Casablanca C/D

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It's hard to even talk about this movie, it's been so kitschified/iconized etc. I watched it again recently (for the first time in probably 7-10 years) and was amazed at how much fun it was; each scene was a perfect little entertaining gem. Maybe I was just in the mood--but Umberto Eco has a jokey essay where he maintains the movie is such a Classic because it's the meeting of so many cliches, and maybe that's what I was digging about it--every scene was was both what I expected to see and what I wanted to see, if that makes any sense.

― slutsky (slutsky), Friday, 2 May 2003 20:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

I definitely need to see this again -- I first saw it when I was 14. I totally know what you mean about the cliches, though.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 2 May 2003 21:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

Classic. Serious fun and romantic in the way that can't help but approach cliche (in fact, I'd argue it USES cliche). I need to see it again.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 2 May 2003 21:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

Casablanca is one of my favorite movies since i was a wee kid.

It IS piles of cliches upon piles of cliches but it works incredibly well.

I was actually having a discussion 'bout the film with ppl tonight and how ts suceess was a series of happy accidents but also how the film ( say in regards to Bogart) is ostensibly cynical, that everyone at Rick's is mildly corrupt but are able to come through in the end, or in scenes like the singing of Marseilles scene . The film posits that, yes ppl are weak, venal, corrupt but if given the right cause will come through (as exemplified in Claude Rains chatcter) That veneer of cynicism gets lost in the ultmate scene of renuncuiation of 'true love' (and then affirmation of frienship and companionship as a substitute for love)

Well, I could go on but i think you get the picture. Casablanca is a cool flick.

― H (Heruy), Saturday, 3 May 2003 00:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

Stop Them Before They Film Again!

― Ryan McKay (Ryan McKay), Saturday, 3 May 2003 01:02 (twenty-one years ago) link

How could anyone possibility say dud? (This is a challenge of sorts.)

― amateurist (amateurist), Saturday, 3 May 2003 06:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

dud. actually, not really. but I have never really liked it that much. perhaps i heard too much about it beforehand. when i saw it the first time it was kind of odd because it felt like i was remembering it for the first time, like the film was part of our collective unconscious or something. but for all that it falls a little flat for me.

― ryan (ryan), Saturday, 3 May 2003 16:18 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think it's wonderful. It seems to embody all those cliches and romantic lies in some dazzlingly charismatic and charming a way, so that it seems almost beyond criticism. I always enjoy it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 3 May 2003 19:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

Just briefly - classic, and one of my ten fave films of all time. The best black and white movie ever IMO, and the second best film of its decade (Song of the South is my fave movie from the 1940s).

― Calum, Sunday, 4 May 2003 02:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

Considering that the vast majority of films to the mid-'50s were B&W, that's saying a mouthful!

― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 4 May 2003 02:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

I remember a critic once saying something to the affect of "It's amazing how good a bad movie can be" about this film, and I agree. So classic.

― nickn (nickn), Sunday, 4 May 2003 05:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yup, well aware of it. And many great films from the 30s and 60s are black and white too. Casablanca is my fave black and white film.

― Calum, Sunday, 4 May 2003 12:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm sure Calum is very far from alone in that view - there aren't so many B&W films that I love more, though there are some. I have a feeling that across various countries, a high proportion of my favourites would be B&W. Old Hawks/Wilder/Ford etc., Renoir, '50s Kurosawa, mid-period Hitch, Preston Sturges, early Godard. I would guess that cinema history, maybe excluding India of which I know almost nothing cinematically, still has more B&W films in it that colour, so it shouldn't be surprising. And some made B&W willfully later - I love The Last Picture Show and Manhattan, for instance.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 4 May 2003 12:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

nineteen years pass...

I love this movie so much, but it just occurred to me that it's kind of a dick move on Rick's part to leave Sam with Ferrari and go off to be best bros with Claude Rains without so much as a goodbye.

― Lily Dale, Wednesday, 20 July 2022 00:17 (one year ago) link

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