Film & Theatre Studies (Essay Sample)

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Casablanca
This paper is going to analyze the movie Casablanca and it focuses on the historical area of the movie. The movie was released during the WWII and the paper discusses how the movie treats this period and also how the movie reflects its own historic moment during this time.
The most memorable scene in the movie Casablanca is also its epitome. At nearly deserted airport two lovers achieving their destinies divided for the second and yet the last time, she boards the plane as sent by him and he walks into the gray mist with a new comrade to fight for the cause that had led her to leave him earlier. But the enduring qualities of the film go beyond the poignancy of this scene, the contemporary reasons for its success, and its continuing popularity as melodrama, romance, camp entertainment, or nostalgia. They begin with its writing. Widely considered as one of the outstanding achievements of the Hollywood studio system, Casablanca has more often been called great craft than art but-almost falling victim to that system-the script (available to the public since 1973) is a minor miracle of writing. The writers and the film are undeniably affected and influenced by their time, but as in this scene, they create an atmosphere unique to the film that reaches beyond the film and the time to touch people of other generations.
The script was originally assigned to the twin brothers Philip and Julius Epstein and later reassigned to Koch. These writers universalize the film by developing characters that figuratively present the American position prior to World War II by intertwining the political and their personal lives. By structuring the story to stress on the paradoxical nature of the American character, which expresses itself politically and individually and by extension nationally and internationally, these paradoxes appear as attraction to repulsion from worthy goals. The paradoxes also appear to be an alternation between independence (expressed politically as isolationism and personally as loneliness) and differing types of alliances and entanglements such as love and its loss.
The Movie’s Relationship with the WWII. The coincidence of the movie’s opening after the landings of the Allies in North Africa (Nov.1942) and its official release when President Roosevelt's was holding a conference with Churchill and Stalin in Casablanca (Jan, 1943), increased this popularity and also emphasized its significance politically. The political and personal relevance called for attention to the figurative relevance of the movie. Rick (Roosevelt), proprietor of the Cafe America in (the U.S in Casablanca("White House") in December 1941, bruised from past experiences (WWI) though obviously leaning toward those to whom he was formerly close to. Ilsa (Europe) tries to remain detached from the conflicts about him but finally joins again in a fight against a common enemy. Other allegorical figures include Louis Renault as France, Victor Laszlo for the Allies, Major Stressar representing Nazi Germany, Captain Tonelli as an ignored Italian ally of Germany, Ilsa for American ties to Europe, Corinna, Berger, and Carl to represent the Resistance. Yvonne standing for conquered people forced to compromise but whose spirit remains unbroken. The compromise symbolized by her sexual collaborations with the Germans. In the typical mixing of the political and the personal, Rick says. "So Yvonne’s gone over to the enemy," and Renault responds. "In her own way she may constitute an entire second front" (Smothers 129) and the undying spirit symbolized by her jumping to her feet to join tearfully but rousingly the singing of the "Marseillaise". Jan and Annona Brandel, Sacha and Mr. and Mrs. Leuchtag as displaced people Ugarte, Ferrari and the Dark European for the war profiteers who prey upon them and others of diverse nationalities in Casablanca. This problem of confronting a world community has already entered the house (cafe) of the so-called uninvolved. The message is clear; An individual cannot avoid commitment in this political case involvement.
Historical Depiction of an American. The image that endures for the movie watcher beyond the last scene is that of this brooding Rick Blaine (Wood 26) an image of loneliness, a romantic theme which goes beyond wartime propaganda and morale-boosting to comment allegorically about the American attitude toward alliances and commitment. Richard Blaine represents not only the United States but the American character as well. The writers use several devices to present the ambiguous nature of this archetype that Americans have created of themselves and that the movie has perpetuated.
The American is a loner. Individualism and independence are rooted in the American’s history and as the word implies in loneliness which is not only attractive and characteristically American but-like the American character-paradoxical "We (Americans) long to be lonely even as we go in search of others and Casablanca;" Wood says, "plays out this puzzle perfectly" (Wood 25). To be independent is to be lonely, to isolate oneself, but the removal and the remover, despite tendencies to feelings of alienation, egotism, self-pity, self-importance. or selfishness. are tremendously attractive to others but especially to Americans who sense separation, and therefore freedom from others as part of their destiny.
This desire for separation is partly the notion of not becoming involved in the affairs of others (twice Rick says. "I stick my neck out for nobody" (42, 51), which Renault calls "A wise foreign policy," partly the American distaste for politics. Rick says to a Gunman soldier, "Either layoff politics or get out" (109), to Major Strasser, and later to Laszlo, "I'm not interested in politics. The problems of the world are not in my department. I’m a saloon keeper" (56, 122) partly selfless up to not fighting for anything anymore, except myself. I'm the only cause I’m interested in" (133) partly American cynicism and skepticism (to Ugarte) "They got a lucky break. Yesterday they were just two German clerks: today they’re the Honored Dead" (31),
Just as these personal and national traits have political equivalents, so they also have personal and political opposites which recurrently pull both the man and the country. For instance loneliness opposes sociability and alliance, individualism opposes society and world community while selfishness opposes altruism and foreign aid. Uninvolvement on the other hand opposes commitment and common cause. These oppositions reflect in me contradictory nature of Rick's character, which is at times tough and tender, cynical and sentimental, skeptical and idealistic, selfish and generous.
The Reflection of the Movie of Its own Historic Moment. The significance is under- scored by the appearance of the words "time" and "timing "more than forty times in the 142 pages of the script in addition to numerous references to the passage of time. Named are a specific month and year in the present, December 1941 (77), suggesting a date known to the audience, if not to Rick, when America and he will renounce isolation. Rick’s personal reasons merging with American political reasons but each a symbol for the other. This date creates a sense of destiny and inevitability in the audience which underscores for them that sense in the characters. Events balance one another and repeat themselves with variations time creates its own urgency and a sense of no urgency, moving rapidly or not at all.
When we first meet Rick, he is alone, and the script describes him as of "indeterminate age" (29). Time has stopped for Rick. In the second speech by his friend Sam, who knows Rick’s emotions, are the words, "I ain’t got time"(36). Answering Rick's question, "Sam, if it’s December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York?" Sam says, "Uh, my watch stopped," and confirming that time has stopped for other Americans, Rick continues, "I bet they're asleep all over America" (77). Earlier Rick snarls "no" to Sam’s "Ain’t you planning on going to bed in the near future?" (75). When Ilsa comes to explain, though not asleep like the rest of America, Rick is in a drunken stupor, another metaphor for a state in which time stands still or is meaningless. Soon ("in the near future"), Rick will leave his self-imposed stupor to rejoin his old bedfellows to give his time meaning once again. The sexual connotations of bed and sleep are symbolically and...