Fosse won an Oscar for Best Director for his masterful handling of sociosexual and political themes in the form of a musical, a genre previously reserved for lighter subject matter. Liza Minnelli stars as Sally Bowles, an émigré aspiring to stardom in a decadent Weimar Germany nightclub full of crossdressers, gay men, lesbians, and members of Berlin’s middle classes enjoying unprecedented sexual freedom. Just as the world affects the body (as Fosse’s choreography tells us), implanting gestures and movements, so show business is not immune from changes in the political order, even if—or especially if—it seems to be completely separate from the outside world. Minnelli and  Joel Grey, as the devilish master of ceremonies, also earned Academy Awards, as did Geoffrey Unsworth for cinematography.