Casablanca

Casablanca 

The movie Casablanca is a tale of love, war, and the pursuit of happiness. The story unfolds at the Cafe Americana, a hazy, jazz-filled restaurant and bar in Casablanca, where the owner and main character, Rick Blaine is introduced. The audience soon learns that the setting is during World War II and Casablanca is a French-controlled city that is being threatened by the Nazis and the last stop for fleeing Europeans before Lisbon, Portugal and finally America. 

In the book, The Art of Watching Films (page 3), Petrie and Boggs state that, "film communicates visually and verbally; visually, through action and gesture; verbally, through dialogue."From the start of this movie the mood was set in a packed bar with plenty of people all in search of one thing, money. As a viewer looks deeper into the dialogue, he or she may realize that the money isn't the motivation, but the fuel to escape Nazi-controlled Europe.

Most actors in this film were exceptional, Humphrey Boggart who plays Rick Blaine does an excellent job playing a love-sick, mysterious, and well-respected man. However, I feel that if Boggart's character would have been played more assertively the film would have seemed less slow-rolling. In reality though, I see where Director Michael Curtiz was going with this film. I believe he made the protagonist have a well-connected, but not assertive role to allow the audience to make preconception about him and to keep viewers attention to focus on what Rick Blaine's secrets really are. Ingrid Bergman's character, Llsa Lund Laszlo, also plays a character of few words. Bergman plays Rick Blaine's past lover; and matches Boggart's acting characteristics well with her use of mysteria that kept me guessing throughout the movie. 

I believe the plot of this movie was great. The quick-dialouge and accents of the characters make the audience feel as if they are in Morocco during World War II. These plot traits also keep the viewer listening for plot development in an active way, other than if the information was released by a narrator. I also enjoy Michael Curtiz's use of flashback in explaining Rick and Llsa's complex love story and their setting before they both separated and were reacquainted in Casablanca.

There are numerous ways this film can be interpreted by a society. I think the movie Casablanca could be a symbol for what inspires a majority of the world's people. Casablanca is a city where people are trying to save to move on to better things, in their case, a new life in America. Similarly, most Americans are in the same boat, at a place that's not quite a safe-haven, but if they continue to work hard, someday they may fulfill their dream. I believe that the pursuit of happiness is something that everyone can relate to.

The Art of Watching Films (page 28) states that: "certain films may possess... other, less important, areas of emphasis called motifs." I believe one important motif in Casablanca is the self-medication of oppressed people. No matter whether the person is rich nor poor, all people suffer in war and with hardship comes coping methods. Throughout Curtiz's movie he shows how prevalent alcohol and smoking are, not just in the working class's lives, but in the wealthy class as well. 

This film is also an important historical video that documents how far the Nazi Third-Reich had pushed and the consequences for those who opposed their dynasty. By doing this, Michael Curtiz's PG-rated movie not only captured the attention of the children of the war who had been learning about the events in school, but the attention of their parents in following Viktor, Llsa and Rick's hidden love triangle and the pursuit of happiness that the many of people of Casablanca are on in order to make it out of Europe alive. 

Boggs, Joseph, & Petrie, Dennis. (2012). The Art of watching films. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill College.