Casablanca

Seeing Casablanca on the big screen on 35mm is a bucket list item for any film buff, and I crossed it off this Valentine’s Day.  I first saw Casablanca when I was in middle school on a rented DVD from the library, and enjoyed it but didn’t see it as much more than a really good story in the Old Hollywood mold.  Back then, my mind was much more blown by Citizen Kane for how much I wondered how that film was even made in the 40s.  It was nonetheless enlightening to see how so many of my favorite childhood films were inspired by Casablanca, from Raiders, with its maps of Indy’s globetrotting, to Star Wars, whose Mos Eisley cantina scene replaces refugees of diverse nationalities with quite literal aliens, and whose Han Solo is essentially a cynical outer-space Rick Blaine copy, exactly the reason I love going back to these old films.  Seeing it on the big screen now, and with a packed crowd that all laughed and teared up at the same moments, the fact that it is just a damn great story for what it is, is exactly why I love it. This is such a pitch-perfect film.  It packs so much more into a relatively brisk hour and 40 minutes than most films can in 3, and should put to rest the notion that old films are dry and dull.  It has a massive cast of characters, almost all of whom (except Strasser and his fellow Nazis, of course) we grow to understand and care about.  Because we actually care about Rick, Ilsa, and Victor, the romantic moments don’t come off nearly as corny or manipulative like so many romances since.  It’s perfectly cast, filled with incredible character actors that make the most of their screen time, especially Peter Lorre in his brief appearance as a doomed patron, and a great-as-usual turn from one of my all-time favorite actors Claude Rains, who deservedly got an Oscar nod alongside Bogey as Louis, the diplomat who attempts to reason with Nazi patrons.  There is not a bad performance here at all. Even if you’re not used to the theatricality of old Hollywood acting styles, this is some of the best work within that mold.  Ingrid Bergman has to be the standout, a truly devastating screen performance from one of the most talented and stunning women to have ever set foot in front of the camera—I live for that striped dress and overcoat!  Dooley Wilson is also superb as “play it once, for old time’s sake” Sam, a sole black character humanized and developed in a way that I have rarely seen in a film from the old Hollywood system; a perfect example of a supporting character leaving an indelible mark on an entire picture. The score by Max Steiner is instantly memorable, lush and melodramatic and attention-grabbing but never overused, emblematic of old Hollywood music at its best.  It’s perfectly directed by the underrated, reliable studio hand Michael Curtiz.  He was able to pull off pirate films, horror films, musicals, westerns, noir, war films, and melodrama like few others, and he does his best work in the latter three genres, all mixed together for Casablanca.  Not many filmmakers today, with the possible exception of Scorsese, are willing or allowed to explore so many genres and narrative molds and bring out the best in all of them.  The film is shot gorgeously in black and white, utilizing noir-inspired hard lighting, vivid shadows and fog, and skillful blocking and take lengths, a controlled and careful approach missing in modern mainstream cinematography.  Seeing this on a stunning-looking print helped.  That closeup of Ingrid Bergman as Sam plays “As Time Goes By” holds for just the right amount of time, and will stick in my head for years. Watching the film in the state of the world we’re in, I forgot just what a biting critique of isolationism towards fascism it is.  Back then this was most helpful as wartime propaganda, and it has a degree of pro-America sentiment, but it serves as a warning for the Ricks of the world, who are neutral about everything, to actually take a side in a global crisis, especially when it’s about to affect the people around him.  That’s exactly why the La Marseillaise scene is one of the greatest in cinematic history—a tearful, boisterous, wide-reaching act of resistance against the loud minority that oppresses the resistors.  I can only imagine how personal the story ended up being for Curtiz, a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant who thankfully got to the States before the Nazis took power. Just as prescient now in the ICE-infested 2020s as it was in the Nazi-infested 1940s.  Proof that it’s okay to punch Nazis.