Casablanca

          Over the course of history, films have always had mixed reviews. However, I think I have found one movie that is the exception: Casablanca. I have scoured the internet for negative reviews of this movie and came up almost completely empty handed. Almost everyone views Casablanca as one of the best films of all time. After all, it is ranked #3 on AFI’s 100 Years... 100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition list. I am now taking on the impossible task of arguing why Casablanca should not be regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time.

          In summary, Casablanca is about a man named Rick (Humphrey Bogart) who runs a popular gin joint in Casablanca, Morocco during World War II. One day, a former lover of his, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) shows up in his bar with her husband Victor (Paul Henreid). The couple asks Rick to provide them with safe passage from Nazi controlled Europe to America. Rick must decide if he wants to help the couple escape, attempt to rekindle his relationship with his old lover, or let the couple die in Casablanca.

          Overall, the plot of the film is mediocre. Because Casablanca was created in another era, the style of writing, acting, and directing was completely different from today. The writing is very dialogue heavy and very boring. Aaron Sorkin, writer of The Newsroom, Moneyball, The Social Network, The West Wing, and A Few Good Men, writes extremely dialogue heavy screenplays, but he manages to make them fast paced and interesting. 

          One of the most important features in creating a successful drama is making the audience care about the characters. Blake Snyder, author of the book “Save The Cat!,” says, “...liking the person we go on a journey with is the single most important element in drawing us into the story.” One way to do this is through a “save the cat” scene. Snyder says, “It’s the scene where we meet the hero and the hero does something -- like saving a cat -- that defines who he is and makes us, the audience, like him.”

          One of my biggest problems with Casablanca is that I feel absolutely no emotional connection to Rick. There is no moment in the film where I feel like rooting for him. Rick has a broken heart over a girl, but I am unable to sympathize with his emotions because the relationship between the character and the audience never began. Casablanca had the chance to fix this problem early on in the movie, but the “save the cat” scene happened about half way into the film. By not including a “save the cat” scene early on, the movie failed to emotionally connect the characters with the audience.

          For example, a young couple is trying to acquire visa’s to leave Casablanca, but they have run out of money. They go to Rick for help who tells them to place all of their chips on the roulette table on 22 black. The croupier hears Rick say this, and lets the couple win twice in a row. This simple scene shows that Rick truly has compassion for others. If this scene happened within the first few minutes of Casablanca I may have felt more connected to Rick and thus enjoyed the movie more.

          Casablanca has been said to be perfectly cast, but I couldn’t disagree more. Bogart and Bergman play their parts adequately, but I find it hard to enjoy watching Bogart’s acting. Bogart felt stiff when playing Rick; his lines seemed a little forced, and his performance felt fake. Casting great actors such as Ronald Reagan (who was almost casted) or Jimmy Stewart could have fixed this problem.

          Along with mediocre acting comes mediocre directing. Casablanca’s director, Michael Curtiz has been criticized for only focusing on the visual aspect of a film, while overlooking the story and characters. Aljean Harmetz has quoted Curtiz saying, "Who cares about character? I make it go so fast nobody notices," in Harmetz’s book, Round Up The Usual Suspects: The Making of “Casablanca”. This clearly shows that Michael Curtiz was an ignorant, amateur director. On the other hand, director Howard Hawks perfectly described his job when he said, “I'm a storyteller, that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!”

          The only positive thing that Casablanca has, is its cultural relevance. Released in the middle of World War II, the film was able to connect with many audiences. If the film were released a few years earlier or later, I am certain that its overall success would have been poor. During this period of time, the German Expressionism Era, Siegfried Kracauer and mise-en-scene became more popular. Kracauer wrote the book, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film, which helped create the foundation of modern film criticism. Also, Casablanca used many examples of film-noir which enhanced many of the emotions in the film, making it more popular. Mise-en-scene, or “what is in the frame,” became more popular with this film. The placement of the lights, actors, and objects in the film made it more dramatic along with creating more of an artistic atmosphere.

          For the most part, Casablanca is loved by everyone and is not criticized for any reason. However, the writing, acting, and directing are mediocre at best and the film is incredibly outdated. In the future, I hope I will learn to appreciate Casablanca, despite my grievances toward the film.

The "Classics"

I would like to start by defining the word “classic.” Using Dictionary.com, I received 20 different definitions. The first definition of the word “classic” said: “Of the first or highest quality, class, or rank.” This definition without a doubt applies to many films that are referred to as “classic” like 12 Angry Men, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Psycho. Because these are some of the earliest films made, they are referred to as “the best.” While they were revolutionary for their time, they simply cannot compete with the most up to date films. 

  Imagine watching the news on a black and white television from the 1950’s. Now compare that to watching Avatar in 3D IMAX. Which one is better? Quality wise, IMAX is immensely better than a 1950’s black and white TV. Both forms of entertainment were incredibly revolutionary for their time. Mass producing TV’s and being able to put them in every home in the 1950‘s was amazing, but so is the 3D motion capture technology specifically created for Avatar. While our modern day technology beats the 1950’s in quality, both are examples of radical change within the entertainment industry. 

In 1895, the Lumiere brothers created one of the first films, which showed people exiting a factory at the end of the day. They showed the film, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory, to an audience and those who viewed it were absolutely amazed. If this same black and white film were shown to an audience today, they would say, “What’s the big deal? It’s just a bunch of people walking.” The difference between these two situations is exposure. In 1895 when the Lumiere Brothers created the first films, a person’s exposure to film was absolutely zero, but now, a person has seen dozens, if not hundreds, of movies. This principle of exposure shows that early films such as 12 Angry Men, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Psycho are partially thought of as “the best films ever” because there were very few films before then. 

  While this first definition of “classic” is good, I prefer to look at other definitions. These definitions include words such as “basic,” “fundamental,” “traditional,” “typical,” and “standard.” These “classic” movies are here to serve as a guide. They are important to the overall industry of filmmaking only because they represent the start of the industry. For example, I absolutely love Apple products. They are efficient, reliable, and high quality, but I wouldn’t say that the first Apple computer from 1976 is one of the best computers made.

  While some old films are good, I find that most of them are incredibly boring. They were experimenting with what audiences enjoyed watching, and that process took a long time. Movies like The Godfather are horribly painful to watch because of their incredible length and lack of compelling storytelling. Some of the few movies, at that length, that are worth watching are The Lord Of The Rings movies, The Green Mile, Titanic, and the Director’s Cut of Kingdom Of Heaven. While these are all incredibly long films, they actually have interesting stories unlike The Godfather.

  Are old films so great because the directors were brilliant, the first of their kind, or because they’re dead? Once a person dies, their art usually skyrockets in value. Maybe these directors weren’t actually all that good to begin with. Now that they are dead, nobody would be able to interview, scrutinize, or ridicule them. It’s a lot like the Founding Fathers. They were the catalyst of something great, which is the reason why they are so respected. If someone duplicated their work now, they probably wouldn’t amount to much. Some idiot directors have had decent careers copying other “classic” idiot directors.

One of my favorite series is the James Bond series. While I enjoy watching all of the films, I prefer to watch the more recent ones because they are higher in visual quality, they’re more relatable to me, and they (usually) have more entertaining stories. I understand that the old films were the beginning, but they simply do not compare to the more recent films.

  In almost every situation, the word “classic” should be avoided at all costs. If it needs to be used, it should only reference the “basic,” “fundamental,” “traditional,” “typical,” and “standard” definition. Most people would agree that the old films are important. They are a part of our history and should be respected. However, it is time to move on, look toward the future, and embrace the films that we have today.