I am
not one for the classics and I had never seen myself enjoying Casablanca as much as I did for viewing
it for the first time for this assignment.
I had heard of the movie, actors, and the plot before but it had never
seemed to interest me. The movie itself,
surprisingly enough, was to my liking.
The cast was phenomenal and the way the director, Michael Curtiz, shot
the film was stunning as well.
To begin the movie, Curtiz had
shown documentary film of refugees fleeing the Nazi Germany occupation of
Northern France. Curtiz’s use of the
documentary film shows the viewer what a refugee leaving a country may be carry
and how they are traveling. While Curtiz
is showing the film behind the map of the occupation of Northern France, it
sets the stage for a realistic point on the movie. There would not have been any better way to
set the viewer up and their understanding on why the French citizens and other
citizens throughout Europe were fleeing to Casablanca in Northern Morocco.
As the
main story line begins, you are introduced early to the owner of Rick’s
American Café, Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart.
As I was reading several reviews, the description on Bogart’s role as
Rick on about.com stood out to me, “Bogart is wonderful as the mysterious café
owner with a past.” In my own opinion,
he played his part perfectly, being, as said above, mysterious. Throughout the whole movie, I was wondering
to myself what role Rick was going to play, whether he really didn’t “stick his
neck out for nobody” or if he would assist in allowing individuals to escape
from Casablanca. Towards the middle of
the film, I knew he would assist Ilsa, played by the stunning Ingrid Bergman,
but I would never have guessed it was because of the love he still had for
her. I was thinking it would end up
being to get rid of her from the town so he could go on living his life.
The
final and best part of the film, to me, was how Curtiz used his camera angles
and lighting. Before reading the
textbook and watching this film, I would have never realized how important the
camera angles were to set the scene. For
instance, when the camera would do a long shot of the bizarre that the Blue
Parrot was located in, I got an understanding of what was occurring in the
small square in the center of town. The real camera shot that really made the
film a better experience to me though was the use of the “over-the-shoulder”
shot. The use of the shot made me feel
like I was in the middle of the conversation discussing sensitive issues in
private.
The
whole film was truly astounding and I plan on watching it again, this time
being even keener on the lighting aspect of the film. The lighting aspect was one part of the film
that really did not affect my point-of-view after watching the movie
twice.
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