Story of Film #3: Casablanca (1942) - The Stories Inside of the Great Hollywood Story

SPOILERS

What makes a perfect movie?

If there is any question in cinema that is more loaded, more debated, more contested and probably more tiring than any other, it is this one (so bear this in mind as we travel this path of conjecture). I myself consider a film impossible to be perfect when taking all the variables of movie-making into account, and many films that I would consider my own “favourites” or the “best” would not also include the word “perfect” in my description. 

But rather than answer this question with any kind of authority, I looked at those movies that are considered “perfect” to see the commonalities that they shared. These were among the most common: The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Rear Window, Lawrence of Arabia, A Clockwork Orange, Jaws and No Country for Old Men. With this list, what seems to be the commonality is that they explore a primary tone, primary ideas, with all aspects of film-making and story honed to those elements, and it is all held together with a strong central narrative wherein no part could be removed without the movie feeling incomplete. 

Nearly always on these lists of perfect films is Casablanca. This was my first time watching Casablanca (again, no authority here), and it was amazing to watch all the clichés I had seen in other Hollywood movies play out for the first time, and see the film that others imitate. The movie and screenplay others wish they were; The Hollywood Romance of Hollywood Romances. But the latter assumption is what made my first time watching Casablanca so interesting, in that its Romance is, compared to others on the "perfect" list, tied to themes that go beyond its central story. Rear Window is a thriller that explores the thrill of looking. A Clockwork Orange and No Country are violent movies that explore mankind's relationship with violence. Casablanca's reputation as the great Hollywood Romance almost precedes it, for the movie uses that to explore liberty, freedom and our relationship to other in times of war. Casablanca's plot moves in many different ways than its story.

Casablanca as the continent,
and the continent as Casablanca.

In Roger Ebert’s commentary for the film, he comments on how he believes there are no memorable shots in and of themselves due to the immediacy of their filming, but that they all serve to tell the story.¹ With that in mind, the first shot in an of itself lets you know thematically what Casablanca is about. Over the title card we are shown a map of Africa. Not Casablanca itself, nor a zoom in of the map to accentuate Casablanca, but the whole of Africa with the titular town in the top left corner. The next shot that will precede this is a globe, followed by maps with people superimposed on to those maps as the narration details their travels. Of course anyone who has watched Raiders of the Lost Ark will let you know this was a common 40's trope to show the travelling of locations. But regardless, the fact that there is so much information about people's movement, and people of different locations within a single place, it lets the audience know that their is a focus on a great number of people beyond our two leads. There is an accentuation of cultures within cultures. Stories within stories. ²

No memorable shots, Mr. Ebert? Isn't the fourth not one
of the best shots you have seen in any film ever?

And that idea of people being trapped with each other, their stories colliding, is accentuated by a common film technique: frames within frames.³ Whether it is French officers, Bulgarian immigrants or a not-enough-screen-time Peter Lorre, there are the aperture frames of arcs, maps and the shadows of doorways that subconsciously "separate" two people in a single frame as they talk. These aperture frame enhance not just every characters feeling in the film of being trapped, but how that feeling of being trapped is juxtaposed with being in such a big community of people. In three of these examples above, where we see Humphrey Bogart's face, you see how the frames add to the surprising depth of his performance; his cynical veneer is always contrasted with both his desire to be alone due to past experiences, and yet his desire to also help people.⁴   

And this desire to help, to be a small part in something bigger, is of course a big consideration when discussing the elements of the Second World War.⁵ As the original courier of the tickets is shot dead, he is shot against a billboard, another frame, of Philippe Pétain with the motto "I Keep My Promises, Just as I Keep the Promises of Others." Ironic considering Pétain's reputation, but then the second shot is filmed as though we were following the pictures eye-line towards the Free France handbill, which then immediately cuts to the words that the colours of the French flag represent. Pétain might not have been able to keep the promises of others, to keep France safe, but these shots along with "La Marseillaise" playing in the score gives the impression of an army of people who are willing to keep these ideals alive despite such oppressive circumstances.⁶ All of this culminates in what many people, including me, is the most emotionally powerful scene of the film, when Laszlo interrupts the singing of the German solider by ordering the house band to defiantly play "La Marseillaise". Note in the scene the amount of aperture frames that seem to still separate the people, but they are united in chorus by a piece of music.

The original title of the stage play that Casablanca was based on is Everybody Goes to Rick's. Although that would still work as a title that reflects the themes of thee story, the name Casablanca - likely given to make the film seem exotic to advertise it to a 40's American audience - means an extra emphasis put on the collective. It is not just everyone's story in association with Rick; all these narratives would go on, and still go on, regardless of his being there. And that emphasis on the country, as well as everything else prior, is what makes the final shot so powerful: a two shot, without an aperture frame in sight, of two free men previously separated sharing a fraternal bond as they walk into the unknown fog of a country still foreign to them...

In its reputation as one of the greatest romance stories in Hollywood, Casablanca more than delivered. Between the wonderful performances by Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, both of whom from beginning to end of the main timeline show their ache for times past, and play their relationship in such a way that whatever you think that 3 1/2 second cut away to the lighthouse implies, it is supported by their characters' choices and emotions. But in my first watch of the 73 year old masterpiece, the main takeaway I got from the story was, unlike many other "perfect" films, its plot explores themes not necessarily central to its story. But then again, despite my positing, maybe they are one in the same thing, and maybe that is why Casablanca is the tale that we are always returning to. Because as Sam sings to us:

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die.
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.

Next: My first foray into the world of Japanese film-maker Yasujirō Ozu as I watch The Record of a Tenement Gentleman. 

NOTES

¹ On the director: "He wanted every single moment of his movie to be a record of what was happening in front of the camera

² Note that we do not meet our main character Rick until almost exactly 9 minutes into the movie. And even when we enter the location of the bar that he enters, that he owns, the focus is not initially on him, but on the many other people in the bar drinking and performing deals. But the fact that the bar is named after him implies a greater connection and sanctuary to the people he pretend to not care about

³ A technique that the film critic David Bordwell calls "aperture framing", so that's now what I'm going to call it.

⁴ Sounds very similar to the attributes of the main character of the second Story of Film protagonist (Three Colours: Blue), Julie.

⁵ These themes are also alluded to by a piece of dialogue by Ferrari, the owner of only other bar that we see in the film.

Ferrari: My Dear Rick, when will you realize that in this world today isolationism is no longer a practical policy

⁶ In Saving Private Ryan (Story of Film #1) the soldiers around 49:35 pass a piece of graffiti that translates to “Pétain is a traitor”. The Three Colours Trilogy (Story of Film #2) is a direct examination of this notion of France. Already 3 films in to this series and we are seeing direct links in both theme and subject.

Story of Film #2: Three Colours: Blue (1993) – Solipsism and the Senses.

SPOILERS

The colour blue has an interesting history, culturally and etymologically. In the past there did not seem to be a word that described this colour, with Homer in The Odyssey using the descriptors wine-dark for the sea and bronze for the sky. With its use in dyes, blue went from one of the rarest colours - denoting aristocracy and imperialism - to the most popular and used in man-made objects in a short span of time. And in spite of this, many cultures still don’t have a word for blue, with countries like Japan and Wales using the same word for both green.

A change in the position of class and a struggle for self-identity. Blue therefore is the perfect colour to title this story, the first of Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours Trilogy. Of course the general knowledge is that Blue symbolises the colour’s most political connotation in the French Flag, meaning “liberty”, but Kieślowski is smart enough to take the word liberty away from an exclusively political meaning. Three Colours: Blue asks questions that are in many ways universal: What does it mean as a human being to have liberty? To be free? What is the difference between being yourself as a person and excluding yourself from others? And when we have problems so far in ourselves, in our psyches, how much can an outside world truly help?

When philosophical conversations come up about solipsism, the first idea used to support the notion is that we experience the world individually from our own senses. Three Colours: Blue is one of the most sensual films I have ever experienced. With a stripped down narrative of a women coming to terms with the loss of her husband and daughter, the audience primarily experiences sense rather than plot, inner rather than outer action.¹ Kieślowski's notes in a behind-the-scenes documentary that accompanies the Artificial Eye DVD release that he would cut to moments of small sensations, such as a sugar cube going into coffee, as that was the most predominate sense to Julie in that moment.

This formality permeates the whole film, the first shot of the film being that the tyre of the car Julie and her family are in. In a literal sense, this introduces the character of Julie before there is a character seen to be introduced.² When we do "see" our protagonist for the first time, we see her watching another, her eyes as a lens that the audience sees through. In this first shot of our protagonist, before she attempts to rid herself of the outside world (be that first in her attempted suicide, and then in her seclusion), we see the inherent problem of complete isolation, especially in cinema; her senses, her means to be isolated must always be constituted by an audience watching and experiencing things with her. She can never be truly alone, as she is always seen. Always sensed. 

Our Introductory shot, and our "introductory" shot.

After such a terrible tragedy in the loss of her husband and child, Julie is "liberated" from societal responsibilities, but in the worst manner possible. Juliette Binoche's performance in Blue is extraordinary, as her facial expressions consistently seem to be on the cusp between stoicism and the last moments of repression before the inevitable cry (she in fact only cries twice in the film). This performance is never mistaken for apathy, in fact Kieślowski rejects that notion. Julie's only real act  in the movie that could be considered apathetic, in which she does not sign a petition to kick an exotic dancer named Lucille from her apartment complex, is whether inadvertent or not an act of understanding and empathy. Despite the character's best attempts to escape from other people, to be a single liberated being onto herself, her helpful and empathetic side prevents, whether it being helping or "completing" her late husband's last piece of music (more of which I come to later).

Consistent visual images add to an idea that despite Julie's attempts to "fall", to escape into herself, she always has a way of coming back. In a very intentional order we first see on a television that of someone skydiving, but as the film progresses that image of falling without a means back changes to a bungee jumper; someone who falls but is still in some way pulled back up. The final image on the mother's television (the Alzheimers stricken mum played wonderfully by Emmanuelle Riva) is that of a tightrope walker, neither falling nor being forced back up, but someone struggling to carry on, to maintain a balance; we don't see whether the walker succeeds at the end. But even whilst Kieślowski uses visual symbols relating to Julie's persona, his presentation still always questions whether the visual is something to take fully into account, or something that can only give you some information. And this question of certainty is not just in the visuals...

Sight is not is not the only sense that cinema can manipulate, but sound. And its in the incorporation of Zbigniew Preisner's beautiful score that the movie shows much of its thematic and emotional intent. We never once see Julie place a finger onto a musical instrument to produce sound; the only time she is seen to touch a piano it is to close the lid on her fingers. But in spite this music is constantly tied to her actions, whether that be important character interactions being punctuated by a repeating motif on a black screen, or the same notes written down on paper being the same notes played on the soundtrack as she throws the paper into the back of a garbage truck. At one point, to emphasise how much the sense of music defines her character, Kieślowski does the most confident thing a storyteller in the visual medium can do; he makes the image blurred, incomprehensible.³

On the ever reliable Wikipedia, it says that the final "sequence" is that of the montage that shows the affect that Julie's actions has had on people's lives, whether it be giving a place to live to her late husband's mistress, or her mother still there in the nursing home. Of course, that is not is not the movie's "final" sequence; a storyteller like Kieślowski does not waste the economics of the credits on ending the story on the final "image". Instead the movie ends with a performance of that final piece over blue backed titles, as the unfinished concerto concludes with the sound of a flute solo, the piece of which Julie heard being played in the street by a busker.⁴ Just as it is never made clear how involved Julie was in the original construction of her husband's pieces, it is never made clear whether the flute piece is an invention of the buskers, or if he discovered the piece that Julie threw away. In terms of a message about the construction of art, it is the kind of collectivist conclusion that would have made Roland Barthes salivate, but in terms of the story the flute solo is a perfect summation of Julie's character arc. The culturally important piece of high brow music is finished by including the tune of a busker on working/middle class street. And a woman that once tried to enforce her "liberty" by being isolated from other, in the end shows the audience her true declaration of intention, her authorship, by putting the works of multiple people together. Julie experiences a change in the position of class and a struggle for self-identity; like the colour that gives the film its title.

We can try to isolate ourselves from others, from a dark and oppressive outside world, but we always be dragged back into the collective by our inherent human sense. Like feeling the sun on your face, finishing an important piece of music, or sitting in a darkened room and experiencing the sights and sounds of a masterpiece like Blue.

Next Story of Film: I make a shameful confession; I have not at any point in my life watched Casablanca. That is about to change.

Also: I couldn't watch Three Colours: Blue without considering the others. In my new series, The Completionist, I will watch films that I feel are crucial to watch that are not on my list. Stay tuned for posts on the whole Three Colours Trilogy.

Note

¹ As a way to highlight this, Julie's first house is laid bare, almost barren. When she instigates sexual intercourse with Oliver, probably the most sensual of human acts, "They took everything. Only the mattress is left", practically a meta-commentary by Kieślowski on the film's own construction.

² The tyre going down a strict road is a great metaphor for the character as a whole; the car is an item associated with liberty, with freedom, but that freedom can only be maintained in a strict and encompassing parameter.

³ At the same time the image blurs, Julie says that the piece should "remove the trumpets". Here again the removal of the clarifying image is tied to sound; either the removal of a main instrument removing a sense of clarity, or the focus on the abstracts of music making the characters lose themselves from the physical world.

⁴ A seemingly strange or innocuous decision, but the final important sound of the flute starts on the credit of the Cinematographer rather than the Director that precedes it, nor the Composer that follows it. Is this a final means to accentuating the mirroring between image and sound, even at the point when the movie is meant to be over?

Also, unless I remember incorrectly, the flute is the only instrument in the movie that we shown in front view actually being played, adding more significance to its performance off-screen at the end of the film.