casablanca - whitmore high€¦ · anthem to drown out nazis singing nationalistic songs)...
TRANSCRIPT
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S
Casablanca(1942)
SECTION A: GROUP 1
CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD
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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
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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
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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
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What people see when they think about
Casablanca: Humpty Go-Cart and of course…….
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Ingrid, in
soft focus
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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…
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Continuity editing ensured many, many cuts to CU
of Ilsa in soft focus – facial expressions/emotion
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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
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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)
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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
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Police Chief a ‘civilised, sophisticated threat’ to Ilsa and
Laszlo. Facial expressions encoding meaning, as always
Curtiz playing with shadow and light
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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
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Rick is a reluctant hero
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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”
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There is also power and intent in Ilsa
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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.”
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Sam a pivotal secondary character and narrative
catalyst – he is a conduit for their love
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Ilsa does joy and sadness
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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)
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Laszlo is strong, upright, morally correct and loyal
– in Rick, Ilsa sees another brand of masculinity
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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
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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”
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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’
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Falling in love