S

Casablanca(1942)

SECTION A: GROUP 1

CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD

40 mark comparative study with

New Hollywood

S Auteur

S Meaning and Response - Representations

S Spectatorship

S Form and style – challenging and reinforcing Hollywood tradition

S Contexts

Key scenes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEWaqUVac3M - Getting on

the plane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_uINM_XI6I - I want the

letters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeFhSzoTuc - La

Marseillaise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vThuwa5RZU - Play it Sam

How people think about

Casablanca

S “He’s looking at you kid”

S “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the

world, she walks into mine”

S “Go ahead shoot, you’ll be doing me a favour”

NOT: “Play it again Sam” (Play it Sam, yes) – one

of the most misquoted lines in film history

What people see when they think about

Casablanca: Humpty Go-Cart and of course…….

Ingrid, in

soft focus

Production context 1

S Warner Bros. story editor convinced prolific Hollywood producer Hal B. Wallis to purchase the film rights

S Collaborative studio production – Warner’s were vertically integrated (controlled the production, distribution and exhibition of their films)

S Almost exclusively studio shooting

S $1m production budget (significant but at the time $3m plus was seen as a blockbuster) including star marketing

S Hollywood studio system churned out 100s of films yearly. This was seen as just another genre film but, it became iconic…

Continuity editing ensured many, many cuts to CU

of Ilsa in soft focus – facial expressions/emotion

Production context 2

S Star marketing was A List with Bogart and Bergman in the middle of successful careers, but research indicates Warner’s approached other actors before them

S With commercial success came critical success –Casablanca won the prestigious Best Picture Oscar

S See later auteur analysis but an argument suggests Warner Bros. collaboration resisted auteur categorisation (Hal Wallis approached two directors)

S Effectively this was a medium/high budget safe genre film that did much better than expected

Rick often framed as dominant, in low angle with white

tuxedo signifying status (see expressionistic use of light and

shadow in background borrowing noir conventions)

Socio-political context

S Release coincided with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca. It is often forgotten this film (as with many) was made during WWII

S Set in Casablanca, Morocco in the early days of WWII (a French colony)

S Pro American ideology and aspirational American culture predominates – jazz, lifestyle, drinking, ‘freedom’, see later isolationist analysis of Rick

S The film challenges the threat posed by Nazism but is more complex linked to representation of character

Police Chief a ‘civilised, sophisticated threat’ to Ilsa and

Laszlo. Facial expressions encoding meaning, as always

Curtiz playing with shadow and light

Socio-political context and

representation

S Bogart’s character is hugely symbolic – a cynical bar owner, an American who has fled German occupied Paris

S He epitomises justification of isolationist foreign policy –“I stick my neck out for nobody. The problems of this world are not my department. I’m a saloon keeper”

S However, he eventually takes sides and embraces foreign policy (he gives the band a nod to play the French national anthem to drown out Nazis singing nationalistic songs)

S Politically this coincided with America’s reluctance to enter WWII and support the European allies

Rick is a reluctant hero

Gender representation 1

S Rick is physically small, but a powerful and respected alpha male

S Ilsa is stereotypically beautiful – she is objectified by the gaze of the camera (Mulvey). She remains an oasis in a film that has an astonishingly gendered male cast but also male authorship in terms of production

S Oppositional reading from Director Curtiz: “She (Ilsa) is the nexus of power in the film. It is only with respect to her that Rick shows any vulnerability and humanity. There is a strength in her not to be underestimated”

There is also power and intent in Ilsa

Gender representation 2

S Gendered viewpoint reflects time period (social context)

S Ilsa, Yvonne and Annina Brandel are even lit differently to the

men – high key, no shadow, often soft (romantic) focus

S Opposing the Director’s own reading of Ilsa, she seems

incapable of making her own decisions: “You’ll have to think

for both of us” (to Rick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-3-

vDjZAvU

S Bennett Caplin from ‘Perspective in Casablanca:

“Casablanca is in almost every sense the polar opposite of every

desire Haskell and Mulvey have for a feminist film alternative.”

Sam a pivotal secondary character and narrative

catalyst – he is a conduit for their love

Ilsa does joy and sadness

Gender representation 3

S Developing Curtiz’s argument (with textual evidence) – Rick’s love for her leads him to take risks e.g. double crossing the local Police Captain so Ilsa and her husband can escape

S This arguably suggests notions of self sacrifice, not the previously selfish (isolationist) Rick

S But, but, but…….is Ilsa a slave to societal norms and ideas of masc and femme in staying with Laszlo? Does Rick need her?

S Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949) wrote: “The master and slave have a reciprocal relationship yet the master does not acknowledge his need of the other” (this applies very much to Rick)

Laszlo is strong, upright, morally correct and loyal

– in Rick, Ilsa sees another brand of masculinity

Auteur and Casablanca 1

S Remember the collaborative nature of Casablanca as a studio film, arguably resisting the auteur – could Hal B Wallis as Producer move more into auteur categorisation?

S Curtiz cannot be categorised by thematic repetition but was known for his expressionistic use of light (defo in Casablanca), unusual camera angles and fluid camera movement

S One of the more prolific Directors in film history – arguably an auteur trope was his diverse, non one dimensional genre versatility

S Directed 64 films in Europe and then 102 for Warner’s in Hollywood

Auteur and Casablanca 2

S Andrew Sarris: “Curtiz is the most decisive exception to the

auteur theory” (as a production line studio Director)

S This linked with Bazin’s observation of good studio Directors

as non auteurs who made films propelled by the narrative

drive of genre

S Curtiz was workmanlike but also ruthless on set, pre dating

Kubrick’s passive/aggressive demands for performance

S Umberto Eco describes Casablanca as an “author-less happy

accident”

Film Form in Casablanca

S The mise-en-scene (smoky bars, white tuxedos, foggy runway et al) has a nostalgic feel now, probably seen as ‘exotic’ at the time – Morocco/Casablanca – notions of otherness

S Noir without being full on film noir – some expressionistic use of light and shadow and soft focus but with a focus on narrative and character, less so ‘the look’

S Classic continuity editing, analysed by Laura Mulvey in Casablanca as supporting a ‘masculine narrative’ – cut to close up, cut to establishing shot, shot/reverse between Rick and Ilsaestablishing character relationships, match on action, following the 180 degree rule…….all leading the audience by the hand and ‘telling a story’

Falling in love