Casablanca

Casablanca

Though the movie, Casablanca, was made in 1943, so more than 75 years ago, this Micheal Curtiz masterpiece is still considered one of the most renowned movie of the century. The story in itself is pretty basic, it tells the story of an American refugee, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca during the second World War who reunites with an old flame and from there things escalate to an unforeseen turn of events.

After watching this movie one must wonder why this piece of work has stood the trial of time and can still be seen with great appreciation and admiration. The story is pretty basic, the props are nothing to boast about and even tough the acting is admirable it is still not enough for the movie to have reach the heights it has. Anyones guess is as good as any but to my opinion its success is due to the fact that is has inspired many generation in what we today call “cheesy”. Like Shakespeare is the original of his own genre Casablanca has open the door to all kind of love and heartbreaking story. In was made in a time were people needed comfort and divertissement and the movie offers the perfect escape from reality and gives us something to aspire to.

First let’s take a look at the rhythm, for even if the movie explores a difficult subject it still slow and calm. We never have a beating heart, well except maybe during the Marseilles in Ricky’s American Cafe but apart from that not even the touching reunion or the shocking death really accelerates our heartbeat. And maybe this is maybe one of this movie secrets, the tone is so flat that we begin to “dance” with the movie in the sense that nothing can seem to change our mood. The music may very between mellow and exiting but it never speeds up wether the scene is an arrest or a touching reunion. Important part of the movie such as revelation and the climax are at an equal tone as the rest of the movie.

Now we have to remember that this movie is in black in white which accentuate the dramatic monotone rhythm of Casablanca so our own perception is duped by the technology of the time but still the director uses this to his advantage just like the actors we each represents a stereotype like Rick who depicts the handsome, mysterious ,cynical tortured soul who can not seem to find his own redemption and faith in the world or Elisa (Ingrid Bergman) who depicts the damsel in distress who has an impossible choice between her commitments and her love life. Both of this actors may act in exaggerated way but only to make it clear to the viewer that more than characters these actors play a groupe of people, a generalisation of what the perfect love story is.

Even though I greatly enjoyed this movie, I was still affected by the generation gap but was still able to understand impact it had on the population at that time. I personally prefers more, shall we say movements, in movie but for one to enjoy any kind of story one must first know where its inspiration comes from and there is no question that Casablanca is the stepping stone for many movie that followed.