Dooley Wilson, Humphrey Bogart in Michael Curtiz's Casablanca
CASABLANCA Review Part VI – Lack of Great Themes
As I've shown, there are many flaws in Casablanca's narrative; among them the fact that it is melodrama — driven by plot, not character development. All the characters react to what the plot dictates; the plot does not organically flow from their personae. Now, before you claim, "But it's a war film," let me state: It's not, it's a romance set in war, but even were it a war film, just look at the greatest of war films; all of them are driven by characters, not plots.
Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory has its dramatic tension not because of the trench warfare, but because of the force of Kirk Douglas' colonel and the reactions of the doomed men he commanded. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now is driven by the conflicting wills of the wholly scrutinized Martin Sheen character, and the ghost-like persona of the little-seen Marlon Brando character. Apocalypse Now could have been set in any war; it could have been a spy film, a gangster film, or any other genre because its conflict is man vs. man, or more specifically, one man vs. one man. Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line is also wholly structured on the subjective views of a few characters as parallaxed by one character (the narrator) during the Pacific Theater of World War Two. In it, the war is a subservient element to the personal growth of the characters fighting it. So, there are no excuses for Casablanca's trite plot, period.
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, there was no reason for Casablanca, which is set in a French colony in Africa, not to 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 Casablanca, 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.
The statement: "there was no reason for Casablanca, which is set in a French colony in Africa, not to reflect the more accepting French attitude toward blacks." is remarkably naive. Ask the Algerians how accepting the French were. Look closely at contemporary French society. You'll see as much bigotry in France as anywhere in the world now. it did not appear overnight.
Although this review focuses overly much on Paul Henreid's eye movements, the question of what makes a great vs. good film is worthy of critical examination, particularly in the case of a film such as Casablanca, where character development is limited.
Schneider seems a bit too enthusiastic in his criticism of Bogart. I would agree that the ending of the film cannot support the big themes suggested within it. The tension between personal desires and patriotism/freedom fighting is, in my opinion, rich enough to make a great movie. Bogart's performance may be part of the reason that film's story does not completely elucidate big themes in an emotionally or intellectually satisfying way, but that's more the fault of the script than the actor. Watch Maltese Falcon again. With better lines, Bogey can deliver.