As prelude to the movie, TCM's Robert Osborne hosted about a 15-20 minute documentary discussing the legacy of the Michael Curtiz film. A doc like that is fine when randomly on TV or as a supplement on a DVD, but when it precedes the actual movie, it dilutes its power. So much of it consisted of scenes from the movie that I felt as if I were witnessing the movie pass before me instead of watching it, even though that act was still to come.
In any case, the movie started with nary a hitch. Sure the much older, shabbily dressed gentleman two seats away from me burped several times during the screening. And when I say burp, I don't mean one of those things you do as you put your hand to your mouth and silently let out a breath. These were belches, audible certainly to those other than myself, especially to the four elderly women sitting right next to him. Outside of that, the only other distractions came from the faint whispers of those reciting the more quotable lines of the film. I could hear the woman in front of me say (along with Bogey), "We'll always have Paris," then (not with Bogey), "Awwwww!"
To those who have seen the movie, I have no intention of giving a full-blown review of the movie. After 70 years, that feels unnecessary. To those who haven't seen the movie, I'll keep plot developments to a minimal. After 70 years, you still have the right to view it as freshly as possible, a right the intro documentary didn't give by saturating itself with too much of the movie's actual footage. Also to those who have yet to see the film... uh, whaaat?
But what really coalesced in my head after watching the film on the big screen in a packed house was an idea I had considered for awhile now but was finally convinced. Most would likely say the best scene in Casablanca is, famously, the last. Or perhaps a drunk Rick wallowing after the arrival of Ilsa in his bar earlier that night. Or even that exquisite early set piece where we first meet Rick, Louis, Ugarte, and the rest of the Café Américain regulars.
Sacrilegious it might be to say anything in the movie is better than that magnificent ending, but for me at least, as a pure cinematic thrill, nothing beats the "La Marseillaise" scene. It's also a quite pivotal scene, perhaps second only to Ilsa arriving into Casablanca and back into Rick's life. It interrupts the previous scene of Laszlo trying to buy the important letters of transit that Rick has been hiding. Here Rick for the first time implies to Laszlo (though he already could sense something was up) any kind of history with Ilsa by citing her as the reason he won't sell him those letters.
While the decision of who Ilsa ends up with remains in the balance until the final moments, we needed a reason to root for Laszlo. Rick is our hero, so it's natural for the audience to side with him. And though Ilsa does explain to Rick her love for Laszlo in a later scene, there was little palpable connection for that love in the movie until now. This is made explicit in this sequence.
A medium closeup of Laszlo passionately leading the crowd in singing the French national anthem is followed immediately by a closeup of Ilsa, clearly moved by the gesture as well as the man who is spurring it on. (As an aside, is there no more perfect subject for a closeup than Ingrid Bergman?)
Yet given their actual positioning in the cafe, the two aren't even looking at each other. (By my estimation, she's actually behind him.) Nevertheless, Curtiz uses the basic film grammar of the shot/reverse shot to make tangible the connection between these two.
Though Rick barely makes an appearance in the scene, he still manages to begin to show some measure of change. The man who would "stick his neck out for nobody" all of a sudden becomes Laszlo's silent accomplice. When Laszlo comes down to command the band to play "La Marseillaise", the band looks to Rick for approval.
He nods and gives them permission.
Characters looking at each other as a way of communicating (either between themselves or to the audience) is a strong visual motif in Casablanca as well. Think of the first time Ilsa walks into the cafe. Not only when Rick storms in and sees her for the first time, but when she and Laszlo walk by Sam, the piano player. We know they know each other, but we don't yet know how. By Sam's reaction, it can't be good. Or at the end, when Rick and Louis have a relatively long stare before the captain utters (for the second time) that famous "the usual suspects" line.
It is no different here either. There's the moment Rick and the band make eye contact. And just moments before, once Rick overhears the Germans singing one of their own country's anthems and comes out, we see Louis pass through the frame and look up at him.
Curtiz reinforces this after we go back down to floor level, as the camera pans left again to Louis, who then looks up at Rick once again to see what he'll do.
Rick looks back, but it's not he who takes action, it's Laszlo.
For a movie that was both filmed and set during the Second World War, the conflict exists mainly as a backdrop for the love triangle. Yes, it's integral to the way the story progresses, but it's primarily in service of what will happen to the "problems of three little people". But in this scene, the conflict is put front and center. And it does so by colliding two patriotic anthems, Germany's "Watch on the Rhine" and France's "La Marseillaise".
The aural juxtaposition of these two songs are what really create the thrilling effect of the scene. The music doesn't exist in counterpoint to each other as much as they reaffirm the other. The chant-like "Watch on the Rhine" is sung by a small cache of Nazi soldiers accompanied by a single piano, while the march-like "La Marseillaise" is sung by the entire cafe backed by a full night club band. It's a typical component in these epic songs of country that they stir up a wellspring of emotion in both the singer and listener and it's that particular aspect of the scene that always hits me. I'm picky with my patriotism (it tends to relegate itself to sporting events), but I find this example of chest-thumping civic pride particular affecting.
We can see how this patriotism affects even the most minor of characters. In a preceding scene, Yvonne, who very early in the movie was spurned by Rick, shows up with a Nazi soldier. ("So Yvonne is going over to the enemy," Rick says to Louis.)
She has a big smile on her face when she arrives at the bar, to the dismay of a French soldier and Sascha, Rick's Russian bartender.
But when the Nazis begin singing around the piano, Yvonne is foregrounded with her head down at the table, looking as if she's ashamed. The soldier with whom she arrived isn't even facing her, more concerned with his comrades than his date. (Contrast the above with Laszlo and Ilsa, who Curtiz "forces" to face each other with his editing.)
And by the middle of "La Marseillaise", she's singing along proudly, tears falling down her cheek, her allegiance fully retained as a Frenchwoman.
The scene also sets in motion the actions that will inevitably lead to that most iconic of endings. By effectively showing up Major Strasser and the rest of the Nazis, Laszlo exacerbates his need for those letters of transit, which forces Ilsa to secretly confront Rick that same evening.
The audience is supposed to empathize with a movie's protagonist, so says conventional wisdom. If that's the case, then my sheer awe and thrill with the "La Marseillaise" scene can be witnessed in no more than Ilsa's reaction to it all. She has no dialogue in the sequence until well after the song when she is confronted by Major Strasser. What she does, she does with her face and her body. We don't see her once the song starts until midway through. She's breathing heavily--maybe nervous, maybe excited. Probably both. It wasn't until now, at this screening in a full house in front of the big screen, that I noticed her reaction. And I'm sure it was because I was doing the same thing, enraptured indeed as if I'd never seen it before. The thrill of how I felt was embodied right up there on the screen.
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