ILX Film Club, The (1924-2019)

I watched it in colour, and with a happier ending.

Pretty damn daring to release a film like this during the actual war.

Dunno about that, the US was already involved - plenty of examples of Hollywood productions attacking Hitler before the US joined tho (Chaplin the most obvious).

It’s been way too long since I’ve seen (and meh’d) this one. I owe it a rewatch

I was about to post basically the same thing. I don't know about y'all but I saw so many parodies and references to this before I ever got around to seeing the film that my exp was entirely postmodern—all those iconic lines were just quotations I'd already heard repeatedly. Very difficult to actually enjoy it under those circumstances, wish I'd managed to see it as a kid first.

Maybe the film with the most iconic lines that just keep coming and coming?

I watched it once with a friend who'd never seen it and all through the movie he kept going, "Oh, that's where that line comes from."

I love Casablanca unreservedly. I understand its weaknesses, hokiness, implausibilities, overheated melodrama etc etc, but it's still just so great. I agree that it might not be any of the actors' best roles — except maybe Claude Raines — but the whole is much greater than the sum. So many great little moments — "Liebchen, what watch?" "Yvonne, I love you — but he pays me" "Vultures, vultures everywhere"

It's a hoot.

Rains, sorry.

If I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick.

Claude Rains is really good in a David Lean film none of y’all seem to have seen called The Passionate Friends.

i've never found that the sense of "already seen thru endless references" has spoiled Casablanca for me, but i do ask myself if it's notably better than other well-crafted ensemble pieces of its era and i kinda think no it isn't exceptional

luckily i don't keep league tables lol

I never watch it willingly but won't change the channel when it's on. Michael Curtiz sure knew how to use light and, as Orson Welles pointed out, direct crowds. He didn't know how to use Ingrid Bergman, who is both ideally cast and gives her worst performance to date.

I was about to post basically the same thing. I don't know about y'all but I saw so many parodies and references to this before I ever got around to seeing the film that my exp was entirely postmodern—all those iconic lines were just quotations I'd already heard repeatedly. Very difficult to actually enjoy it under those circumstances, wish I'd managed to see it as a kid first.

Didn't have this at all with Casablanca, but did have it with those Star Wars movies. Watched the original trilogy around age 12 and my takeaway was "cool, now I know what all those references are from" and nothing else.

but i do ask myself if it's notably better than other well-crafted ensemble pieces of its era and i kinda think no it isn't exceptional

post your POX ensemble pieces of that era so we can quibble

these are .... kinda forced criticisms as far as they are criticisms imo

"ive nothing bad to say about this but gimme five mins"

The thing moves too.

It's a small detail and not that uncommon in Hollywood at the time, but: nice to see an American film with lots of foreign languages being spoken correctly by native speakers of those languages.

post your POX ensemble pieces of that era so we can quibble

For one, Only Angels Have Wings makes utter mincemeat of Casablanca on basically every front

(tbh it's unfair to compare any movie to Angels)

I love it too, despite Jean Arthur

*ducks*

Aw, I like her in it a lot. But OK, the female lead is the one admitted advantage Casablanca has then

Casablanca totally wins in the star power stakes I'm sorry - Thomas Mitchell, Richard Barthelmess and Noah Beery Jr are fine, but stacked up against Claude Rains, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre?

I've written on ILX that Jean Arthur and I are not simpatico, The Talk of the Town and The More the Merrier excepted.

these are .... kinda forced criticisms as far as they are criticisms imo

"ive nothing bad to say about this but gimme five mins"

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Thursday, September 28, 2023 1:56 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago)

sure I wondered if I needed to post tbh, but was curious if anyone had had the same experience / genuinely lament that the film was essentially drained of energy for me before getting to see it. Daniel's SW response was interesting, as this really is the only film I can think of where I've had this experience, partially down to how thorough the parodies sometimes were. Like as a counter-example, when I saw Taxi Driver I'd def heard the mirror bit dozens of times before, but none of the rest of it was familiar. Casablanca I'd heard quotes, misquotes, plot points, etc. I honestly think it's a bit strange! totally subjective too of course, just an odd quirk of my personal childhood media consumption choices

tbf the oft quoted/parodied bits of Taxi Driver are really only a couple of scenes or so. I wonder how many films there are that have been as thoroughly swallowed by popcult references as Casablanca and SW - Wizard Of Oz maybe? I liked that when I saw it but perhaps not as much as I could've.

it would be funny if Scorsese's Taxi Driver monologue got parodied in Tiny Toons or whatever

I wonder how many films there are that have been as thoroughly swallowed by popcult references

yeah this was what I was trying to get at. this is *the* exemplar of this phenomenon for me, having somehow missed it until my 20s

what truly killed it for me was seeing THAHN before it, on the big screen too. plus, y'know, the cheesy script. plus seeing it on a plane lol

xp maybe tbf maybe

there's definitely examples where id personally feel similarly but im not sure to the point where it obscures the movie (then how would one know i suppose)

Oh, and "As Time Goes By" is truly one of those Golden Age Hollywood songs that still kills it every single time

What is THAHN. Sounds like a Shah Rhukh Khan vehicle from the title so I'm in favour of it pending future info.

To Have and Have Not?

sadly the latter

I was about to post basically the same thing. I don't know about y'all but I saw so many parodies and references to this before I ever got around to seeing the film that my exp was entirely postmodern—all those iconic lines were just quotations I'd already heard repeatedly. Very difficult to actually enjoy it under those circumstances, wish I'd managed to see it as a kid first.

― rob, Thursday, 28 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

First time I saw any number of Kane scenes it was like "oh so that's what that Simpsons episode/other parody was ripping off".

That kind of thing enhances the enjoyment.

it would be funny if Scorsese's Taxi Driver monologue got parodied in Tiny Toons or whatever

(In the goodfeathers segment, which is otherwise mainly a parody of pesci’s “funny how?” scene - 11 year olds in the 90s were mad for send ups of that and also rain man)

I could see the brain doing Marty’s bit from TD

Yes wins I was thinking of that exact reference and parody combination, thus my choices :)

(When I mention the Scorsese monologue I do mean the Scorsese monologue, not the DeNiro one.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTVUDfCiMPs

Enjoyed this as much as ever - this project seems to have gifted me the ability to focus more on films and get more out of them, but there wasn't a lot of extra detail here, just an appreciation of how tight and small the story is, doesn't amount to a hill of beans, etc. Think Rick is kind of a petty prick for a while, it's the fucking nazis ffs, but he needs to be to create tension. Maybe this is why it's a film I can appreciate a lot without actively loving it - it's such a Hollywood view of How Anything Works - done brilliantly of course, but for all its perfection still doesn't quite move me the way my favourite films do.

Anyway, on to the next.

https://i.imgur.com/UyL3XxL.jpg

Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid, 1943

Morbsies #96
Sight & Sound Critics #16
Sight & Sound Directors #62

Silent version is on youtube here
Version with music by Teiji Ito (1959) is on vimeo here

Meshes of the Afternoon is a one-and-done deal for me.

It's obvious you're not a woman

unfuckwithable

“The ritualistic form treats the human being not as the source of the dramatic action, but as a somewhat depersonalised element in a dramatic whole. The intent of such depersonalisation is not the destruction of the individual; on the contrary, it enlarges him beyond the personal dimension and frees him from the specialisations and confines of personality. He becomes part of a dynamic whole which, like all such creative relationships, in turn, endow its parts with a measure of its larger meaning.”

she didn't say that about meshes, but it's something i think about a lot

Flashback to a terrific late-2000s Spectrum gig at the Echoplex which used Meshes… as a backdrop and source for some very good video effects.

I liked this, but just as much as a load of other experimental short films I've seen. Mirror-face was the best character. Reminded me of Jan Švankmajer's Alice, a very formative film for me.

Might watch it again tomorrow, it is only 13 minutes after all.

CASABLANCA and MESHES are both perfect