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.