When I first read that we had to watch the 1942 Casablanca I
kind of groaned, mostly because I was thinking to myself “this movie is going
to be in black and white and it is probably going to bore me to death.” I will
admit I did fall asleep for the first 20 minutes of the movie the first time I
watched it. Once, I was able to get through the movie the first time I had a
vague interest in the plot itself. Because of my vague interest I did some research
on what this movie is about. Casablanca was set during the early days of World
War II and starred the actors Humphrey Bogart (Rick), Ingrid Bergman (Ilsa),
and Paul Henreid (Victor). It tells of Rick’s and Ilsa’s secret love and how
she had “abandoned” him long ago and she comes back searching for him to ask
for help for her and her husband, Victor.
While watching this film it is easy to see what we have
recently learned in reading assignments for this class. One thing I
particularly noticed were the close up scenes. I absolutely loved these scenes
because you could see the emotion right in the characters face and it was
fantastic. Whenever Ilsa asks Sam to play “As Time Goes By” the camera zooms in
on Ilsa’s face and you can see how this piece of music affects her. You can see
that it’s bringing her back happy memories that she has missed, but we are not
quite sure what exactly at first (it is explained later on in the movie) and
mostly you can see the built up tears in her eyes and the sadness it has
brought her.
Also it was obvious that this was film noir film. With the
expressionistic lighting, shadows, camera angles it was easy to see what kind
of film this was. It laid out the foundation of the movie with the dramatic
moods and it was great. I loved all the different lighting tones and how
everyone’s outfits complimented each other’s or played with the lighting
affect.
Over all Casablanca is a great film, I personally would love
to watch this film more than the two times I had. It’s a classic film with a
classic love story to it.
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