Musical Analysis Of Casablanca

Popular music’s affect on a film’s narrative is demonstrated in the film Casablanca released in 1942. The film uses a song called “As Time Goes By” to create a transportation affect for the characters and audience. The song was written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931 and gained modest popularity through its inclusion in the Broadway musical Everybody’s Welcome. In Casablanca, there is a scene inside a restaurant where a woman, Ilsa, runs into an old friend of hers named Sam who is a pianist at the restaurant. She asks him about a mutual friend of theirs, Rick, and then asks Sam to play the song “As Time Goes By.” By the expression on Ilsa’s face and the tears in her eyes it is clear that the song makes her see something, however, the audience does not know what she is seeing. In his chapter on “Transport and Transportation in Audiovisual Memory,” Berthold Hoeckner describes how the audience knows “the song is a carrier, but we don’t know the cargo.” But as the audience listens to the lyrics of the song, they begin to understand the scene as they realize that the lyrics are about an old romance. While Sam is singing Rick enters the room and both Rick and Ilsa meet eyes and both freeze. At this point the audience assumes that the song was about Rick and Isla’s history.

This suspicion is confirmed later on that night when Rick listens to “As Time Goes By.” As the music plays Rick stares off into the distance and the film displays a montage of Rick’s memories of him and Isla together in Paris dancing, eating, and snuggled together in a car.
The film uses the song to create audiovisual memory for Rick and Isla. In the extended flashback that Rick had when “As Time Goes By” was played, the audience was able to see the memories that the music made Rick see. It is implied that these memories are the same memories that the music made Ilsa see in the previous scene. Hoeckner describes how the song creates an audiovisual memory by explaining that “the music attaches itself not just to a feeling or an event, but to an entire period of time.” The song, therefore, is crucial to the success of the flashback. It creates a link between the emotions and memories of Isla and Rick, and provides a memorable way for the film to show the audience Rick’s flashback. Hoeckner classifies Isla and Rick’s reaction as either a transport or transportation. He describes Isla’s experience with the song as a transport, where the expression on her face told the audience that the music transported her to another place. On the hand, Hoeckner explains Rick’s experience with the song as transportation. The song transported Rick into his memories of his past with Ilsa and the audience was transported with Rick by being able to view his flashback. The use of this popular song in the film was not only beneficial for the film in advancing the plot, but it was also beneficial for the song and its commercial success. After “As Time Goes By” was featured in Casablanca its popularity skyrocketed. The music industry profited from its inclusion in the film and it was ranked number 2 on AFI’s 100 Greatest American Movie Music.