This is a journal entry for a class I am taking in theater, and not a strict review per se. The words are much more loose and free flowing. You have been warned.
Casablanca is not obviously a gangster movie to me. In fact, I would not have ever considered it as such, consciously anyway, if it had not been suggested in the class outline. That being said, once I was looking for clues as to how this fit in with the gangster film genre, a lot of similarities quickly came to my attention. First of all, the disrespectful institutions that were in power in the film, particularly the Nazis and to a lesser extent the French police, and the populaceís lack of faith in them. This correlates with the gangster films connecting with audiences of the 30ís by going against the establishments many viewed negatively during the depression.
The text for our class mentions that gangster films typically use women in the role of little more than ìreceptacles for either passion or rageî seems to me to be the case in this film. That isnít to say that Ingrid Bergmanís character wasnít skillfully acted, but when it comes down to it her scenes were her being bounced back and forth between men who either showed passion or rage to her pretty much the entire time they were with her.
Of course, there are the other aspects of gangster films that Casablanca has. Disreputable characters, the seedy underworld of society, guns, violence, black market dealings, etc.
The time period the film is set in is as the Nazis were taking control of Paris and encroaching on other areas (such as Casablanca). The movie was actually released in 1942, well before the warís outcome was decided, so it would be interesting to know the motivations of those who made the film. I remember hearing that they kept rewriting the script as they went along, and didnít really know where the story would end for a while. Perhaps some of this is attributable to the changing course of how the war was going?
Rick Blaine is portrayed by Humphrey Bogart as a man who is trying to care about nothing but his own neck, but as it goes against his nature, ends up not succeeding. Unlike many characters in gangster films, he didnít really seem too obsessed with furthering his own greed and influence. He seemed barely scratched when the gentleman running his casino operation loses thousands of dollars one evening, and is good to his employees, paying them even while his club is shut down by the police. The character of Ferrari, who Rick eventually sells ìRickísî to, seems far more the type interested in furthering his influence and power with little regard for law or morality.
The two characters, Blaine and Ferrari, actually seem like examples of two different types of gangsters in another way. Blaine is more the Production Code gangster, on a journey towards redemption from his immoral ways of living. Ferrari doesnít seem like the type who would bat an eye to much of anything, and were the production Code not enforced, may have showed a bit more of a violent side than he was tied back from in 1942.
An aspect of style that plays into the idea of Casablanca as typical of a gangster film is that, while some of the scenes are shot during the day, the pivotal scenes are invariably at night or at least in darkness. The use of fog in the scene in Paris when Rick receives the note from Ilsa, then has to board the train, seemed to have been used to symbolize him being lost without her, as to what to do next, and just added to the overall confusion of the moment as the Nazis came ever closer.
What is strikingly unique about this film is its timing. It seems to me people coming out of the Great Depression would still connect with the themes of man vs. establishment I mentioned earlier, and at the same time would feel a patriotic connection with the film. And I canít help but think about how romantic a film this is often portrayed as. This movie depicts so little physically between Bergman and Bogart, and yet thereís so much intensity between them when they are together. Without the Production Code in place, it seems like every movie that contains a romantic theme has a sex scene, where they try to one-up other films by how steamy and passionate the two characters can seem together in bed. At the end of Casablanca, when Rick lets the woman he loves go to be with her husband, knowing that she would have stayed with him, a scene is created that depicts romance in a way that to me has been rarely paralleled.
