CASABLANCA VII – Final Commentary
Dooley Wilson, Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca
On the plus side, Casablanca is quite modern in terms of pacing (and in some aspects of editing), for within the first ten or twelve minutes you feel as if you know these archetypal characters (for good or ill), as if you’d already had a full movie’s worth of them under your belt. This is part of the reason why the film sucks you into its vortex, and gets (subjectively) better as it goes on, even if, objectively, it’s fairly static in terms of plot.
On the downside, Casablanca has not dated well because of its poor special effects (at the level of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1930s British films) and its handling of the black character, Sam. The film may reflect its time fine enough, but there is still a cringe-inducing quality to Dooley Wilson’s slightly above coonish attitude of deference to Rick. Despite many critics’ claims that the film portrays the two men as equals, this is clearly not so. Sam’s deference is typical of black depictions of the time, as if he had no personal or interior life of his own; it’s as if he exists merely as an extension of his white friend and employer.
In that regard, the worst scene in Casablanca takes place when Bergman’s Ilsa offhandedly refers to Sam as the ‘boy’ who plays piano, even though he’s clearly forty-something years old — a decade and a half or more older than Ilsa herself. The moment is teeth-grinding because, unlike the black characters in Gone with the Wind, with this film set in a French colony in Africa there was no reason to not reflect the more accepting French attitude toward blacks. Naturally, this aspect dates the film, cementing it to a bygone era (in the worst sense), while the lack of other contravening social or aesthetic pluses means this flaw goes unmitigated.
The truth is, the more one cogitates on the film, the more flaws one finds with it, and the lower it sinks in estimation. This serves to point out the power and correctness of being objective when critically evaluating art, because it does not allow personal biases to cloud judgment, pro or con; criticism is analysis, and analysis is always about evaluation, for analysis without evaluation is merely recapitulation and description. What is the point of merely describing a work of art? The art should always be its own best description.
Film critic Andrew Sarris claimed that Casablanca was, ‘the most decisive exception to the auteur theory,’ but he was wrong — and wrong for several reasons. First, auteur theory generally applies toward films or filmmakers that are great, and while Casablanca has been claimed as great, no one has ever made that claim for Michael Curtiz. Thus, it’s not an exception to the auteur theory because it’s outside the scope of greatness. Second, greatness is part and parcel of a vision, and vision is, almost by definition, a property only a singular person can have, not a group; thus Sarris’ admission that Casablanca had more than one ‘auteur’ makes it also outside the scope of auteur theory, by definition, not an exception to the theory. In order for something to be an exception it has to fall within the purview of the claim.
In conclusion, Casablanca is a good — if vastly overrated — film mainly on the strength of its wit, pacing (there’s not a dull or ‘wasted’ moment in it), and the acting of Paul Henreid. However, it’s not even what I would term a ‘genre-great’ film, whether one considers its genre melodrama, romance, war, action, etc. — even were it to fall into the purview of an auteur film. That’s because Casablanca lacks vision, in addition to being a stylistic and narrative hodgepodge. Still, it does entertain. In fact, the lower your expectations, the more entertaining it seems. Ah, the flicker of illusion!
© Dan Schneider
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of Mr. Schneider, and they may not reflect the views of the Alternative Film Guide.
3 Academy Award Wins (1943)
Best Film
Best Direction: Michael Curtiz
Best Screenplay: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch
5 Academy Award Nominations
Best Actor: Humphrey Bogart
Best Supporting Actor: Claude Rains
Best Cinematography, Black and White: Arthur Edeson
Best Editing: Owen Marks
Best Music, Dramatic/Comedy: Max Steiner
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Tags: Casablanca, Classic Movies, Dooley Wilson, Film Reviews, Michael Curtiz
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