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by Jim Holman.
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TALK ABOUT MOVIES
October 2004
CASABLANCA
Directed by Michael Curtiz. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains. 1942, Black & White, 102 minutes, English/French/German, USA. Available at Hollywood Video
Ernie: Is this the natural conclusion of his life so far? Is this what he’s been leading up to, this final act of self-giving, then going off to war to fight evil?
Matthew: I think he was kind of a patriot who got derailed and hardened when he got his heart broken. But at the end, I think he’s a man who recovers himself. And he recovers himself in a finer form than he’s had before because it entails a great sacrifice, a great giving over of himself. What’s neat is they show Rick’s giving up of Ilsa as something romantic. When he tells her, “You’d regret leaving him, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life,” it almost feels like a romantic speech.
Ernie: He tells Laszlo at the airport, “For your sake she pretended she still loved me, and I let her pretend.” Of course, that’s a falsehood, because it wasn’t for Laszlo’s sake, and she did really love Rick. She was tired of being the dutiful revolutionary’s wife. She wanted to have what she had in Paris with Rick. But I think it’s telling that in Paris they had a no-questions-asked love. It was fantasy time. It couldn’t last because there was something fundamentally unreal about it.
Matthew: The Germans marching into Paris are the return of reality.
Ernie: At one point Rick says, “December 1941, I wonder if they’re asleep in New York. I wonder if they’re asleep all over America.” So maybe he’s a symbol of the waking of America. Because there was a lot of isolationist talk in those days. Let Europe fight Europe’s war. Maybe Rick and Louis are figures of the U.S. and France. Of course, that’s awfully bad for France is Louis is a symbol of their nation.
Matthew: Maybe he’s conquered, collaborating France. But even then the movie throws France a bone. It’s saying, “Even conquered France will find its nerve in the face of all of this.”