Casablanca

This movie is widely regarded as the greatest movie ever made and stars Humphrey Bogart who is worthy of being called the greatest actor who ever lived. Casablanca is the pinnacle of what filmmaking can achieve and stands as a testament to the power of phenomenal acting and the power of a compelling story. A timeless classic, this movie stands above all others and should be watched again and again.

Characters

The brilliance of Casablanca begins and ends with Humphrey Bogart. Rick Blaine is the performance of a lifetime given by the world’s most skilled actor. Here we see Bogart’s incredible range on full display; he is the cutthroat and cynical saloon owner, the romantic in flashback, the jilted lover, and the heartbroken man who is torn between choosing the woman he loves and doing what he knows to be right. Bogart is entirely believable in this role, so much so that it’s hard to imagine Bogey isn’t the cynic with the heart of a sentimentalist that he portrays. Anyone who hasn’t seen Bogart as Charlie in The African Queen, Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, or Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny cannot appreciate how diverse an actor Bogey was and while he was great in every role he played, Rick Blaine stands above the rest. When watching Casablanca and seeing the story of Rick’s past romance with Ilsa unfold we feel his pain, we share his anger and his confusion as if it was our own, whether we are watching for the first time or the hundredth time. Rick is every man who has ever been in love, who has turned cynical after having his heart broken, and who will do anything—even sacrifice his own happiness—to ensure her happiness. To be able to connect with such a complex character is possible because of Bogart’s genuine delivery. He succeeds where so many rom com actors fail in forcing us to feel his pain and to root for him to get the girl in the end, even after we’ve seen the movie before. Bogart’s onscreen love for Bergman is all the more impressive when one considers that Bogey and Berman hardly talked off screen, but their acting performance was enough for Bogart’s wife to accuse him of having an affair with Bergman. Bogart’s role as Rick will stand the test of time as one of the most legendary performances in film history.

Along with Bogey, the support he receives from every other actor in this film is astounding. Ingrid Bergman is flawless as Ilsa Lund. Her cold demeanor towards Bogey throughout most of the film combined with the frustrated love of his character creates the perfect chemistry. Bergman holds her cards tight to her chest and keeps us guessing as to whether she will choose to rejoin Rick or escape with her husband Victor Laszlo and even more importantly, which man she loves more. In many modern romantic comedies, tv shows, or dramas that involve love triangles there is usually an element of cheesiness towards the whole situation that is thankfully absent here. Both Bergman and especially Laszlo are compelling characters with a purpose greater than acting as a love interest and foil to the main character’s love for a woman. Additionally the audience does not feel the resentment towards Bergman that is common towards women in love triangles as quite often the woman is portrayed as either willfully manipulating the two men for her own pleasure or as painfully indecisive about who she loves more. This is not the case with Bergman’s character for whom we feel genuine sympathy for her genuine dilemma between choosing her husband she thought dead, or the man whose love kept her going afterward.

My personal favorite character in this film is Captain Renault played by Claude Rains. Rains portrayal of the French captain whose loyalty “blows with the prevailing wind” is brilliant in its own right and in no way overshadowed by Bogey and Bergman. Part of what makes Rain’s performance so impressive is that he is able to add a level of comic relief to the film while still maintaining the seriousness of a captain of the police when the occasion calls for it. He is both the man who can shut down Rick’s Café for gambling while collecting his winnings. This balancing act is noteworthy because so often characters in comic relief roles today are reduced to either a bumbling incompetent fool who we can laugh at or when they try to contribute lines outside a strictly comedic purpose they cannot be taken seriously. Consider John Rhys-Davies performance as Gimli in the Lord of the Rings. While Davies succeeds in his role as comic relief, he is unable to provide any serious contribution outside of it and therefore becomes limited by it. Such is not the case with Rains whose ability to amuse us with his one-liners and charming smile for most of the film does not restrict his ability to deliver real suspense when he is faced with decision of whether to have Rick arrested or let him go.

While Rick, Ilsa, and Rains are the primary focus of Casablanca, what puts this movie over the top is the depth of talent it receives from its secondary actors. There are strong performances all around from Sydney Greenstreet as the profit oriented businessman Senior Ferrari, Peter Lorre as the sleazy criminal Ugarte, and Sam as the warm-hearted and amenable pianist. These characters may not contribute on a large scale but their performances maintain the film’s high quality of acting.

Directing

Casablanca is a rare case where the Michael Curtiz, the director of Casablanca, deserves credit for recognizing that remarkable acting and an exceptional story should be the focus of this film rather than intricate camera work or special effects. Essentially Curtiz deserves praise for having a mostly hands off approach as a director and not trying to insert a particular style unnecessarily into this film. In Casablanca we see nothing out of the ordinary for a typical movie from 1942: some flashbacks, a gunshot, and mostly scenes of dialogue. While on its surface this may appear boring to a modern audience, this is all part of Curtiz intentional effort to direct the audience’s attention away from special effects or props, both of which were limited during the war effort, and towards the masterful dialogue and acting.  A more modern audience should understand that not only did Curtiz play to the strengths of the film but all of Hollywood was limited in its special effects and Casablanca is the model of all that can be achieved without great effects.

Dialogue:

Along with acting, what separates this film from all others are its lines. Not just the half dozen that appear in the American Film Institute’s most famous movie quotes, twice as many as any other film, but lines like “You’ll get along beautifully in America,” “There are vultures, vultures everywhere,” or “I stick my neck out for nobody…A wise foreign policy” are what make this movie not only powerful but enjoyable to watch. It all starts with great acting but to be the best movie of all time you have to have a great script and Casablanca has the best.

Music:

“As time goes by”, “Knock on wood”, and “The Marseilles” deliver a lot for just a few songs. The Marseilles scene is arguably the most emotional musical performance is cinema history, made especially powerful by the fact that many of the French citizens in the café were real-life emigrants during the war and shed real tears as they sang in the movie. While “As Time Goes By” may be the song most famously remembered for Sam to play again, it is “The Marseilles” that marks the turning point in the film. Showing the French citizens overpowering the Germans serves as a powerful symbol of the French resistance to the Nazis and was also written for an American audience that had just entered the war following Pearl Harbor only months earlier. The audience feels the genuine struggle of war-torn Europe instead of the artificial feel of propaganda that made some other films feel like a war time commercial and a cheesy ploy for enlistment. This scene is also of significant importance to the story because of what happens right before it. While it is Laszlo who tells the band to play the Marseilles, the band does not do so until Rick nods for them to go ahead. In this moment Rick does much more than tell the band to play, he breaks the last and most important of his precedents that he had maintained before Ilsa arrived: his neutrality. By nodding for the band to play, Rick knows that he is symbolically siding with the French and that the Germans will now view him as a threat to their mission to arrest Laszlo. It is in this moment that Rick makes the decision to help Laszlo and to give up Ilsa and his café. Scenes like this display the powerful acting at work in Casablanca and the beauty in the power that one look and a simple nod can have.

Conclusion:

Grade: WRAP: 100%

Simply the greatest movie of all time. Citizen Kane and The Shawshank Redemption cannot hold a candle to this movie and with the current trend towards emphasizing CGI over acting, it is possible no film ever will.