Casablanca: A political approach. Michael Curtiz's Casablanca is highly acclaimed and is regarded as one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. Although it does have the genre of a romantic drama, with the setting displayed as the ongoing war of World War 2, there is a great degree of probability that we can apply a political film analysis to the film. In this paper, we will be examining the political notions implied in the film and how Casablanca has overall themes of devotion, sacrifice, and the fight against injustice. Casablanca was released in 1942, during the peak of World War II, which provided at the time to the general audience watching the film a perspective of elusion and a sense of hope during a time in which it was an extremely stressful and …show more content…
Upon looking more into this, it was learned that Casablanca was a film that played the role of the U.S. government, using this to convince Americans that the United States did have a necessary role in the war. According to an academic journal by Jack Nachbar, he states, “An American society that had opposed any participation in a foreign war for a generation at the end of 1941 was suddenly forced to face the reality that the United States was fully engaged in defeating foreign enemies in both Europe and the Pacific. It therefore quickly became in the best interests of the government, of wartime industries, and of mass media, ever anxious to exploit public obsessions to try to justify intervention” (Nachbar, 3). Casablanca was one of many films centered around WW2 that was considered propaganda to justify the means of having the U.S. involved by involving the
The film Casablanca centers on an American man by the name of Rick Blaine who flees a German-occupied France during World War II to a city in Morocco by the name of Casablanca. (Casablanca, 1942) This city is a territory of France at the time and is out of full German jurisdiction due to this status. (Casablanca, 1942) Many citizens of German-occupied countries in Europe sought refuge here due to the lack of control Germany had on other countries’ territories early in the war. The general intent of refugees in Casablanca was to flee to even further countries such as The United States of America, which they could not achieve in their home, occupied countries. As the film’s plot develops, the viewer is introduced to refugees very important to the freedom-fighting movement France, and we learn that Rick originated in New York, U.S.A.
This is an extremely basic concept that is impossible to miss. Implicit meaning in a film is an idea that isn’t directly expressed but still should be understood by the viewers that are watching. Implicit meaning in Casablanca: In Michael Crutiz’s Casablanca (1943) we see that the characters are trying to outrun their pasts.
Audience members, when seeing Casablanca, would associate it as a war film, and I agree with that, but to be more precise, it is a pro-Allie war film. The literary elements in the film are the reasons why it can be viewed this way, with the emphasis on the plot and characters. The timing of when the film was released also supports the idea of it being an anti Axis film. Although it was set in 1940, it was made a year after Pearl Harbor and America entering the war, but it was released right before the Allies had a meeting in Casablanca, so the filmmakers seemed to have wanted the audience to empathize with the Allies. The whole plot seems to be focused around how Rick is neutral at the beginning of the film, but because of an old flame coming into his life once again, he slowly becomes in favor of the Allie side.
The way that a movie is pieced together by the director/producers has a huge impact on the viewer’s experience. Stylistic elements are used to help engage the viewer; however, without these techniques the viewer will most likely loose interest. In this essay I will be taking a look at a scene within the movie Casablanca directed by Michael Curtiz in 1942. Casablanca is a classic film that is reviewed to be one of the greatest movies of all time. This could be due to the notable quotes used throughout the movie, or its ability to follow a historic, comical, and romantic storyline throughout the course of the film. It caters to several different viewers, making this movie favorable to many. This scene in Casablanca uses specific editing techniques
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
Throughout history, the film industry has seen many directing styles and techniques. The early part of the 20th century saw a factory style of film production, but as the years went by, director's began to employ new and untried techniques in their pictures. One such technique which these director's implemented was a new approach to the use of the camera and camera angles. "Casablanca," an Academy Award winning film of 1942 saw director Michael Curtiz manipulate the camera in ways others had not. He uses the close-up, point-of- view, and creative shot motivation methods in his film starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, to create an American cinema classic.
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...
The ethical concepts of 1940’s era ‘good and evil’ are well portrayed in Casablanca. Evil is not only portrayed by the actors who played the Nazi soldiers but it can also be felt in the mind of the viewer. One must consider the wartime mindset of the American people when the movie was made and the implications that filled the set. During the 1940’s, the United States was still a fairly Christian nation with moral character that was based solely on religious beliefs. Graphic and seductive scenes that would be included in the making of Casablanca were omitted so as not to offend the viewers or their moral standards. In order to abide to the Divine Command Theory, scenes that involved the actual act of killin...
...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.
Casablanca debuted in 1942, shortly following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States' entrance into World War Two, although there was plenty of anti-Nazism sentiment, the movie fueled these feelings. There is pro-Allied forces propaganda to support the war, from the scene with La Marseillaise, to the characters of Renault and Rick, and to the last scene. Although the majority of the French patriots were elated to sing their national anthem, it created tension with the German soldiers who imposed their patriotic songs on the crowd, representing the imposition of Germany on France during the war. Captain Louis Renault, who tries to placate who he believes will be the winning side, seems flimsy when compared to Rick, the firm patriot who believes in freedom at all costs. The phrase, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" represents the new strong bond between France and the United States once Nazi-Germany has fallen. Although the film is propaganda against the Nazis, the political language in the movie does not glorify American courage and valor, nor is it militaristic. The movie presents the facts while emphasizing the poor qualities of the Nazis.
The Epstein brothers created Casablanca, a romantic adventure, like no other of its time. There are few movies that are loved by men and women alike. Casablanca is one such movie. It successfully combines action, adventure, love and romance into a film loved by all.
Despite not being considered as the traditional ‘hero’s journey’ which is outlined in Joseph Campbell’s argument of ‘separation-initiation-return’, Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick Blaine, in the 1942 film Casablanca, can be argued to follow this twelve-step journey. Campbell states “whether the hero be ridiculous or sublime…” (p.38), on this basis, Rick Blaine qualifies as a hero. These twelve steps are: Ordinary World; Call to Adventure/Disruption; Refusal of the Call; Meeting with the Mentor; Crossing the First Threshold; Tests, Allies, and Enemies; Approach to the Inmost Cave; Ordeal; Reward; The Road Back; The Resurrection; and Return with the Elixir. Although in some parts stages may overlap, this essay aims to argue that Casablanca still
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
The word or concept “pot luck” can often be used as a literary device and is rarely used in esteemed, memorable literature. The term pot luck dates all the way back to times when Shakespeare was actively writing. The first documented use of the word was by the author, Thomas Nashe. His use of the word makes its first appearance in the play Summers Last Will and Testament, “Because you are my countrymen and so forth; and a good fellow, is a good fellow, though he have never a penny in his purse. We had but even pot-luck, a little to moisten our lips, and no more.” (Nashe 1508).This use of the term is very different from today’s understanding and connotations.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...