Tag: Ingrid Bergman

December 23, 2016 / / Main Slate Archive

As Time Goes By: “Casablanca” in Context

“Play it again, Sam.”

Those words are a myth, never uttered on screen in Casablanca (1942). “Play it” yes. And the music starts and Sam croons in that black-and-white, smoke-tinged gin joint, but no one asks him to play it “again.” The line is misquoted.

There’s a certain poetry in that mistake, though. How can one play or recreate the magic of Casablanca again? Great stories can never be remade or recaptured. Magic can only really happen once. It may sound hokey, but that is what Casablanca is: magic, a masterpiece of Hollywood cinema. Don’t believe me? Just go to the critics who constantly and consistently place Casablanca into their top ten films of all time.

Read the postAs Time Goes By: “Casablanca” in Context
September 27, 2013 / / Main Slate Archive

CASABLANCA: It’s Still the Same Old Story

 

My first experience with CASABLANCA was The Great Movie Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (though back then it was called MGM Studios). It’s a boat ride inside the Chinese Theatre that takes you through animatronic recreations of famous movie scenes. The ride honored the famous “Here’s looking at you, kid” scene with Rick (Humphrey Bogart) sending Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) onto the plane with Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid).

Read the postCASABLANCA: It’s Still the Same Old Story
November 23, 2009 / / Main Slate Archive

CASABLANCA

By Peggy Nelson

Casablanca – 1942 – dir. Michael Curtiz

So.  Here you are, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), a young woman in your twenties, newly hatched and out and about in the world, meeting the usual suspects.  Among them is Victor Laszlo (Paul Heinreid); he’s handsome, passionate, committed to a good cause, the only cause: liberté, égalité, fraternité.  In fact, he’s actually the leader of the resistance!  And single.  And he singles you out.  You cannot believe your luck.  There are many late nights in the café, and then later nights at his apartment.  Your relationship is secret, this is for your protection he says, but that just adds to the aura.  There’s a lot of travel, too; it isn’t safe to stay too long in one place, especially for him.  There seems to be one “it” city every half-century, Paris is currently “it,” and you’ve arrived.

Then the Nazis pick him up.  Then you fall in love.  But not with him.

Read the postCASABLANCA
February 12, 2009 / / Film Notes

CASABLANCA: Valentine’s Day in Morocco

Casablanca -1942 – dir. Michael Curtiz

Enough of whether Valentine’s Day was invented by greeting card companies, created in St. Valentine’s dark laboratory of evil science, or if “Valentine’s Day should be every day” in a healthy relationship.  You love the candy, so what does it matter?

Valentine’s Day should be an excuse (for those of us who need an excuse) to be just a little bit nicer to those for whom we care.  It should be a day of reaching out, of reforging connections, and of gratitude to those with whom we share compassion.  What a nice day!

So why celebrate it by watching Casablanca – a film, by most definitions, about love lost?

Read the postCASABLANCA: Valentine’s Day in Morocco