Casablanca Essay

824 Words2 Pages

Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca may be a black and white film, but the story that it tells is richly saturated with drama, romance, and plot twists.
Casablanca tells the story of a love triangle during a perilous time. Rick Blaine, Victor Laslo, and Ilsa Lund find themselves at odds with each other in Casablanca during the war. The story begins when Ilsa Lund and Victor Laslo coincidently walk into Rick’s Café Americaine shortly after arriving in Casablanca. Victor Laslo is oblivious to the fact that his wife Ilsa and Rick have a romantic history that took place in Paris.
Audiences are quickly aware that Ilsa and Victor’s appearance in Casablanca causes inner turmoil for Rick, who has been there for quite some time. Ilsa and her war rebel husband …show more content…

She is unsure of whether she should stand by her husband and support his efforts to rebel against the war, or whether she should help her husband escape from Casablanca and remain there with Rick to finish what they started in Paris years before. Although she feels loyalty to Victor, it is clear from watching her melt every time that Rick says, “here’s looking at you” that she has a genuine love for him.
For me, Victor Laslo falls flat as a character in comparison to Rick and Ilsa. He left me on the edge of my seat hoping to see something more than he was giving. I wanted to analyze Laslo like I was able to the other characters, and see him break the stereotype of committed husband and war rebel. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but he just seemed too good to be true and un-relatable. In every conflict that he faces in the film, he does the noble thing. In comparison to the other characters, I wanted more from Laslo and didn’t get it.
Casablanca shows that “as time goes by”, the same situations still occur. The film encompasses love, betrayal, and politics. All of these elements remain relevant 74 years later. People are still caught in love triangles. People still are unfaithful to their significant others and feel guilty about it. Many of the conflicts that arise in Casablanca happen to people still

Show More
Related

  • Masculinity And Nationalism In Casablanca Analysis

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the essay “Beautiful Friendship: Masculinity & Nationalism in Casablanca”, Peter Kunze lavishly explains the magnificence of Michael Curtiz’s 1942 film Casablanca. Kunze focuses on how the movie not only highlights an exchange of relationships, but how the film has an underlying meaning between these relationships. He also implies that there is a more complex meaning behind every character in regards to their gender, economic, and social roles. The overall thesis of his reading is “the patriarchal ideology underlying the narrative commodifies Ilsa, leading Rick to exchange her with other men in an act of friendship and solidarity as well as to dissuade any perception of queerness between the strong male friendships in the narrative” (Kunze

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Casablanca

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1982, the journalist Chuck Ross, in an experiment for Film Comment, mailed the script of Casablanca to 217 agencies under a different title and under a different authorship name. Although many rejected it for external reasons, eighty-one agencies read it and of those, fifty-three did not recognize it as the classic. But here’s the cherry on top: forty-one agencies criticized the iconic, Oscar-winning script with harsh words. One wrote, “Story line is thin. Too much

    Read More

  • Juxtaposition In Casablanca Essay

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the film Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz, a clear juxtaposition exists between Rick and America. Despite Rick’s numerous similarities to America and his deep longing to be part of the country, a physical and psychological barrier separates the two. With America practically being on the opposite end of the world, Rick understands that he cannot abandon his responsibility to aid and influence others in Casablanca. Rick is willing to sacrifice his personal comfort and well-being for the greater good of society. This juxtaposition between America and Rick foreshadows that the United States would soon become involved in the war by overtly displaying Rick’s transformation when he confronts his troubled past.

    Read More

  • Pro-allied Elements in the Film, Casablanca

    483 Words  | 1 Pages

    Audience members, when seeing Casablanca, would associate it as a war film, and I agree with that, but to be more precise, it is a pro-Allie war film. The literary elements in the film are the reasons why it can be viewed this way, with the emphasis on the plot and characters. The timing of when the film was released also supports the idea of it being an anti Axis film. Although it was set in 1940, it was made a year after Pearl Harbor and America entering the war, but it was released right before the Allies had a meeting in Casablanca, so the filmmakers seemed to have wanted the audience to empathize with the Allies. The whole plot seems to be focused around how Rick is neutral at the beginning of the film, but because of an old flame coming into his life once again, he slowly becomes in favor of the Allie side.

    Read More

  • The Significance of Chapter 5 in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

    1761 Words  | 4 Pages

    Victor is weak and it is only near the end of the novel that he

    Read More

  • Theme Of Piano In Casablanca

    701 Words  | 2 Pages

    The city of Casablanca is a bleak place full of hardship and full of people that are tied down. These people look for an escape that can set their mind on a different path. Rick’s Cafe Americain reflects that place to visit that can set the people’s minds free. Specifically, there rests a piano that can turn the minds of the people away so that they can feel free and have an enjoyable time at the cafe. With this, the cafe and piano give the people a sense of living a normal life. In the movie, Casablanca, Sam’s piano resembles a symbol that not only resembles a sense of enjoyment and freedom, but helps establish a connection to the past of Rick and Ilsa.

    Read More

  • Frankenstein

    1162 Words  | 3 Pages

    because of the way he is just abandoned by Victor and the way in which

    Read More

  • The True Monster in Frankenstein

    1764 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...as made of different people, so he had different personalities, and therefore could not be expected to act as a normal person. Upon his creation, he was left not receiving the protection and guidance he desperately needed. His feelings were the same as any other humans: grief, and distress, anger. But, instead of calmly diffusing his anger, he chose to destroy that which made his “enemy” happy. There was never a good reason to bring the dead to life, despite all of Victor’s claims. Because of his arrogance, and lack of a functioning human heart, he disregarded everyone’s opinions and advice and sought to do what was right for himself and not even attempting to protect his family, regardless of how he claimed he did. His incompetence cost his entire family’s life, but fortunately, saved that of Walton and his crew mates. So, at least, he did one good.

    Read More

  • Casablanca

    664 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Epstein brothers created Casablanca, a romantic adventure, like no other of its time. There are few movies that are loved by men and women alike. Casablanca is one such movie. It successfully combines action, adventure, love and romance into a film loved by all.

    Read More

  • What Makes Casablanca a Classic Movie?

    1130 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...t it is clearly obvious what is about to happen using an establishing shot. Casablanca also uses camera angle specifically portraying Captain Renault and Strasser as less powerful people in the office scene. Editing allows for smooth transitions between shots and allows for us as viewers to experience the scene like we are seeing through the characters eyes. Lighting provides us a mood of the scene, specifically when Rick first sees Ilsa for the first time since Paris. The Music plays a role in how we as audiences should feel while watching the movie. And without production design movies would not flow correctly. Every setting is specifically chosen to depict the location where the scene takes place. Casablanca is a quintessential film because it ties up all the formal elements of classical Hollywood. Without this movie Hollywood may be a completely different place.

    Read More

  • Napoleon Dynamite Essay

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    Napoleon Dynamite is one of the best movies portraying loneliness and nerds. It is the story of Napoleon in high school and his lonely adventures. All the main characters feel separated, misunderstood, and have nobody to relate to. Napoleon has no friends and lives in his own fantasy land. He is avoided by everybody. His brother seems to be mislead, wanting to be a cage fighter but staying home all the time hopelessly trying to find love and attention on the internet. Their grandmother is never there for them, though she lives her own life right beside them. They live next to a huge field, reinforcing their isolation. Practically every home in the film is

    Read More

  • Casablanca Implicit Meaning

    262 Words  | 1 Pages

    This is an extremely basic concept that is impossible to miss. Implicit meaning in a film is an idea that isn’t directly expressed but still should be understood by the viewers that are watching. Implicit meaning in Casablanca: In Michael Crutiz’s Casablanca (1943) we see that the characters are trying to outrun their pasts.

    Read More

  • The Use Of Editing Techniques In Casablanca

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    The way that a movie is pieced together by the director/producers has a huge impact on the viewer’s experience. Stylistic elements are used to help engage the viewer; however, without these techniques the viewer will most likely loose interest. In this essay I will be taking a look at a scene within the movie Casablanca directed by Michael Curtiz in 1942. Casablanca is a classic film that is reviewed to be one of the greatest movies of all time. This could be due to the notable quotes used throughout the movie, or its ability to follow a historic, comical, and romantic storyline throughout the course of the film. It caters to several different viewers, making this movie favorable to many. This scene in Casablanca uses specific editing techniques

    Read More

  • Casablanca

    506 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout history, the film industry has seen many directing styles and techniques. The early part of the 20th century saw a factory style of film production, but as the years went by, director's began to employ new and untried techniques in their pictures. One such technique which these director's implemented was a new approach to the use of the camera and camera angles. "Casablanca," an Academy Award winning film of 1942 saw director Michael Curtiz manipulate the camera in ways others had not. He uses the close-up, point-of- view, and creative shot motivation methods in his film starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, to create an American cinema classic.

    Read More

  • Outlaw Heroes in Literature

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    Robert B. Ray categorizes Casablanca as "the most typical" American film. Ray uses Casablanca as a tutor text for what he calls the formal paradigm of Classical Hollywood as well as the thematic paradigm that addresses the conflict between isolationism and communitarian participation. The film is typical in its appropriation of an official hero Laszlo, who stands for the civilizing values of home and community, and an outlaw hero Rick, who stands for individu...

    Read More

More about Casablanca Essay

Open Document