I found this convincing and broadly matches my read or it when I rewatched it recently. I enjoyed Tyler's post and it made me think twice but, yeah, nice work defending various people's honour.
That's a good and interesting review, but I didn't understand this: "Of course the jingoistic element is dangerous."
I love the film. I can see some might think it's naively sentimental. But jingoistic?
Rick is a selfish, bitter, greedy American who is redeemed in part by the moral example of a Central European to join an internationalist struggle against fascism, and in turn inspires a Frenchman to follow suit. Where's the jingoism?
When I was in Vietnam, I served in the field with a young man who had escaped from Cuba. He told me he had been in training to be a priest right up until it was time to take his vows. Then he saw Casablanca and he realized that if women like Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa) were in the world, he could never be a priest. He left, came to the U.S., was drafted and went into combat. This is one of the best movies ever made.
In the original script for the stage play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" the Germans are after the money Laszlo made as an anti-Nazi publisher. It's more cynical than the movie.
The Germans didn't need to believe he was a threat originally, they just wanted to seize the money they'd thought he'd made spreading "lies" about them.
This is how I would explain Casablanca to my young children.
And part of what makes any truly great movie great is that it is capable of multiple readings. But the movie would not endure if it didn't have a deeper psychological realism, if Rick and Ilsa's characters weren't so well-drawn, if they didn't both have decidedly mixed motives throughout, and - in particular - if he didn't make his final choice for a lot more reasons than the wooden "inspired by the saintly Laszlo."
I just rewatched the movie a few weeks ago, and it is fantastic. Wonderful essay and spot on. I am sorry to say I've tended to ignore Cowen after his interview w/ Russ Roberts discussing covid... haven't missed him one bit, lol. Thanks for further justification in that.
On Michael Curtiz - born Manó Kaminer - I would recommend reading
Michael Curtiz – Anarchist in Hollywood: Unorganized Thoughts on a Seemingly Paradoxical Idea
Written in December 1980. First published in English in: Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Anarchy of the Imagination. Michael Töteberg / Leo A. Lensing (ed.). The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1992
Look at how Ilsa looks at Victor at 1:04 into the clip. (Boy, that's a great shot!) That's not a woman looking at "dull" man! That's a woman looking at a courageous and inspiring man.
Then check out when Rick asks Victor whether he thinks everything he's doing is "worth all this":
Rick: "Don't you sometimes wonder if it's worth all this? I mean what you're fighting for."
Victor Laszlo: "You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die."
Are those the words of a "dull" man?! "If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die." ?!
Victor Laszlo is a saint. And Victor Laszlo is the Rock of Gibraltar. There is nothing "dull" about the Rock of Gibraltar!
Mark, I really like your comments, all of them, thanks. On this one, yes, but it is a saint stepping forward and doing what he should; no great sign of anguish over what to do and upward vitality. And it's just one scene. Laszlo influences things a bit, perhaps his words to Rick, but not much of what he does drives events. In the movie, his his non-dullness in mainly in his resumé.
"Ilsa too reverberates with Rick, especially when she justly calls him a coward and weakling."
Objection!
Ilsa didn't "justly" call Rick a coward and a weakling! The evidence is overwhelming that Rick is neither of those things, and Ilsa immediately acknowledges that her characterization of his motives is unjust. Rick provided guns to Ethiopia and fought the Fascists in Spain. There isn't a cowardly or weak bone in his body.
She merely calls Rick a coward and a weakling because she's so desperate to get the papers for Victor, and frustrated that Rick apparently isn't going to give them.
"On the couch, fully dressed, now hearing the stirring downstairs. There is no ‘taking’ of Ilsa. Tyler issues a delusion."
That's what I thought! And that's what I told him! :-)
Then I watched the film very closely, from beginning to end. Tyler's not deluded. He presumes something that is very *plausible*...though that doesn't necessarily mean Tyler is correct.
Where I *think* Tyler is saying that Rick made love to Ilsa was here...when Ilsa protests, "Rick, if you only knew how much I loved you...how much I *still* love you!"...and they kiss passionately:
Then we have a truly bizarre cutaway to show the outside of a building...the hotel? Rick is gazing out a window, and turns to Ilsa, sitting on the couch, and says, "And then?"
...then Ilsa gives the "Big Reveal," wherein she explains that she was married to Victor Laszlo, but thought he'd died in a concentration camp, months before she met Rick in Paris. She further tells Rick that she didn't tell Rick about her marriage to Victor Laszlo, because Victor *wanted* her to keep the marriage secret, because she knew so much about his work, such as who he was working with.
The thing is that they're both dressed to the nines, in their Sunday finest, both before and after their passionate kiss. (You'd expect that Rick would at least have removed his tie...or at least loosened it a bit. ;-))
*But*...on the other hand...Ilsa met Rick in his living quarters literally as Carl was walking to "the Meeting." (Carl hilariously tells Rick words to the effect of, "I have to close up now, and go to the meeting..." and Rick responds, "Don't tell me where you're going!" And Carl says quietly, "OK, I won't tell you where I'm going." ;-))
Rick then goes up the stairs exactly as Carl is leaving, and meets Ilsa, who has come up to Rick's living quarters by the back stairs.
Further, the end of the "big Reveal," and Ilsa's desperate request that Rick think for both of them, comes right as Victor is coming back, wounded, from the Meeting. (Which was apparently broken up by the Nazis.)
So we really don't know exactly how long Rick and Ilsa have been in Rick's quarters. It could have been several hours. It could have been only 20 minutes or so. It all depends on how quickly the Nazis broke up the meeting, which isn't described.
Yes, great, Mark. You are right about the possibility of a quicky during that cut-away (something I did not have in view when I wrote of Tyler's "sleep with her" claim), and nice job on sleuthing out how we do not know how long the in-between time was. But with all that, I think it is pretty preposterous to think they made love then. Besides being dressed to the nines, as you remark, it would be rather absurd, implausible, character-wise and situation-wise. Mind you, it is hard to believe that the things that Ilsa tells Rick after the cut-away, both (still? again?) dressed to nines, would have been deferred to after a quicky. What she said is the core explanation for the most important conduct in her entire history of her Paris affair with Rick; it is urgent. With Rick, after the kiss, making up, it is the very first thing she would want to explain to Rick, and that Rick would be keen to learn. I don't mind that the film allowed for the ambiguity about it, however.
Probably a dozen times -- that's how many I've watched Casablanca. Yes, it's a man's movie. As such, it's very simple. (My late wife never liked it -- she saw tragedy in the separation of Rick and Ilsa.) I see triumph of a man's integrity over his impulses. Cowen is wrong, wrong, wrong. Regarding Roman Holiday (again. probably a dozen times), reporter Joe (common everyday name) is, along with Ann, also heroic. He could have tried to persuade her to stay with him. He found an integrity in himself that overcame those desires. Even photographer Irving is a bit of hero; he could have made a nice bit of change from the photos, but he gave them up to her.
"I see triumph of a man's integrity over his impulses."
I actually don't see it that way. Rick is absolute right. If Ilsa doesn't get on that plane with Victor, she'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon, and forever.
It's because he loves Ilsa so much that he won't let her stay in Casablanca with him. (Because there's a 90 percent chance they'd both end up in a concentration camp...isn't that right, Louis? "I'm afraid Major Strasser would insist.")
And he won't leave with her and leave Victor alone in Casablanca, because Victor would be killed, and Ilsa and Rick would both regret it for the rest of their lives.
So it isn't the triumph of integrity over impulses. It's the triumph of love and clear thinking over thoughtlessness.
"It is unclear what exactly to make of Ilsa’s preference to stay back with Rick and to see Laszlo fly off by himself."
It's not unclear at all. She says why throughout the film. After Rick and Ilsa meet for the first time in Casablanca, she comes back after hours to explain everything. He's simply too drunk and angry to listen.
She says (words to the effect of), "A young girl came to Paris from Oslo. She met a great and courageous man. He introduced her to books and ideas that she didn't know existed. She felt admiration for him, and what she presumed was love..."
She simply met Victor Laszlo as a very young woman ...perhaps 7-9 years from having braces on her teeth, from her flashback discussion with Rick in Paris. She admired and respected Victor, and he introduced her to so many new things, that she was overwhelmed with what she "presumed was love." But she married him when she was too young. Now she still greatly admires and respects Victor, and knows that he loves *her*, but meeting Rick in Paris after she thought Victor was dead, made her realize that the person she truly loves is Rick.
And she knows that Victor has his work, and that Victor's work is tremendously important to him. So she thinks that Victor will be OK alone in America, because he has his work.
Nice brief. Gets us in affection, love, in-love, etc. When my wife and I started talking, not long after we met, about having a child and getting married, she said she wants to marry man who won't be bitter after the divorce. I guess I fit the bill.
All this over a movie? I don't think Mr. Curtiz had this in mind when directing. Certainly not a pattern in his movies. He liked character play but nor too involved for his audience. He watched the box office.
Glad to see such a stirring defense of Casablanca!
I found this convincing and broadly matches my read or it when I rewatched it recently. I enjoyed Tyler's post and it made me think twice but, yeah, nice work defending various people's honour.
That's a good and interesting review, but I didn't understand this: "Of course the jingoistic element is dangerous."
I love the film. I can see some might think it's naively sentimental. But jingoistic?
Rick is a selfish, bitter, greedy American who is redeemed in part by the moral example of a Central European to join an internationalist struggle against fascism, and in turn inspires a Frenchman to follow suit. Where's the jingoism?
When I was in Vietnam, I served in the field with a young man who had escaped from Cuba. He told me he had been in training to be a priest right up until it was time to take his vows. Then he saw Casablanca and he realized that if women like Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa) were in the world, he could never be a priest. He left, came to the U.S., was drafted and went into combat. This is one of the best movies ever made.
In the original script for the stage play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" the Germans are after the money Laszlo made as an anti-Nazi publisher. It's more cynical than the movie.
My comment is partly a response to Matt Yglesias' take that Laszlo's anti-Nazi activities were "totally unimportant":
https://www.slowboring.com/p/end-of-the-mailbag-as-we-know-it
The Germans didn't need to believe he was a threat originally, they just wanted to seize the money they'd thought he'd made spreading "lies" about them.
This is how I would explain Casablanca to my young children.
And part of what makes any truly great movie great is that it is capable of multiple readings. But the movie would not endure if it didn't have a deeper psychological realism, if Rick and Ilsa's characters weren't so well-drawn, if they didn't both have decidedly mixed motives throughout, and - in particular - if he didn't make his final choice for a lot more reasons than the wooden "inspired by the saintly Laszlo."
I just rewatched the movie a few weeks ago, and it is fantastic. Wonderful essay and spot on. I am sorry to say I've tended to ignore Cowen after his interview w/ Russ Roberts discussing covid... haven't missed him one bit, lol. Thanks for further justification in that.
On Michael Curtiz - born Manó Kaminer - I would recommend reading
Michael Curtiz – Anarchist in Hollywood: Unorganized Thoughts on a Seemingly Paradoxical Idea
Written in December 1980. First published in English in: Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Anarchy of the Imagination. Michael Töteberg / Leo A. Lensing (ed.). The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1992
What a wonderful conversation this is, between Dan in response to Tyler, and among the commenters. “Upward vitality” can take many forms.
"In real life there are no saints, but in this movie there is, and he’s dull,..."
Objection! Objection! I don't think you're watching Casablanca, if you think the saint in the movie is "dull"!
Look at this scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmey95lE-98
Look at how Ilsa looks at Victor at 1:04 into the clip. (Boy, that's a great shot!) That's not a woman looking at "dull" man! That's a woman looking at a courageous and inspiring man.
Then check out when Rick asks Victor whether he thinks everything he's doing is "worth all this":
Rick: "Don't you sometimes wonder if it's worth all this? I mean what you're fighting for."
Victor Laszlo: "You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die."
Are those the words of a "dull" man?! "If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die." ?!
Victor Laszlo is a saint. And Victor Laszlo is the Rock of Gibraltar. There is nothing "dull" about the Rock of Gibraltar!
Mark, I really like your comments, all of them, thanks. On this one, yes, but it is a saint stepping forward and doing what he should; no great sign of anguish over what to do and upward vitality. And it's just one scene. Laszlo influences things a bit, perhaps his words to Rick, but not much of what he does drives events. In the movie, his his non-dullness in mainly in his resumé.
"Ilsa too reverberates with Rick, especially when she justly calls him a coward and weakling."
Objection!
Ilsa didn't "justly" call Rick a coward and a weakling! The evidence is overwhelming that Rick is neither of those things, and Ilsa immediately acknowledges that her characterization of his motives is unjust. Rick provided guns to Ethiopia and fought the Fascists in Spain. There isn't a cowardly or weak bone in his body.
She merely calls Rick a coward and a weakling because she's so desperate to get the papers for Victor, and frustrated that Rick apparently isn't going to give them.
I'll stand by my "justly."
"On the couch, fully dressed, now hearing the stirring downstairs. There is no ‘taking’ of Ilsa. Tyler issues a delusion."
That's what I thought! And that's what I told him! :-)
Then I watched the film very closely, from beginning to end. Tyler's not deluded. He presumes something that is very *plausible*...though that doesn't necessarily mean Tyler is correct.
Where I *think* Tyler is saying that Rick made love to Ilsa was here...when Ilsa protests, "Rick, if you only knew how much I loved you...how much I *still* love you!"...and they kiss passionately:
https://youtu.be/wjkahnFVLbA
Then we have a truly bizarre cutaway to show the outside of a building...the hotel? Rick is gazing out a window, and turns to Ilsa, sitting on the couch, and says, "And then?"
...then Ilsa gives the "Big Reveal," wherein she explains that she was married to Victor Laszlo, but thought he'd died in a concentration camp, months before she met Rick in Paris. She further tells Rick that she didn't tell Rick about her marriage to Victor Laszlo, because Victor *wanted* her to keep the marriage secret, because she knew so much about his work, such as who he was working with.
The thing is that they're both dressed to the nines, in their Sunday finest, both before and after their passionate kiss. (You'd expect that Rick would at least have removed his tie...or at least loosened it a bit. ;-))
*But*...on the other hand...Ilsa met Rick in his living quarters literally as Carl was walking to "the Meeting." (Carl hilariously tells Rick words to the effect of, "I have to close up now, and go to the meeting..." and Rick responds, "Don't tell me where you're going!" And Carl says quietly, "OK, I won't tell you where I'm going." ;-))
Rick then goes up the stairs exactly as Carl is leaving, and meets Ilsa, who has come up to Rick's living quarters by the back stairs.
Further, the end of the "big Reveal," and Ilsa's desperate request that Rick think for both of them, comes right as Victor is coming back, wounded, from the Meeting. (Which was apparently broken up by the Nazis.)
So we really don't know exactly how long Rick and Ilsa have been in Rick's quarters. It could have been several hours. It could have been only 20 minutes or so. It all depends on how quickly the Nazis broke up the meeting, which isn't described.
Yes, great, Mark. You are right about the possibility of a quicky during that cut-away (something I did not have in view when I wrote of Tyler's "sleep with her" claim), and nice job on sleuthing out how we do not know how long the in-between time was. But with all that, I think it is pretty preposterous to think they made love then. Besides being dressed to the nines, as you remark, it would be rather absurd, implausible, character-wise and situation-wise. Mind you, it is hard to believe that the things that Ilsa tells Rick after the cut-away, both (still? again?) dressed to nines, would have been deferred to after a quicky. What she said is the core explanation for the most important conduct in her entire history of her Paris affair with Rick; it is urgent. With Rick, after the kiss, making up, it is the very first thing she would want to explain to Rick, and that Rick would be keen to learn. I don't mind that the film allowed for the ambiguity about it, however.
Probably a dozen times -- that's how many I've watched Casablanca. Yes, it's a man's movie. As such, it's very simple. (My late wife never liked it -- she saw tragedy in the separation of Rick and Ilsa.) I see triumph of a man's integrity over his impulses. Cowen is wrong, wrong, wrong. Regarding Roman Holiday (again. probably a dozen times), reporter Joe (common everyday name) is, along with Ann, also heroic. He could have tried to persuade her to stay with him. He found an integrity in himself that overcame those desires. Even photographer Irving is a bit of hero; he could have made a nice bit of change from the photos, but he gave them up to her.
"I see triumph of a man's integrity over his impulses."
I actually don't see it that way. Rick is absolute right. If Ilsa doesn't get on that plane with Victor, she'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon, and forever.
It's because he loves Ilsa so much that he won't let her stay in Casablanca with him. (Because there's a 90 percent chance they'd both end up in a concentration camp...isn't that right, Louis? "I'm afraid Major Strasser would insist.")
And he won't leave with her and leave Victor alone in Casablanca, because Victor would be killed, and Ilsa and Rick would both regret it for the rest of their lives.
So it isn't the triumph of integrity over impulses. It's the triumph of love and clear thinking over thoughtlessness.
His integrity does not deny his love for her. I'm not sure I'm in that much disagreement with you.
"It is unclear what exactly to make of Ilsa’s preference to stay back with Rick and to see Laszlo fly off by himself."
It's not unclear at all. She says why throughout the film. After Rick and Ilsa meet for the first time in Casablanca, she comes back after hours to explain everything. He's simply too drunk and angry to listen.
She says (words to the effect of), "A young girl came to Paris from Oslo. She met a great and courageous man. He introduced her to books and ideas that she didn't know existed. She felt admiration for him, and what she presumed was love..."
She simply met Victor Laszlo as a very young woman ...perhaps 7-9 years from having braces on her teeth, from her flashback discussion with Rick in Paris. She admired and respected Victor, and he introduced her to so many new things, that she was overwhelmed with what she "presumed was love." But she married him when she was too young. Now she still greatly admires and respects Victor, and knows that he loves *her*, but meeting Rick in Paris after she thought Victor was dead, made her realize that the person she truly loves is Rick.
And she knows that Victor has his work, and that Victor's work is tremendously important to him. So she thinks that Victor will be OK alone in America, because he has his work.
Nice brief. Gets us in affection, love, in-love, etc. When my wife and I started talking, not long after we met, about having a child and getting married, she said she wants to marry man who won't be bitter after the divorce. I guess I fit the bill.
Spot on, Dan.
All this over a movie? I don't think Mr. Curtiz had this in mind when directing. Certainly not a pattern in his movies. He liked character play but nor too involved for his audience. He watched the box office.