Monday, August 22, 2016

The Toasty Critic's Top 5 - Third Film

Reviewing my top 5 Movies of all Time

Day 3 – Casablanca

“You must remember this. A Kiss is just a kiss.  A sigh is just a sigh.  The fundamental things apply as time goes by.  And when true lovers woo, they still say I love you.  On that you can rely.  The fundamental things apply as time goes by.”  With just a few bars in a chorus, everyone can be taken back to Rick’s Cafe Americain in the middle of Casablanca.  Casablanca, the movie, an indelible part of the American movie landscape.  There are so many different ways I could go about reviewing Casablanca, and why it fits on my top 5 movies of all time.  But let’s take a little side trip to understand why I put Casablanca as one of the top 5 of all time.

What does it mean to have a top 5 of anything?  And what does a top 5 mean to you, or to me for that matter.  I remember being on a date recently and the person informed me that while she had a top 5 favorite movies, there was a movie that was not on the top 5 list that she would watch more often than any other.  She loved The Big Lebowski.  Now don’t get me wrong, as a Joel and Ethan Coen fan I was a great lover of the movie, even going so far as to becoming a dudeist priest; because, you know, it tied the room together, or something like that.  But I would never have considered it among my top 5 movies of all time.  And she didn’t put it up their either, but she watched it all the time.  She loved it.  So given that I have been relating what my top 5 is I will get a bit into my criteria weeds for what my own top 5 is before continuing on.

Top 5 means to me several things.  Obviously, it would have to be one of my favorite movies to watch.  In this instance, I would have to say that Big Lebowski might rank higher than say Citizen Kane, which I am sure many critics would say is a travesty.  But seriously, other than for film study about technique and storytelling, would you really sit down and say it is one of those pleasurable films that you could watch time and again?  Maybe some critics could.  I am not among them.  I believe that you have to actually enjoy the piece that you are watching to place it in your top 5.  Maybe that makes me antiquated and from a bygone era of critics.  And certainly with the notion of postmodern art as a kind of manufactured chaos, trying to state the enjoyability of a film must be a daunting task for some.  This doesn’t mean that I place entertainment value above message or impact.  It just means that I consider it along with those when determining greatness.

A top 5 movie must be timeless in some way.  This, unfortunately, tends to eliminate most films in the comedy genre, unless the comedies are timeless.  This is a reason why Buster Keaton’s films, while not as popular as Charlie Chaplain’s films at the time, tend to wear better than many of the comics and even than some of Chaplains best works, because the comedy in them is timeless.  Physical comedy almost always wears better over time than particular sketches.  Most sketches that are still funny deal with issues that focus on the human condition in general, and not on anything specifically.  This is why it becomes really hard for a comedy movie to make a best of anything list, other than a list of comedy movies.  Although postmodern comedies are another thing altogether because they make fun of the human condition.  That does make me laugh; but they haven’t been around long enough, and there aren’t enough of them that are successful at this type of comedy to be included.  For a film to be in my top 5 it has to impress me when I first watched; it must be good 10 years later; and it must be good 30 years later (even though some films on the list are not that old).

Aside from being enjoyable and timeless, the film must move me in some way.  This doesn’t mean that I have to be crying by the end of the film, although certainly some of the top films have moved me to tears.  This doesn’t mean I have to be laughing hysterically throughout the film, although that might help.  What this does mean is that it has to provoke some sort of emotion in me.  This emotion can be anything.  It can be disgust, anger, fear, happiness, tears, loss, abandonment, etc.  But it has to provoke something within me.  I need to be walking out of the film and the film has to stick with me.  I cannot leave the film and two hours later barely imagine a scene or a line of dialogue (not that I am the "quote king" of film).  It has to resonate far past the initial watching.  This doesn’t mean that I think a movie like Independence Day, Jurassic Park, or The Avengers is bad.  I enjoy those films and will give them a good rating on a review.  But the experience tends to be limited to the film itself.  For me, a top 5 film must go above and beyond the initial experience.  This is just the place where a film like Citizen Kane or a Lawrence of Arabia does shine.  The movies are beyond fluff and make a person think long after the film is over.  It may even make one argue about the significance of a plot point, or the symbol of a particular set piece.

While these three things are but a small list in the vast array of ways one can judge a film such as: is it technically sound; is the film accurate; is there some new way of looking at film or new technical aspects to film making that are enhanced making it a genuinely great film; are the actors portrayals deep and involving; does the cinematography add or detract from a piece; are there any obvious set gaffes or miscues in the film; and is there a person who is genuinely miscast in the film (i.e. Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing).  I could get into the weeds in all of these different things.  And while I do take every one of these into consideration, they tend to take a back seat to those three main criteria for my top 5, although not entirely.  So I tend to focus on each and every one of those things as incidentals to the larger view of did I enjoy it, is it timeless, and was I moved.

So how do I place Casablanca in the top 5 of all time?  We can begin with the acting and writing.  Rick (Humphrey Bogart), the classic everyman who has been wronged by a lost love.  Ilsa, acted elegantly by Ingrid Bergman, plays the foreign woman who came along to soften the everyman’s heart until crushing it, leaving him lost in the cold cruel world of Nazis and Fascists during World War II.  In a precursor to being dumped by text, or as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City would learn by Post-It Note, Rick is dumped by a letter, without explanation, and without the ability to respond.  Of course this is all back story to Rick that we do not find out about until later.  The story begins with Rick, the night club owner who stands up for nothing and for no one.  In one exchange with a German General the conversation goes:

                “Maj. Heinrich Strasser: What is your nationality?
      Rick Blaine: I'm a drunkard.
      Capt. Louis Renault: That makes Rick a citizen of the world.”

Rick is a broken man who has decided to get out of the world the most he can get out of it.  And he is going to make the best of a bad situation for himself, running a seedy although profitable night club in the city.  He even takes advantage of a situation, where a gentleman who considers him a friend leaves him with letters of transit that he has murdered and stolen to get them, keeping the letters and possibly profiting from them in the future when the German’s cannot find them.

Along comes Ilsa to gum up the works.  She not only breaks back into Rick’s life without an explanation, she insists on bringing back to Rick all of the bad memories that he had before.  It forces Rick to relive all of the pain that he has already suffered at the hands of her.  She goes to the night club and forces his friend, Sam (Dooley Wilson), to play “As Time Goes By” on the piano.  As soon as Rick hears this he forces Sam to stop playing until he realizes who has made him play it.  The emotions are clearly etched on Rick’s hardened face as it both destroys and softens his character at the same time.  Later that evening Rick forces Sam to play the music once again, believing that Elsa is going to show up, and convincing himself that he can take it just as she can.  We end up reliving the painful memories that he has etched into his brain through a series of flashbacks at the high and low points of their brief relationship.  And then she shows up first to beg for the letters of transit, then to threaten him at gunpoint, before breaking down to reveal that she still loved him and why she had left him in the first place.

What is Rick going to do?  Is he going to become a good guy and help them out?  Is he going to help out Ilsa’s husband and keep Ilsa all for himself?  Or is he going to abandon both of them as he has been broken by them?  I could go into detail about all of these different things, but I think that would spoil the plot of the movie.  And if you haven’t seen it yet, I think it’s well worth a watch.  The actors aside from the main three are a who’s who of Hollywood character actors.  There is Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt and Paul Henried.  All of them litter this piece with interactions with the main characters, building up the story in various ways, and all foils for Rick in certain ways as well.  There is Signor Ferrari (Sidney Greenstreet), the businessman, who is in competition with Rick who sees Rick go against his own financial self-interest, confusing who Rick seems to be at the beginning of the film.  There is General Strasser (Conrad Veidt) who is the German general who Rick should want to get along with in business but who he challenges by allowing French at the bar to engage in the singing of the French national anthem, making him out to be more of a patriot and less sleazy businessman.  There is Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), the corrupt French officer who Rick regularly buys off, exposing Rick to be less corrupt and doing things for the benefit of others and not of just himself.  This caricature of Rick we have at the beginning is slowly blown away by all of the actions these characters brilliantly bring out in him. 

Aside from the brilliant acting and writing, there is the cinematography itself.  While color was used in a wide array of films by that time, for whatever reason the Director and Cinematographer, Michael Curtiz, and Arthur Edeson, decided to go with a dimly lit back and white backdrop.  For anyone who thinks films should have been made in color and attempts to colorize such black and white classics, this film exemplifies the travesty of such a belief.  Yes, shame on you Mr. Turner!!!  First of all, we are introduced to Rick in a dingy seedy nightclub where some high end clientele but mostly seedy clientele are permitted to drink, sometimes gamble, but often get into trouble.  Turning that into a colorized place brightens what should be a dark place.  And many of the outside activities are in back streets and alleys because these are the people that Rick is dealing with.  Also colorizing it would hurt the nature.  But there is just one shot where Rick is sitting with a bottle and a shot glass and you see the smoke from the cigarette wafting into the air while the extreme pain and emotion are written on the contours of Rick’s face, that if anyone tried to change would just rip out the heart of the film.  Here is a man who was broken by the world and living in the seediest of places.  This cinematography perfectly highlights every wrinkle and every mark of pain that this man has had to endure in his life and at the hands of Ilsa.  It is the moment where the man must confront the demons of the past.  You cannot imagine that iconic scene being told in any other way.  That is the mark of something that is timeless.

Aside from all of these things, who can forget all of the lines that we now consider to be cliché, originating in this one piece.  “A penny for your thoughts.”  “We’ll always have Paris.”  “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” “Here’s looking at you kind.”  “Louis, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” “Round up the usual suspects.”  There are so many different lines that you cannot possibly forget that have ended up in other movies and other settings at different times.  Casablanca has so many lines there is a movie based upon a line that most people only think are in the movie, and yet it’s not there.  “Play it again Sam,” is not a line in Casablanca and yet it has gained worldwide fame.  That’s how timeless this piece is.

But the heart of the movie is the Romance between Rick and himself.  I know that it is a weird thing to say.  But truthfully, Rick has lost the love of himself when his heart is broken by Ilsa; and he buries himself in the corner of the world to almost have his soul rot.  But Ilsa reawakens in him a love for all sorts of things, not just a love for her.  It’s a love of country; it’s a love of things that are right in the world; it’s a love of human kind.  Ultimately Rick discovers a love of himself that moves him into action.  It’s a story of what real love should inspire in all of us.  I will not say more as if you haven’t seen the movie you should go and see it for yourself.

Why do I love Casablanca and is it in my top 5?  I love it for the lines.  I love it for the Romance.  I love it for the silly patriotism.  I love it for the sensual cinematography.  I love it because the acting is amazing, the roles are rich, and for the music that Sam plays on the piano.  I love it because every time I want to be the one saying, “Play it Sam. Play it for old time’s sake.”  I love Casablanca because, ”the world will always welcome lovers, as time goes by.”  I am one such lover.

This Film is Perfectly Toasty

Five Stars


*up next on the top 5 (and probably the one that will receive the most argument) – Gone with the Wind*

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