On September 13, I attended the Resisting Fascism screening of Casablanca put on by Emory Cinematheque. I had never seen Casablanca before so I was excited to finally watch the film. The film was also project on 35 mm film, which I found really fascinating to be able to view it in this form. Dr. Paul J. Buchholz, an associate professor in the German Studies department, introduced the film. One of the main points he made in his introduction, was that the film was about refugees and made mostly by immigrants. There were 75 cast members who worked on the film and almost all of them were born outside of the United States; the director, Michael Curtiz, was born in Hungary. Most of the European actors in the film had left Europe in order to flee …show more content…
One of the main locations in the film is Rick’s Café Americain, owned by the main character Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart). From the outside of the building, it looks like a bright and happy location due to the neon sign that stands out against the dark background. However, inside we see Rick searching for money in a safe, while lit purely in shadows. In this frame, we see Rick’s shadow projected against the wall with Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) in a pure white uniform standing, watching him. The use of lighting in this scene is troubling to the viewer since it takes place in the beginning of the film, the audience has not had time to get to know the characters and use the lighting to attempt to figure out who is trustworthy and who is not. Rick seems like an untrustworthy character hiding in the shadows while the figure of authority, Captain Renault, looms near and warns him not to help Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid). When we first studied film noirs in class, what struck me was how the lighting in film noirs reminded me of the lighting in Casablanca. Many shots throughout the film include low-key key lighting and partially lit or obstructed faces. There is even a shot where Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) is looking through a window with Venetian blinds. I looked into who the cinematographer of Casablanca was and discovered that it was Arthur Edeson and he was the cinematographer on The
Casablanca was directed in an era almost entirely dedicated to propaganda, as far as the film industry is concerned. The movie promoted America and the Allies similar to most films of the time, but it did so in a much different manner. The story told in Casablanca follows the main character, Rick, through his personal affairs and love tango with another lead character, Ilsa Lund. The film begins with Rick alone running his saloon based in Casablanca, in which he seems very indifferent to other people’s affairs, and comes off as very exclusive. He is delivered letters of transit by a man named Ugarte, which are nearly priceless to any refugee desiring to flee to the United States or another unoccupied country. Rick continues to act disinterested, reluctantly agreeing to hide the documents. He holds onto them even after Ugarte is killed for having stolen the letters, although there did not seem to be an...
Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford, 2004.
stunning visual style to consider the forces that threaten human agency. In the case of the charac- ter Raymond Shaw, he becomes brainwashed and easily controlled by his enemies and his own mother, who forces him into an being an unwitting murderer. Set during the Cold War, the film includes realistic representations of government paranoia, embedded into a fictional communist plot of memory implantation and brainwashing soldiers. Made clear to the audience in one of the most disturbing and entertaining scenes of the film, the American soldiers are unknowingly psy- chologically reprogramed into subservient robots with no control over their actions. If human agency
The motion picture Belly explores the ghetto and the characters that live in this dark and obscure world of violence and criminal behavior. Tommy or "Bunz", and Sincere, who both live in New York, have differing views of criminal life. Bunz lives a mixed up, drug-run lifestyle, while Sincere aspires to be a law-abiding family man. To help the audience get the full effect of evilness portrayed by the character, the scenes are very dark and gloomy. There are, however, lighter scenes in which the good heart of one man is represented. The lighting in Belly helps with the characterization within the movie. One character is shown as a dark figure, and one as an almost holy figure, plus disillusionment is brought out nicely through lighting effects.
In the essay “Beautiful Friendship: Masculinity & Nationalism in Casablanca”, Peter Kunze lavishly explains the magnificence of Michael Curtiz’s 1942 film Casablanca. Kunze focuses on how the movie not only highlights an exchange of relationships, but how the film has an underlying meaning between these relationships. He also implies that there is a more complex meaning behind every character in regards to their gender, economic, and social roles. The overall thesis of his reading is “the patriarchal ideology underlying the narrative commodifies Ilsa, leading Rick to exchange her with other men in an act of friendship and solidarity as well as to dissuade any perception of queerness between the strong male friendships in the narrative” (Kunze
The first camera technique Curtiz uses to help narrate the film is the close-up shot. The close-up can effectively convey the story to the viewer without the use of excessive dialogue. In this instance, the viewer is introduced to the main character, Rick, through the use of the close-up. The first scene in "Rick's Cafe," shows people gambling and making illegal deals to leave Casablanca. An employee of the cafe brings a check to a man seated at a chess table to sign. The signature reads, "OK. Rick." By using this shot, the director makes clear to the reader, without any dialogue, that the man signing the check is Rick. This technique, however, is just the first of many used by Curtiz.
Robert B. Ray categorizes Casablanca as "the most typical" American film. Ray uses Casablanca as a tutor text for what he calls the formal paradigm of Classical Hollywood as well as the thematic paradigm that addresses the conflict between isolationism and communitarian participation. The film is typical in its appropriation of an official hero Laszlo, who stands for the civilizing values of home and community, and an outlaw hero Rick, who stands for individu...
In 1939, Charlie Chaplin was a world famous movie star who released a movie that would be very controversial, The Great Dictator. The movie was meant to ridicule Hitler, as at that time he was at the height of his power. At the end of the movie, Chaplin delivers a speech as a Jewish barber mistaken for Chaplin’s Hitler- like dictator. Chaplin uses speech rhetoric to convey Chaplin's message of hope and light. The film did very well in the theaters and was Chaplin's most successful movie. The speech in the film, The Great Dictator, used it's influential place in society with cinema to convey a message of peace, hope, and independence.
Just as German language literature addressed the topic of German-Jewish relationship, German cinema was not far behind. In Films such as Joseph Vilsmaier’s Comedian Harmonists (1997), Max Färberböck’s Aimée und Jaguar (1999), and Margarethe von Trotta’s Rosenstrasse (2003), we witness German-Jewish relationship, how gender plays a role in mix, and who is portrayed as victim.
Constantine, directed by Francis Lawrence, shows the story of an advanced exorcist who wishes to stop the Devil crossing over from Hell into the real, living world. He wants to accomplish this before his lung cancer takes over and kills him. The obsessive smoker finally finds a way to be forgiven for all his sins and makes his way over to Heaven by helping an LA detective investigate her sister's suicide. Throughout the movie, Lawrence shows the readers some techniques which gives us a strong impression of the main character, John Constantine. There are two clear techniques that Lawrence uses that gives the reader a strong impression of what John is like. One of these is the expert use of costume. The colour that Lawrence uses throughout the film also shows how Constantine acts and the way he thinks. The second visual technique used were the camera angles that are shown throughout the whole film. Lawrence shows viewers which characters have the power and how each character is related.
...t it is clearly obvious what is about to happen using an establishing shot. Casablanca also uses camera angle specifically portraying Captain Renault and Strasser as less powerful people in the office scene. Editing allows for smooth transitions between shots and allows for us as viewers to experience the scene like we are seeing through the characters eyes. Lighting provides us a mood of the scene, specifically when Rick first sees Ilsa for the first time since Paris. The Music plays a role in how we as audiences should feel while watching the movie. And without production design movies would not flow correctly. Every setting is specifically chosen to depict the location where the scene takes place. Casablanca is a quintessential film because it ties up all the formal elements of classical Hollywood. Without this movie Hollywood may be a completely different place.
Classic film noir originated after World War II. This is the time where post World War II pessimism, anxiety, and suspicion was taking the world by storm. Many films that were released in the U.S. Between 1939s and 1940s were considered propaganda films that were designed for entertainment during the Depression and World War II. During the 1930s many German and Europeans immigrated to the U.S. and helped the American film industry with powerf...
Beside that, Cinematography is also one of the element that play important roles in film noir. This can be seen when Dixon (2005) explained that in film noir shot in black and white, interior setting is always suffused with shadows and exterior settings are usually at night, with wet streets and rain. It is true because most of the film noir are shot in night with wet streets and rain, night scenes are able to create the ‘ darkness ’ mood and feeling while wet streets and rain can create the fear. Furthermore, according to Dixon (2005), he mention that the imbalanced camera set-up in film noir and the camera sweeps in on the protagonists in their most intimate moments. It is true also if the imbalanced camera set up in film noir such as dutch angle and low angle shot, it shows that something are going to happen, but it depends on the director and cinematographer on what visual they want to show to the audiences.
In 1982, the journalist Chuck Ross, in an experiment for Film Comment, mailed the script of Casablanca to 217 agencies under a different title and under a different authorship name. Although many rejected it for external reasons, eighty-one agencies read it and of those, fifty-three did not recognize it as the classic. But here’s the cherry on top: forty-one agencies criticized the iconic, Oscar-winning script with harsh words. One wrote, “Story line is thin. Too much
What do you think about when watching a film? Do you focus on the characters' good looks or the dialogue? Or do you go behind the scenes and think about what made the film? Maybe, it's even a combination of all three. No matter what comes to mind first, an important part of any good movie will be what you see. A camera and good director or cinematographer is needed to make that possible. Different directors and cinematographers will use different camera techniques to make you focus on what you see. Camera techniques show emphasis in films, because they make you focus more on situations and people. They are especially important in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.