Casablanca (1942): 70th anniversary

This year Casablanca celebrates its 70^th anniversary.  It was made in 1942 at the peak of the Hollywood studio system, the golden era of cinema, well after the coming of sound and before the entertainment industry was revolutionised by television.  Shot in beautiful black and white this Warner Bros production has a reputation as quintessential classic cinema which has endured, if not improved since the year of its release.  With 70 years of watching, rewatching, studying, analysing and reviewing of this film before me, there’s no way I’m going to say anything new or revolutionary here.  Instead I modestly offer a brief look at what appeals most to me personally about this gem of Classical Hollywood filmmaking. 

Ask any film buff, critic, producer or anyone ‘what makes Casablanca so great’ and you will receive a multitude of varied answers with one consistent feature presenting itself most frequently of all – everybody loves the film.  This, for me, is probably the most prominent reason for Casablanca’s longevity: it’s a real crowdpleaser.

There is a great mix of romance and action - a characteristic which defines most films considered classical in the conventional sense.  The love triangle between Rick (Bogart), Isla (Bergman) and Victor (Henreid) is balanced with a complex action plot where the Gestapo chase blacklisted Nazi detractors across Europe.  The balance between the action and romance plots is the main feature of the film, although Casablanca is a mixing pot of genres.  It’s also political, historical drama, comedy and almost a musical.  There’s something there for everyone.

The level of focus in the story is intriguing.  Not only does the story hone in on a very intimate romantic drama, but tells an epic story that spans continents, cultures, languages and time.  The union of the small scale with the mighty has an overwhelming effect when you watch Casablanca.  

The story is incredibly complex.  What makes Casablanca such a treat nowadays is that it typifies a completely different style of filmmaking than what modern audiences are used to.  Instead of giving us the whole story on a plate in typically highly stylized form, as is the norm nowadays (for mainstream films!), Casablanca makes you work for it.  Most of the storytelling is done through dialogue, referring to back story and off-screen events through the exchanges between characters.  A lot of meaning is communicated very subtly too, so every time you watch the film you notice something new or you pick up new meanings and you question the way you originally put the story together in your head.  While this form of storytelling might be considered laborious or needlessly ambiguous by modern mainstream tastes, it was the accepted convention in the Classical age and its glory lives on.

The dialogue itself is great for another reason: it’s extremely quotable.   Many of the lines from this film are just spot-on and will be cited eternally: when Rick lovingly toasts to the beautiful Isla “here’s lookin’ at you kid”; when Isla asks “play it, Sam”; when a self-destructive Rick drinks and laments his long-lost love “of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine”; when Rick puts it all into perspective “it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”; when Louis makes the crucial decision at the last minute “round up the usual suspects”.

Who could forget the music?  ‘As time goes by’ is played repeatedly by the Café’s resident muso, Sam, at the request of the stricken lovers. The main melody is also incorporated into the orchestral soundtrack, augmented into a swelling uplifting arrangement during happier moments and pulled down into a minor feeling during emotional low-points in the plot.

The characters are also truly compelling.  Humphrey Bogart’s Rick is a cynical, self-deprecating businessman on the surface, but he hides sentimentality, an emotional weakness and an enduring principle to do the right thing.  Rick may well be a Hollywood analogy of the character of America during the globally turbulent period of World War II.  Ingrid Bergman’s character is, of course, absolutely gorgeous and full of intrigue, hidden secrets and emotional complexity – everything a classic femme fatale should be.  Paul Henreid’s Victor Laszlo is an international man of mystery, Claude Rains’ Captain Louis Renault is a fickle and corrupt police chief, Sydney Greenstreet’s Signor Ferrari is a fatcat blackmarket baron, Conrad Veidt’s Major Strasser is a relentless Nazi and Peter Lorre almost reprises his role in Fritz Lang’s M as a goggle-eyed murderer desperate to escape the wrath of his impending prosecutors.  All of the characters have some sort of dimension to them, some sort of story – even the waiter in the café has an implied back-story.  It’s only really the Nazis who occupy the realm of the stereotypical, and understandably so.

Generally, the complex interplay between compelling characters, complex stories, witty dialogue, provocative score and a fusion of genres makes Casablanca a popular classic which has enjoyed 70 years of fully-deserved love and fame.  But everyone has their personal favourite moments, lines, scenes and characters – that’s what truly makes Casablanca so great.

The Artist (2011): the beginning of an era.

I love the simplicity of early cinema and how it gives you a glimpse of history in glorious 4:3.  In the Lumière Brothers and Georges Méliès films circa 1895, you see people who existed more than a century ago moving about before your very eyes.  The celluloid is scratched and flickers erratically between the black and white images of ghost-like figures as they go about their daily business or present a fantastical play.  Early narrative cinema of the 1910s and 20s has a simple modesty as filmmakers experimented to create storytelling conventions in the medium of cinema – many of which are still used today.  Any cinephile has a romantic attachment to the silent era, because that’s where it all came from.  There’s no wonder why director Michel Hazanavicius chose to create homage to cinema in his 2011 monochrome silent The Artist.  As he says in January’s Sight & Sound: “The real star of the story is Hollywood.”

The film is set in 1920s Hollywood at the peak of the silent era.  It follows the decline of a star and the birth of another as the young studio system copes with the advent of sound on film.  The transition from ‘movies’ to ‘talkies’ meant silent star George Valentin is left in the dust as the young, vibrant Peppy Miller makes herself heard in the world of showbiz.

Sound is obviously one of the most important aspects of The Artist.  This isn’t strictly a silent film, but a tribute to silent films.  The soundtrack includes expressive music to simulate the musicians which would accompany a film in 1920’s theatre houses.  Hazanavicius plays with the audience in the opening scene however, by blurring the lines between diegetic and non-diegetic sound.  He further plays with the idea much later in the film with a dream-sequence in which Valentin can suddenly hear crystal clear diegetic sound, yet his voice remains mute.  These little gags are weaved into the film’s subject matter and give the whole thing a great sense of cohesion – a telling sign of a fully conceived film.

The audience, I think, is also crucial to this film’s delivery.  The film is very aware of the audience and always cuts to shots of audiences as if to emphasize this.  Hazanavicius is always very aware of what the audience knows and doesn’t know.  The director realises that modern audiences may well know a lot about silent era cinema.  The film is packed with references to classics like Citizen Kane and 7^th Heaven; filmmakers like German expressionist F.W Murnau and Hollywood classic Frank Borzage; and stars like Janet Gaynor and Douglas Fairbanks.  The Artist is also heavy with classical cinematic conventions, for instance the simple use of rain as an expression of sadness.  These conventions used as heavily today would seem ridiculous and clichéd, but within the context of the silent-era style, modern audiences are filled with a sense of fond reminiscence.

The Artist is not trying to be an authentic silent film, but instead wishes to present a novel but respectful nod to the silent era of Classical Hollywood. It is full of references and reads like Hazanavicius' love letter to an era of filmmaking which he - and we - are indebted to. In a time when films like Avatar are attempting to revolutionise cinema by making IMAX 3D the next coming of sound, I'm surprised The Artist was even made. But I'm glad it was. To me it serves as a much-needed look back at the essential beginnings of the art form. Already receiving considerable popular success, The Artist could herald the beginning of an era when mainstream filmmakers and audiences alike become more aware and influenced by the origins of cinema. Apart from all that, The Artist also stands alone as an altogether sad, funny, compelling and entertaining film.