Casablanca Emily Wingfield

            

When I saw that “Casablanca” was our first film screening, I was a little turned off, mainly because I’m so used to modern day movies – I have no problem with black and white, but sometimes the plots are a little before my time. Although, Casablanca was surprisingly entertaining; it took me a while to understand what was going on, but reading the reviews after watching the film helped clear a few things up.

            One of my favorite scenes in the film was when Ilsa first came into the night club and asked Sam to play “As Time Goes By” and Rick came flying out of his office to scold Sam but then saw who had requested the song. As the audience, I could tell that there had obviously been something romantically between them in the past. Although, the feminist in me does not completely like the fact that the movie shows a women caught between the love for two men – as well that she cannot make up her own mind of what to do and tells Rick at one point that “he must do the thinking for both of them”.

            Reading chapter one helped me notice how the director shot the scenes and wanted to portray the story to the audience – most of the camera angles were eye-level therefore there were not many scenes with different camera angles, although the very few that did involve angles involved symbolism as well. For example, all the scenes where the cast hears a plane overhead and they look up at it (low camera angle) this can symbolize the power that the plane holds – how it is the only way to get to freedom. Also, the high camera angle during the scene in which Ilsa comes to see Rick while Victor is at an underground meeting but then is brought to the bar by Rick’s barkeep – when Rick hears the two downstairs (with Ilsa in his office) he steps out the door and is looking down on the both of them, showing us that he is the one (out of both Ilsa and Victor) who holds the most power and authority – after all, he is holding their freedom in his coats inside pocket. Another scene that I just found interesting because the use of panning the camera, was the scene that took place directly after the last one I just brought up. Rick is walking down the steps to see Victor and the camera shows us by way of the mirror behind the bar – therefore we are not able to see Victor’s reaction until the camera pans to the front of Victor and we see Rick coming up behind him. I am not sure if there is any symbolism in the use of the mirror – I’m sure there is and I just can not think of it.

             After reading some other posts, I am amazed at how much I missed watching this film. Such as, the use of black and white -- Ilsa and Rick wore white mainly and the Nazi's or police wore blacks -- this can give the audience a sense of innocence or likability to the characters wearing white, and the Nazi's and police wearing the black gives the audience a sense that they are 'bad guys' or evil. The lighting used in the film was sometimes difficult to notice at first, but after going back through, I realized that the lighting was much softer on the close-ups of Ilsa perhaps giving her an angel appearance.