Hirschfeld went on to found the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (“Institute for Sexology”) in 1918 under the more liberal Weimar Republic. The institute advocated for widely available contraception, the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, women’s emancipation, and sex education. Hirschfeld coined the term “transsexualism”—while terminology has since evolved, it was an important beginning to the discussion of gender nonconformity and medical gender transition—and some of the institute staff were themselves transgender. The institute offered endocrinological and surgical services, including the first modern sexual reassignment surgeries. Hirschfeld also strongly advocated against the arrest of crossdressers, especially those involved in sex work. Documentation of much of Hirschfeld’s would be destroyed in Nazi book burnings, which included the Institute archives.

Outside of cabarets, there was also a sizeable gay literary culture. The 1920s and early 1930s, there were at least 25 different gay German periodicals. These publications were sold alongside other standard papers. They provided community news, listed events, and even listed personal advertisements.

本片歌舞运用极佳，串联主线却又游离于故事之外，歌舞在片中的作用也有很多种：连接甚至是概括剧情；暗示政治背景；表达人物心声；用歌舞夸张地表现了当时纸醉金迷浮夸迷幻的社会；对小小的舞台和下面观众的描写刻画出了政治突变波涛汹涌时代下芸芸众生的躁动和恐惧。

女主角刻画很好，是剧变的时代背景下一个微不足道的小人物，现实窘迫却心怀梦想，愿意出卖身体来接近那些看似能帮助自己完成梦想的人。对自己身体满不在乎却拥有一双纯真动人的大眼睛。和别人说父亲和自己很亲近，却无法掩盖父亲爽约甚至不愿意在给自己的电报上多花钱的事实，因此而倍受打击，内心里其实是一个渴望父爱的孩子。放弃了自己爱的男孩和腹中的孩子，因为她知道男孩没有爱上她，她对梦想的憧憬胜于自己对男孩的爱，于是她回到舞台上，振臂高歌。无论梦想是否能实现，她都愿意去追寻，甚至是死在梦里。“生活就像是歌厅，也只是个歌厅，而我喜欢的，就是歌厅”。她代表了当时女性思想开始解放，认识自我，追逐梦想；也代表了那个时代千千万万的追梦人，愿意前仆后继地去追寻那个遥不可及但美丽无比的梦，却像那个妓女埃尔西一样无法逃脱其宿命般的结局。

纳粹青年表演那一段格外令人印象深刻，歌曲激昂高亢，观众的情绪很快被调动起来，由旁观变为参与其中，反对者反而显得弱小格格不入，直观的体现了纳粹具有的力量。民众的愚昧和易操煽动，人心脆弱可以轻而易举地操控在此暴露无遗。

作为当年击败科波拉《教父》夺得奥斯卡最佳导演的《歌厅》，今时今日远没有得到与《教父》相当的评价和讨论，其中缘由自然有歌舞片日渐式微的意难平。《教父》固然经典，但当我们再次面对《歌厅》的时候却又不得不承认它的当之无愧。 影片改编自百老汇同名音乐剧，讲述了30年代在纳粹兴起控制下的柏林，一个在歌厅表演歌舞的美国女郎，与同住一套公寓的英国男教师的感情故事。影片遵循了早期歌舞片后台罗曼史的叙事策略，却在类型片中完成了对歌舞类型的超越。一反歌舞片避世，将矛盾集中在爱情与个人奋斗的主题。导演注入了更多社会文化关怀，强化了纳粹时期的柏林背景下暴力、黑暗的环境，以及民众愚昧和易操控煽动，并与主体爱情线挂钩，进行更深入、敏感的探讨。虽整个影片仍以一曲歌舞终场，然并非如以往该类型以一场歌舞解决所有矛盾那样虚假的完满。 导演鲍勃·福斯作为百老汇一流的歌舞指导，其创作的《芝加哥》也在新世纪被搬上荧幕，其中也不乏向《歌厅》致敬元素。如片中歌厅作为人物内心的映射，和现实场景基本分离这一手法在《芝加哥》中得到延续。纵观全片，三教九流汇成了上世纪30年代的柏林末日浮世绘，其情节线并不完整，英国哲学硕士布莱恩在柏林的经历只是其生活中一段突兀而混乱的生活，同时与影片暗线纳粹上台前夕德国越来越混乱的社会状况相呼应，歌厅又成为了微观的政治隐喻。 在剪辑上，鲍勃·福斯用大量的交叉蒙太奇来推进双线叙事的顺利进行，从布莱恩的来到与歌厅开场的欢迎曲用交叉蒙太奇串联在一起；舞台娱乐打戏与后台真实暴行的快速交剪。歌厅内的人来来往，在光怪陆离的灯光烟雾中过着纸醉金迷的生活；歌厅外党卫军高举旗帜，喊着口号，纳粹主义悄然兴起。穿着大胆、浓妆艳抹的舞女与外部世界的变化图景形成鲜明对比。蒙太奇技法的频繁使用也使得《歌厅》拥有了比纯粹描写纳粹剧情片更令人后怕的力量。 在叙事方式上鲍勃·福斯用舞台生活穿梭的程式增添了剧情的荒诞性，以乔尔·格雷饰演的歌厅舞者，微翘着嘴角、瞪大眼珠，说着逢场作戏的俏皮话从未走出过歌厅的表现，凸显着时代及时行乐的宣言。其中导演埋伏的移民、同性恋、犹太等元素，都是轻描淡写地掠过或参与人物的重大人生议题却丝毫不显肤浅，与夸张萎靡的外显表象粘连成内容上的第一视点。一切都是从歌厅向外延伸，从源头打破意识形态的阻隔。 这种叙事方式不仅是台上台下的反衬，更是银幕内外的联动。用同样的手法、台词表演来开场结尾，掀起了电影与生活两个世界的幕布。迷幻背后自有明晰，舞台因荒诞与闹剧而真实，生活却因愈发荒诞而超现实。或许局中人尚未察觉，但我们看到结尾歌厅内纳粹魔影的镜像反照就已知晓，夜夜笙歌的歌厅将不复存在，接下来要登场的就是悲痛残忍的《美丽人生》和《辛德勒名单》了。

上联：众人点评十分到位

下联：补充论述样样俱全

横批：十分精彩

（必须写够140字才让我发出去，我只能简单说两句，那就是：

在那个特殊的时代背景下，爱情看似无处不在，但其实十分可贵。

人们为了追求自己想要的人生，必须做出各式各样的选择，而这样的选择也引发了电影中主人公们之间的矛盾与冲突，从而更进一步点缀了那个纷繁复杂的社会。）