I thought it was strange how a good thirty minutes of the movie was just spent on her show before it finally panned out to show Robert Deniro watching it. I'm not too familiar with this genre of movie or movies from this time period, but is it typical for them to spend so much time on something like that?
shareYep, it was very common. (Check out THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS, or the '54 A STAR IS BORN number, "Born in a Trunk".) You'd get a screen or stage set up with an audience and/or curtain, then the big number -- which suddenly took on a life of its own, then back to the audience/curtain. CABARET was one of the first films to blow this concept completely out of the water, by frequently cutting backstage, cutting in on the audience, or cutting to an audience member's viewpoint -- often with a waiter passing between camera and performer.
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